On Sun, 21 Mar 2004, W. Borgert wrote:
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 22:27:41 +0000 From: W. Borgert <debacle@...153...> Reply-To: dia-list@...45... To: dia-list@...45... Subject: Supershapes for dia?
This would make a nice addition to dia:
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/curves/supershape/
(with C code exmample). Any takers?
"The supershape equation is an extension of the both the equation of the sphere and ellipse"
Very cool. Curved stars and polygons, a weird droplet shape. Ooh pretty!
It is like Spirograph* all over again.
I think for a complicated sphere/ellipse like this to be really practical it would require something like handles to allow interactive adjustment a feature that Dia doesn't have. I think it would be difficult to make this into a simple to use feature and I'm not even sure the markup would be all that easy generate either (a complex SVG path I'd guess)
I'm not sure this is ideal for Dia. In my humble opinion, the ideal would be if other applications would provide the drawing tools Dia needs and Dia would focus on fast production of technical diagrams from premade shapes. A more generic way to plot equations as paths in Dia might be approrpriate to Dia.
I have forwarded a copy of this mail to the Inkscape developers who I hope might be interested to implement an advanced Ellipse tool like this.
Despite my reservations on how best to implement this it it would certainly be great if someone was interested enough to implement it.
Sincerely
Alan Horkan http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
* Obligatory Simpsons quote: "Dr. S: Wait: did you know that there's a direct correlation between the decline of Spirograph and the rise in gang activity? Think about it."
PS Please dont crosspost in reply to this message. I have deliberately set the Reply-To to go to me. The Dia list will overwrite this and set the Reply-To as the Dia list and the Inkscape list will leave it alone, so please respond only to the relevant list.
On Sun, 2004-03-21 at 18:03, Alan Horkan wrote:
On Sun, 21 Mar 2004, W. Borgert wrote:
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 22:27:41 +0000 From: W. Borgert <debacle@...153...> Reply-To: dia-list@...45... To: dia-list@...45... Subject: Supershapes for dia?
This would make a nice addition to dia:
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/curves/supershape/
(with C code exmample). Any takers?
"The supershape equation is an extension of the both the equation of the sphere and ellipse"
Very cool. Curved stars and polygons, a weird droplet shape. Ooh pretty!
The Superformula indeed can be used to increase the efficiency of various technological applications considerably. Shapes and patterns can be encoded in a much compacter way. For these developments a broad strategic patent application has been filed in the US, Europe and Japan.
Assuming the patent is granted, I'm afraid it'll be impossible for us to implement legally at this time.
File an RFE, and we can revisit implementing this feature in a couple decades when the patent has expired.
-mental
On Sun, 2004-03-21 at 22:07, MenTaLguY wrote:
Assuming the patent is granted, I'm afraid it'll be impossible for us to implement legally at this time.
File an RFE, and we can revisit implementing this feature in a couple decades when the patent has expired.
Alternatively, would someone like to locate the application in question, and investigate avenues for reporting the (apparently considerable) prior art?
-mental
Assuming the patent is granted, I'm afraid it'll be impossible for us to implement legally at this time.
File an RFE, and we can revisit implementing this feature in a couple decades when the patent has expired.
-mental
But..... no... Think diplomatically.
The thing to do, is email the guy, and ask permission to do the thing!! Tell him that we can be a testbed for his ideas. He might actually be enthused that there is an application to exemplify his idea.
Bob
On Mon, 2004-03-22 at 06:17, Bob Jamison wrote:
But..... no... Think diplomatically.
The thing to do, is email the guy, and ask permission to do the thing!! Tell him that we can be a testbed for his ideas. He might actually be enthused that there is an application to exemplify his idea.
Well, one, the ideas really aren't that new. After having talked to Nathan about the math, on principle the patent shouldn't be granted, IMO.
Secondly, it's a corporation (Geniaal), not an individual guy. Corporations (in my experience) don't negotiate like that.
And anyway, the only way it would work for us with respect to the GPL patent requirements would be if they licensed the patent for free to on a non-descriminatory basis (i.e. to all GPLed implementations [not just us], at least).
Since, judging by their web site, the company's sole business model is to license this particular piece of math, I don't see them very willing to do that.
-mental
Ok, didn't know that. Sounds like RSA or Iterative Labs
MenTaLguY wrote:
Well, one, the ideas really aren't that new. After having talked to Nathan about the math, on principle the patent shouldn't be granted, IMO.
Secondly, it's a corporation (Geniaal), not an individual guy. Corporations (in my experience) don't negotiate like that.
And anyway, the only way it would work for us with respect to the GPL patent requirements would be if they licensed the patent for free to on a non-descriminatory basis (i.e. to all GPLed implementations [not just us], at least).
Since, judging by their web site, the company's sole business model is to license this particular piece of math, I don't see them very willing to do that.
-mental
On Sun, 21 Mar 2004, MenTaLguY wrote:
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 22:07:38 -0500 From: MenTaLguY <mental@...3...> To: Alan Horkan <horkana@...44...> Cc: Inkscape ML inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Re: Supershapes for dia?
On Sun, 2004-03-21 at 18:03, Alan Horkan wrote:
On Sun, 21 Mar 2004, W. Borgert wrote:
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 22:27:41 +0000 From: W. Borgert <debacle@...153...> Reply-To: dia-list@...45... To: dia-list@...45... Subject: Supershapes for dia?
This would make a nice addition to dia:
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/curves/supershape/
(with C code exmample). Any takers?
"The supershape equation is an extension of the both the equation of the sphere and ellipse"
Very cool. Curved stars and polygons, a weird droplet shape. Ooh pretty!
From http://www.geniaal.be/html/fs004technology.htm:
The Superformula indeed can be used to increase the efficiency of various technological applications considerably. Shapes and patterns can be encoded in a much compacter way. For these developments a broad strategic patent application has been filed in the US, Europe and Japan.
Assuming the patent is granted, I'm afraid it'll be impossible for us to implement legally at this time.
File an RFE, and we can revisit implementing this feature in a couple decades when the patent has expired.
Damn, I thought European Lawmakers had rejected the notion of patenting mathematics.
I'll file an RFE anyway.
Sincerely
Alan H.
On Mon, 2004-03-22 at 14:18, Alan Horkan wrote:
Damn, I thought European Lawmakers had rejected the notion of patenting mathematics.
I'll file an RFE anyway.
Another approach to this might be to implement that "parameterized function" feature discussed a while back. The spiral tool is currently a special case of this.
Essentially, the idea you could put in any polar equation up to a certain level of complexity, and get a shape you could tweak the parameters of.
We could provide some presets, but really people could input any formula they wanted.
-mental
participants (3)
-
Alan Horkan -
Bob Jamison -
MenTaLguY