On 2007-May-30 , at 18:39 , Elwin Estle wrote:
I have no idea how hard this would be to implement, or even if it is possible. But it would be an interesting effect.
In Blender, you can take a mesh and add what is called a "lattice" modifier to it. The mesh is usually fairly complex from a face count standpoint. The lattice is usally simpler. It is just a "box" that surrounds the mesh with a few subdivisions.
What is neat is, that if you grab one of the verts in the lattice and move it, it acts like a sort of "bezier" control handle for multiple verts in the mesh, so by moving one vert in the lattice, you can deform a more complex mesh in a controlled fashion.
Could this sort of an idea be adapted to Inkscape? Say you have some text, you convert it to a path, maybe add some nodes. Then you surround it with a box that has a user definable number of nodes per side. If you grab one of those nodes, and drag it, it reacts with a certain number of nodes in the text path, dragging them like a magnet.
With something like this, you could flex and bend an object however you wanted.
Inkscape already has a feature very similar to what you describe actually, it's called "node sculpting". Take your text converted to path for example, select the node tool, with this tool select all the nodes you'll like to take part in the deformation and then alt+drag one of them: the rest of the nodes react in a smooth way to your operation on a single node. This way you can deform objects smoothly. It can produce really cool effects (Ex: take a profile picture of you, trace it, select the nodes corresponding to your nose and alt- drag one of them... oops you're pinocchio now ;) )
JiHO --- http://jo.irisson.free.fr/