Drawing a path with Mass

I really like the effect of "Mass" on the Caligraphy tool, and I'd love to see the feature on Pencil tool also.
Until then (hint) does anyone have any clever tricks to help me freehand draw a smooth path?
The best I've thought of (and it's not very good) is to use the Caligraphy tool freehand draw a closed shape, tediously place objects to fill it, then "union" them to create one solid shape that I can apply a stroke to.
I really don't think you can use the pencil tool practically with a tablet. It's usable when combined with simplify but even then the results are unpredictable and can require a lot of manual manipulation.

On Tue, Mar 20, 2007 at 12:05:35AM -0700, microUgly wrote:
I really like the effect of "Mass" on the Caligraphy tool, and I'd love to see the feature on Pencil tool also.
Due to how SVG requires paths to be done, I'd be doubtful that this could be done with Pencil, but it sounds like you've got the seed of a good idea for a new kind of tool, although I'd wonder if the calligraphy tool could be modified to have a "pencil-like" mode.
Until then (hint) does anyone have any clever tricks to help me freehand draw a smooth path?
The best I've thought of (and it's not very good) is to use the Caligraphy tool freehand draw a closed shape, tediously place objects to fill it, then "union" them to create one solid shape that I can apply a stroke to.
There is now a 'bucket fill' feature in latest Inkscape dev SVN, which works amazingly well for this.
I really don't think you can use the pencil tool practically with a tablet. It's usable when combined with simplify but even then the results are unpredictable and can require a lot of manual manipulation.
That's too bad - make sure bugs are entered on these issues in the bug tracker (they probably already are, but never hurts to have someone confirm and add info).
Bryce

Due to how SVG requires paths to be done, I'd be doubtful that this could be done with Pencil, but it sounds like you've got the seed of a good idea for a new kind of tool, although I'd wonder if the calligraphy tool could be modified to have a "pencil-like" mode.
There is now a 'bucket fill' feature in latest Inkscape dev SVN, which works amazingly well for this.
Yeah, a pencil mode for the Calligraphy tool would be just as good. Although even the bucket fill will make my suggested technique a very practicle technique. I assume that's not coming in 0.45.1?
That's too bad - make sure bugs are entered on these issues in the bug tracker (they probably already are, but never hurts to have someone confirm and add info).
My issue using the pencil tool with a tablet isn't a bug. It's just very sensitive which makes drawing smooth shapes very difficult. I might get better results if I changed the tablet pen's nib. Photoshop is equally sensetive with its lasso tool.

On Wed, Mar 21, 2007 at 01:48:15AM -0700, microUgly wrote:
Yeah, a pencil mode for the Calligraphy tool would be just as good. Although even the bucket fill will make my suggested technique a very practicle technique. I assume that's not coming in 0.45.1?
No, 0.45.1 is strictly a bug-fix release; no new functionality.
Bryce

--- Bryce Harrington <bryce@...983...> wrote:
On Tue, Mar 20, 2007 at 12:05:35AM -0700, microUgly wrote:
I really like the effect of "Mass" on the Caligraphy tool, and I'd
love to
see the feature on Pencil tool also.
Due to how SVG requires paths to be done, I'd be doubtful that this could be done with Pencil, but it sounds like you've got the seed of a good idea for a new kind of tool, although I'd wonder if the calligraphy tool could be modified to have a "pencil-like" mode.
As long as all they want is a constant thickness line, I dont see that the SVG spec will affect it. The patch i had for the calligraphy tool to generate fills generates a shape thats the centreline of the calligraphic stroke, which i guess is probably just what hes after. Still in LA on holiday at the minute tho, so that wont get done for a week at least.
Until then (hint) does anyone have any clever tricks to help me
freehand
draw a smooth path?
The best I've thought of (and it's not very good) is to use the
Caligraphy
tool freehand draw a closed shape, tediously place objects to fill
it, then
"union" them to create one solid shape that I can apply a stroke
to.
There is now a 'bucket fill' feature in latest Inkscape dev SVN, which works amazingly well for this.
Unless your getting SVN for the flood fill, the quickest way I've found to fill a calligraphy shape is outlined here: http://simarilius.wordpress.com/2006/11/08/filling-calligraphic-strokes/
I really don't think you can use the pencil tool practically with a
tablet.
It's usable when combined with simplify but even then the results
are
unpredictable and can require a lot of manual manipulation.
That's too bad - make sure bugs are entered on these issues in the bug tracker (they probably already are, but never hurts to have someone confirm and add info).
Bryce
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participants (3)
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Bryce Harrington
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John Cliff
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microUgly