August 2015 - Inkscape Devel - Inkscape Mailman

win32 build working again
by Bob Jamison 08 Apr '24

08 Apr '24

The win32 build, which was broken for the weekend, is working again. I just made a "manual autobuild" again, so that we can see how it looks on Windows: http://troi.titan-aeu.com/~rjamison/inkscape/builds/ Bob

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performance problems and possible remedies?
by Yale Zhang 29 Sep '16

29 Sep '16

Hi. I'm using Inkscape to author a comic and the slow speed for certain things is very annoying. I'm already have OpenMP turned on and using 4 cores. 1. *large blurs are slow* - I'm an expert with writing SIMD code, so I was thinking about vectorizing the Gaussian IIR filter with SIMD intrinsics, even though it's harder than for a FIR. But I noticed there isn't any SIMD code in Inkscape so does that mean it's something to avoid. I'm pretty sure no current compiler is smart enough to vectorize it, and besides, Inkscape is compiled with -O2, meaning -ftree-vectorize isn't on by default. 2. *when there's a large image (raster based) background - scrolling in a zoomed region is very slow* I compiled the latest 0.49 code with GCC profiling and it shows this: 33.98 22.47 22.47 exp2l 21.29 36.55 14.08 log2l 17.57 48.17 11.62 pow 7.12 52.88 4.71 658 0.01 0.01 ink_cairo_surface_srgb_to_linear(_cairo_surface*) 6.72 57.32 4.44 563 0.01 0.01 ink_cairo_surface_linear_to_srgb(_cairo_surface*) 5.51 60.96 3.64 1216 0.00 0.00 Inkscape::Filters::FilterGaussian::~FilterGaussian() 5.23 64.42 3.46 internal_modf 0.59 64.81 0.39 _mcount_private 0.41 65.08 0.27 __fentry__ 0.12 65.16 0.08 GC_mark_from 0.09 65.22 0.06 5579 0.00 0.00 Geom::parse_svg_path(char const*, Geom::SVGPathSink&) 0.06 65.26 0.04 35320 0.00 0.00 bounds_exact_transformed(std::vector<Geom::Path, std::allocator<Geom::Path> > const&, Geom::Affine const&) 0.06 65.30 0.04 8 0.01 0.01 convert_pixbuf_normal_to_argb32(_GdkPixbuf*) 0.05 65.33 0.03 885444 0.00 0.00 std::vector<Geom::Linear, std::allocator<Geom::Linear> >::_M_fill_insert(__gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<Geom::Linear*, std::vector<Geom::Linear, std::allocator<Geom::Linear> > >, unsigned long long, Geom::Linear const&) The cost is absolutely dominated by ink_cairo_surface_srgb_to_linear() and ink_cairo_surface_linear_to_srgb(). My first instinct was to optimize those 2 functions, but then I thought why are those even being called every time I scroll through the image? Why not convert the images up front to linear and stay that way in memory? If that can't be done, then my optimization approach is: 1. replace ink_cairo_surface_srgb_to_linear() with a simple 3rd degree polynomial approximation (0.902590573087882 - 0.010238759806148x + 0.002825455367280x^2 + 0.000004414767235x^3) and vectorize with SSE intrinsics. The approximation was calculated by minimizing the square error (maxError = 0.313) over the range [10, 255]. For x < 10, it uses simple scaling. 2. replace ink_surface_linear_to_srgb() with a vectorized implementation of pow(). Unlike srgb_to_linear(), a low degree polynomial can't be used due to the curve having larger high order derivatives. An alternative would be piece wise, low order polynomials. The main question I have is what degree of accuracy is desired? Certainly, it doesn't need double precision pow() since the input is only 8 bits! Is +- 0.5 from the true value (before quantization) OK or do people depend on getting pixel perfect results? UJ

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Create releases more regularly
by Sebastian Zartner 15 Feb '16

15 Feb '16

Hi there, I initially asked at inkscapeforum.com<http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=15755&p=63224>and was told to better post my request to this mailing list. I wonder if it wouldn't be possible to create releases more regularly. Currently there are many months or even years between each release of Inkscape. Bug fixes should get out more quickly and it should be possible to try out new features of upcoming versions. Most users don't have the possibility to build Inkscape by their own, so they have to wait for the next release. Unfortunately the provided development downloads are not synchronized, hosted on different third-party web sites and out of date (currently especially the Windows version). So I suggest to create a (more or less) fixed fast release cycle for normal releases (e.g. every two or three months) and periodically (e.g. every one or two weeks) create alpha versions. Alpha versions should be built (maybe even automatically) for all supported OSes and hosted directly on inkscape.org. Sebastian

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Impressions on Inkscape after extended usage
by Michael Grosberg 05 Feb '16

05 Feb '16

Hello, In the past several months - closer to a year, actually - I've used Inkscape in a tight production environment almost daily. I have produced hundreds of illustrations for a computer-based technical course. During that period I used Inkscape 0.48.5 and lately switched to test builds and release candidates of 0.91. All of this time I have kept a list of the problems I ran into using Inkscape. Some are plain bugs, some are more complex problems for which I have no idea for a solution. After testing the new version to see whether some of these problems have gone away, I thought I might share this document with you. Before I go on, I just like to say that these are mostly minor points. I am an avid user and promoter of Inkscape even though my workplace has provided me with a legal copy of Adobe Illustrator, which I think is inferior in ease of use. I think Inkscape on the whole is a brilliant piece of software and I'm thankful for all your efforts. But some problem just kept popping up again and again. So without further ado, here's the document (it's a google doc): http://bit.ly/1yLzn0y Thank you for any comment or feedback you might have. - Michael Grosberg

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] Devlibs 46 too slow
by Mark Titchener 04 Feb '16

04 Feb '16

I tried your modified build with an NVidia Quadro 1000M on Windows 7 and it seemed okay to me. > Le Jeudi 21 novembre 2013 9h09, Nicolas Dufour <nicoduf@...48...> a ?crit > : > > I'm still investigating the issue, and just found out that the computers > I > > used to reproduced the bug were all using an Intel GPU. Tests with an > nvidia > > GeForce 210 (GT218) show no slowness at all. > > Could some Windows users help me? I'd like to confirm the slowness only > affects Intel graphics cards. Could you test a modified Inkscape binary > (from ftp://download.tuxfamily.org/inkscape/inkscape-12282-cairo-1.12.8.7z), > give your graphic card model and tell me if it's slow or not? IMHO it could > be a blocker for 0.49 on Windows. > >

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Jenkins administration
by Johan Engelen 23 Dec '15

23 Dec '15

Hi all, Jenkins, our CI system, has been down for more than a month. It looks like the disk has filled up, and we need to do clean up / the build tasks should clean up after themselves better (I suspect it has to do with storing the results of too many older builds instead of just the current one plus a few recent builds). We need an administrator for Jenkins. Currently, I think only me and Bryce have access, which is not good enough. Who is interested in maintaining the automatic build/testing system? Of course, you can tailor the system to your own likes; there is much to be improved and I think all are open to whatever crazy plans you may have :-) http://jenkins.inkscape.org/ regards, Johan

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Developing on Mac
by Michael New 15 Dec '15

15 Dec '15

Hey Inkscape developers, I’ve spent the last several years both using Inkscape and working with C++, and I’d really like to contribute to the project now that I have some relevant skills. I develop on macs though, and I can’t seem to find any up-to-date instructions on building for mac. Can anyone point me to some current info? Thanks for the help, and thanks for everything you guys do. -Mike

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2Gom sync - high potential for regressions after r14226
by Krzysztof Kosiński 18 Oct '15

18 Oct '15

Hello I recently made a commit that finally synchronizes the 2Geom version used in Inkscape and the "upstream" version in 2Geom's Launchpad repository. It compiles and appears to work correctly, but since there were several potentially breaking changes in 2Geom, it has a high potential for regressions. The most important changes in 2Geom are: 1. The sign convention for cross(Point, Point) was flipped to match the one for cross(D2<SBasis>, D2<SBasis>): it is a[X]*b[Y] - a[Y]*b[X], not the other way around. I think I converted all uses, but one can never know. 2. All nearestPoint() methods were renamed to nearestTime(), since they return time (parameter) values, not points. nearestTime() for Path and PathVector returns PathTime and PathVectorTime respectively. PathTime encapsulates a curve index and a time value, while PathVectorTime encapsulated a path index, a curve index and a time value. The reason for using these types instead of extending the range of the time parameter from [0, 1] to [0, N] is twofold: - Packing these two parameters into the double type causes a loss of acuracy as the indices increase. For example, referencing a point that lies on the 32nd curve causes a loss of at least 5 bits of precision. - For PathVector, there is an unnecessary O(N) step involved in mapping the [0, N] time value to path and curve indices. In the future, there will be two additional families of methods: nearestPoint(), which will actually return the nearest point (I avoided adding until the sync is done to simplify porting to the new API), and nearestPosition(), which will compute both the nearest point and the time value. Doing the latter can often save a lot of calculations, since in many cases the point is computed from the time or vice versa. 3. SVGEllipticalArc was renamed to EllipticalArc, and the old EllipticalArc was removed. The only difference between them was that EllipticalArc would throw exceptions if the constructor parameters did not specify a valid arc, whereas SVGEllipticalArc just falls back to a straight line. Additionally, a number of other improvements were made, for example EllipticalArc no longer allocates a copy of itself when transforming it. 4. There was a major cleanup of Path: - Iterating between begin() and end_closed() will skip the linear closing segment if and only if its endpoints coincide exactly. SVGPathParser was modified to retain the old behavior of considering the closing segment degenerate if it is shorter than some specified tolerance. - Internally, the path is now stored as a copy-on-write boost::ptr_vector of Curve. This should give a performance boost, since we are no longer using boost::shared_ptr-based copy-on-write for each curve, but only for entire Paths. - PathVector is now a real class, not a typedef of PathVector, This allows several things to be implemented as methods instead of as standalone functions. - PathSink was improved. Instead of creating a switch-like structure for the result of dynamic_cast of the abstract curve type to more concrete types, please derive from PathSink. - There is a new class called CairoPathSink for outputting 2Geom paths and shapes to Cairo. 5. Circle and Ellipse were fleshed out, and contain many of the methods found in Curve and Path. 6. There is a new intersection API, exposed as a method on shapes and returning a class that contains two time values and the point of intersection. There are methods for Line, Circle, Ellipse, Path and PathVector. Please test and report and regressions, but please make sure to check whether they are really regressions - for example the eraser tool sometimes doesn't work and it has nothing to do with the 2Geom sync, but rather with some faulty code in livarot. Regards, Krzysztof

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User Help (tutorials)
by Martin Owens 23 Sep '15

23 Sep '15

Dear developers, I was reviewing inkscape on deviantArt and I noticed a theme: www.deviantart.com/browse/all/journals/?order=5&q=inkscape Apart from the odd "I hate Inkscape" etc, there's a big need for tutorials and most are interested in video tutorials. This is probably something we should put together for the website. Something coherent for users. But I'm not exactly sure of the structure we should use. A competition? Scouting for talent? What do you think? Best Regards, Martin Owens

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XQuartz status
by Lucian Holland 31 Aug '15

31 Aug '15

Hi, Like many other people using Inkscape on a Mac, I’ve had lots of problems with multi-monitor support through different versions of XQuartz and OS X. It’s still basically unusable if you have the “Displays have separate spaces” option enabled. I’ve commented on some of the XQuartz bugs, and raised issues with Apple in the hope that someday something might get fixed. The other day I received an update on one of the XQuartz bugs (included below). Is anyone else worried that a fundamental piece of the architecture for making Inkscape work on a Mac is pretty much unsupported now? I’m guessing that if there’s no one working on it things are just going to get worse as new versions of OS X roll out? Lucian -- Lucian Holland Sent with Sparrow (http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/?sig) Forwarded message: > From: XQuartz <trac@...3267...> > Reply To: noreply@...3267... > Date: Tuesday, 4 August 2015 04:21:57 > Subject: Re: [XQuartz] #796: Mavericks spaces + XQuartz windows disappearing between monitors > > #796: Mavericks spaces + XQuartz windows disappearing between monitors > ------------------------+------------------------------------ > Reporter: sishome@… | Owner: jeremyhu@… > Type: usability | Status: closed > Priority: Blocker | Milestone: > Component: xserver | Version: 2.7.4 (xserver-1.13.0) > Resolution: Invalid | Keywords: > ------------------------+------------------------------------ > > Comment (by jeremyhu@…): > > It's an issue in the interaction between OS X and XQuartz. It could > likely be solved in XQuartz (specifically in quartz-wm) if someone was > interested in working on that. If someone fixes it, I'll gladly pull a > fix into an XQuartz update, but as it is, there isn't really anyone > working on the product these days. > > -- > Ticket URL: <http://xquartz.macosforge.org/trac/ticket/796#comment:42> > XQuartz <http://xquartz.macosforge.org/> > > >

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