On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 3:00 AM, Jasper van de Gronde <th.v.d.gronde@...528...> wrote:
Marco Steinacher wrote:
bulia byak wrote:
Current SVN uses cairo exporter to PS and EPS, which automatically converts areas with transparency into bitmaps. Do you think your solution still makes sense as an alternative to that?
OK, good to know that. Probably this solution is appropriate for many cases. However, I think maybe it would be nice to have a pure vector-based alternative, because it preserves the quality of vector graphics while minimizing the file size (useful for professional publication or when printed on a poster).
I'll get the current SVN version and check how the cairo EPS exporter does for my application. If I'm happy with it, I will not carry on with my approach.
Please consider carrying on anyway, bitmaps are good for their purpose, but a terrible choice when it comes to representing vector graphics (from a quality/size perspective). Of course Cairo's approach definitely has merit when no other approach is available, but it would be great to simply have a nice, small, near-perfect quality result when exporting to eps.
Perhaps then it would make more sense to make this code part of cairo, so that it is available to every user of cairo and not just Inkscape?
Adrian: what would you say to an alternative to "rasterize transparency" PS/EPS backend approach, which would where possible intersect semitransp shapes and fill then with flat color or no-transparency gradients to preserve appearance?