On 3/20/07, Eric Sumner <kd5bjo@...400...> wrote:
Aside from the 3D box tool, there are several features that might prove useful for 3D drawing:
- Isometric/Axiometric grid
I think Johan Engelen is already working on it. Johan, can you comment?
- Diagonal guides (converging to a vanishing point)
Yes, and I think it's natural to combine this with the 3D box tool with commands like "create a 3D gridset from this 3D box" or "align the 3D guides with this 3D box".
- Drawing with a prespecified transformation
For shape tools (rect, ellipse, star, spiral) it would make sense. For simple freehand drawing, probably not. Just use 3D grid or guides to snap.
- Make Ctrl-dragging a node observe the object's transformation matrix
Shape handles (i.e. handles on rects, ellipses, etc) already move in the object's local coordinates. So for example, a rotated rect remains rotated as you change it with handles. However, as soon as you convert it to paths, this capability is lost. But I don't think we really need it for nodes. In most cases, moving in local coordinates means moving along some adjacent straight line segments and/or along the bezier handles of a node, and we have a shortcut exactly for that: Ctrl+Alt+drag. So, for example, you can extend or contract a rotated rectangle path by selecting two nodes and Ctrl+Alt+dragging them.
- Perspective transformation (this would require somehow extending
SVG's transformation mechanism)
Absolutely, except that we cannot extend SVG. We must use our own extension attributes/elements and observe the fundamental rule that our SVG must look the same in any SVG viewer.
- Support for snapping non-node corners of rectangles
As for (6), this is usually taken care of by bounding-box snapping, but that doesn't work when the rectangle has undergone a transformation, making its corners not at the corners of its bounding box.
In current SVN, any shape handles snap (and of course they still snap regardless of whether the shape is transformed or not). Try it.
Also, for bug #1674596, would an acceptable replacement for "Export Bitmap..." be "Render to File..."? This seems like an ideal bug for me to figure out the patch submission process because the change is only one line (I think; I haven't been able to test it yet).
I don't like "Render to File...", and I honestly don't see a problem with the current title. Though perhaps we could rename it just "Export PNG" for now.