With this year's Google Summer of Code upon us I wanted to introduce myself and share some ideas I have to make Inkscape even better. My Name is Usama Ahmed and I'm from Pakistan. Currently I'm doing my undergraduate degree in Computer Science from The National University of Science and Technology in Islamabad.

My interest in programming developed about 8 years ago when I started working on apps and websites. At that time I also found out about Inkscape as a free tool to work with graphics and it blew my mind that I could achieve the same things with open source software that I would get from other paid software which I could not afford. I always had an interest in design and Inkscape helped me add another dimension to my work. I learned UI/UX design on it and later began using it to make posters which included artwork I made using code, fusing my interests in coding and design into one.

Now I have an opportunity to give back to the Inkscape community as I believe I have developed the technical skills to start making contributions to the project. Below I discuss one features I think would make Inkscape better.

Currently Inkscape doesn't have a Perspective Grid System which would let designers have guides on the screen to easily draw realistic 3-D Designs. I recently felt this difficulty when I wanted to design a logo which involved some perspective geometry.

We can develop a way for designers to place a 1, 2 or 3 point perspective grid on the screen and be able to change different parameters associated with such grids such as the vanishing points and the granularity of the grid. I have attached a rough sketch of what this might look like. Furthermore, we can have a feature where a designer can have his designs "snap" to different perspectives. To achieve something like this right now we have to skew the drawing which can be difficult. Adobe Illustrator has a feature similar to this https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/perspective-grid.html. Another cool feature along these lines would be a system to extract perspective lines from raster images by doing edge detection and finding vanishing points. This would let designers use reference photos to create 3-D illustrations easily. 

I would love to work on Inkscape during Google Summer of Code. Let me know what you think of this feature and whether I should pursue it or look into other ideas.

Thank you,

Usama Ahmed