Josh,

I could try to begin a blueprint (or to complete what already exists).

I am not familiar with what AI does at the moment with brushes but I know fairly well Xara brush system (which doesn't work very well in XaraXtreme for Linux) and also Expression 3 (before it was bought by Microsoft). The latter was even available for free some years ago and I install it with Wine every time I install a new Ubuntu on my machines ; it works without any problems on Wine.

Concerning Xara I used it on Windows for a long time some years ago and made a lot of brushes for it (they are available here : http://www.talkgraphics.com/forumdisplay.php?22-Xara-Brushes ). I wrote also a lot of mini-tutorials on how to build them on Xara forums.

Xara and Expression brushes systems are very different. Expression system is closer to Illustrator one I knew in AI7 and AI8 (the last I used).

Xara system only align vector or bitmap elements along paths without deforming them (it only changes their individual size with pressure sensitivity) and adds some rotation, resizing, etc. There is no controls on pressure results after drawing a path and if you modify original objects the result isn't changed in the brush.

Expression system always deforms vector shapes or bitmap elements along paths. It seems that bitmap are sliced in narrow bands before deformation and every one get rotation and perspective (I tried to reproduce this system in Xara with some success but in no mean so perfect). There is a (fairly primitive but efficient) feedback on brush width after drawing the path but it's far from being as efficient as Powerstroke is.

ivan

De : Josh Andler <scislac@...400...>
À : Ivan Louette <ivan_louette@...48...>
Cc : Johan Engelen <jbc.engelen@...2592...>; "inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net" <inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>
Envoyé le : Mardi 8 Novembre 2011 23h26
Objet : Re: [Inkscape-devel] Re : powerstroke

Ivan,

If we start down that path I really think we need to come up with a
solid blueprint for a real brush system. I'm not saying all features
would come at once, but basically have it laid out so there wouldn't
be a need to re-do anything as features are added. I am familiar with
AI's, does it differ much from Xara?

Cheers,
Josh

On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 1:31 PM, Ivan Louette <ivan_louette@...48...> wrote:
> Do you think that in the far future Powerstroke controls could be overlaid
> or combined to Pattern along path ?
> ivan
>
> ________________________________
> De : Johan Engelen <jbc.engelen@...2592...>
> À : inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> Envoyé le : Mardi 8 Novembre 2011 22h15
> Objet : Re: [Inkscape-devel] powerstroke
>
> On 6-11-2011 13:27, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
>> On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 3:57 AM, Johan Engelen wrote:
>>
>>> I improved the PowerStroke LPE. It should no longer crash. The
>>> strokewidth knots are repositioned when adding/deleting nodes, to try
>>> and preserve the shape; hope this makes the powerstroke experience a lot
>>> nicer.
>>>
>>> At this point, *I need input*.
>>
>> 1. Sweet!
>>
>> 2. Do you think reading pressure from graphic tablets like Wacom is in
>> the scope of drawing with this LPE directly?
>
> That should relatively easy I think... But I don't have a tablet so I
> can't work on that.
>
> Cheers,
>   Johan
>
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