On 4/5/07, bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
On 4/4/07, Bill Baxter <wbaxter@...155...> wrote:
If you haven't seen Takeo Igarashi's work on animation, it's very slick. http://www-ui.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~takeo/research/rigid/index.html this one's mostly 3D but the same concepts apply to 2D http://www-ui.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~takeo/research/squirrel/index.html
Thanks for the interesting links. Using internal triangulation for more natural manipulation of paths is an idea that already occurred to me.
Actually you don't even really need the triangulation to get that sort of effect. Schaefer presented a method based on Moving Least Squares at the last Siggraph that gets pretty similar results without the need for triangulating. I have an implementation I wrote (in D) if anyone is interested. But the basic technique is not that complicated to implement going straight from the paper. Just a little bit of linear algebra. http://faculty.cs.tamu.edu/schaefer/research/mls.pdf
Try the Pattern along Path effect
Hmm, that just made an axis aligned texture along the path for me. So trying to apply a little pencil texture (approx 8px x 64px) to a previously drawn curve just resulted in a curve horizontally striped with my pencil texture. Maybe I wasn't using the right modes for Pattern along Path?
Not "Convert object to pattern", but Effects > Generate from Path > Pattern along Path:
http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.45-patternalongpath.png
All those examples are of a vector objects being applied along a path. I'm trying to apply a _pattern_ along a path. The fact that we're having this misunderstanding says to me that the "Pattern along Path" is a poor choice of name, because what it means by "Pattern" is not what the rest of Inkscape means by "Pattern". "Stroke Path with Object" might be a better choice of name.
But anyway,...
Is it possible to do something like the following: * File->Import... (choose image) * Object->Pattern->Objects to Pattern * Select new pattern filled rect * Select curve * Effects->Generate From Path->Pattern Along Path
Doesn't seem to work to me. The pattern (that is, texture -- a "Pattern" in the inkscape sense) doesn't re-orient to follow the direction of the stroke.
Spirals on the other hand... well the tutorials didn't have much to say other than "these aren't as useful as stars".
Yet they are useful in design. I used them (at least) several times in real projects. And they are VERY hard to do manually unless you have a tool for them.
Yeh, ok. I can believe you. But I also think there are plenty of other shapes that are as common or moreso. So it suggests to me rect/circle/star/spiral should just be 4 particular instances of a larger class of 'parameterized objects'.
Panning the canvas is much easier by middle mouse button - no need to touch keyboard at all.
My laptop doesn't have a middle button.
Ctrl+right button works just as well. Ctrl+arrows are also very handy.
But that's definitely not as easy as Space+Left button.
[Snip]
Thanks for the detailed explanation of how and where to start implementing this.
By the way, the same reasoning applies to our Dropper tool which is used for picking a color from the drawing. It is currently a separate tool, but it is most often used from within other tools, so this is inconvenient for all the same reasons (slow switch, losing selection, etc). So the current plan is to move the corresponding code from dropper-context.cpp to event-context.cpp and make it work in all tools (upon pressing F7) without switching. The Dropper tool button and context will likely remain, but it will just use the code from event-context parent. If you are interested in helping out, this might be a good next project after you implement the Space-panning :)
Hmm what I noticed with middle button panning and sounds like with the eye-dropper idea is the lack of visual feedback. You don't see any change in the cursor to indicate you've changed modes.
--bb