Artlandia SymmetryWorks 5 and SymmetryWorks LP
Insertion mode
Draw directly into a pattern using the Pen, Pencil, Brush, or other Illustrator drawing tools. Start from a blank canvas, if you wish. Build the motif as you go. SymmetryWorks even gives you visual clues for the best area to insert new objects (which is often the area outlined by the control path).
Pattern swatch export
Save your SymmetryWorks pattern as an Illustrator swatch with a click. The swatch immediately becomes available as a seamless pattern in the Swatches panel.
Support for blends
Put your Illustrator blends in repeat. Edit blend components or change blend options and see your pattern instantly updated. If you have never used blends, you will want to learn them now. They are an excellent productivity tool.
Support for compound shapes
SymmetryWorks now also supports compound shapes, which you create using the Pathfinder panel. Edit compound shapes interactively, right inside patterns. Change the shape mode when needed. For making tessellations, this is one feature you can't afford to miss. And, if you want to colorize your tessellations, do it easily with SymmetryWorks LP »
Support for symbols
Spray symbol clouds directly into your SymmetryWorks pattern. Tweak them with the Symbol Sizer, Symbol Styler, Symbol Stainer, or other Illustrator symbolism tools.
Nested patterns
Save a SymmetryWorks pattern as a symbol and it immediately becomes ready to use in other SymmetryWorks patterns. By nesting patterns this way, you can quickly and easily create very complex designs.
Harmonic growth designs
In SymmetryWorks 4, you could quickly produce growth, rotation, and other effects with multi-replicas. Now you can embed a multi-replica "branch" in a symbol and make multi-replicas of that. This "replica of replicas" feature lets you create amazing harmonic growth designs.
Enhanced rotational designs
Create complex rotational designs by adding reflection—or any other symmetry operation inside a symbol. Multi-replicas will do the rest.
New classes of guilloché patterns
Symbols, blends, and nested SymmetryWorks patterns, combined with the multi-replica feature, greatly simplify the creation of guilloché patterns and shapes.
New classes of optical art
Support for nested patterns, blends, and compound shapes lets you create illusions of movement, vibration, pulsation, flicker, moiré, 3D, and other effects indispensable for making optical patterns and op art.
Expanded support for all-over and tossed repeats
In previous versions, you could use replicas to quickly put together all-over and tossed designs. Now you can also create such designs with symbols, which gives you additional flexibility because symbols can contain more complex objects.
Live updating of SymmetryWorks pattern swatches 
Link your SymmetryWorks patterns with other objects in your artwork. Update the whole artwork instantly as you edit the patterns. The link works its magic through a pattern swatch that you export from SymmetryWorks. LivePresets recognizes SymmetryWorks patterns and takes care of automatic updates.
Live updating of symbol components
Interactively edit symbols inside your SymmetryWorks patterns. If a symbol contains another SymmetryWorks pattern, you can edit it too. Then both SymmetryWorks patterns update at once. This is a big time saver.
New symmetry combinations
Mix elements of different symmetries. With LivePresets, you can add arbitrary (not necessarily symmetrical) elements to any SymmetryWorks pattern.
Convenient parallel development
Create different versions of your patterns and switch on the fly. Instantly see how your changes affect the target artwork. For example, expand and colorize repeating units in one LivePresets swatch and continue developing the original SymmetryWorks pattern in another.