Feature Request: LivePaint / Paint Bucket tool

[handrawn]

I think if I read Erik right it is only in the nightly build [developer] version.
0.45.1 is the latest stable version.

I'm going to try this myself now, it does look very nice, and if it is that good, it will be at least if not more than I was hoping for.

Nightly build can be a pain because of instability but heck this looks too good to miss.

PS - if youre on windows like me you have to compile your own package as I recall - have refresh memory on that one
EDIT - no need to complile - inkscape providing zipped builds in 7z format - memory playing me up or longer than I though since I ran nightly?

[handrawn]

Inkscape0704040630.7z unzipped without a hitch using the 7z442 utility

I can apply graduated color to my pencilled lines without the need to vector!
I'm going to have to get to grips with this asap.

[remi]

Good news about Inkscape.
Now I'm waiting for a statement of Phil, Gerry, Neil or Charles.

Remi

[Nostaw]

Remi, don't get your hopes up. I'm sure they alread read your suggestion. It doesn't mean they reply. I'm still waiting for an official respond for my line2shape convert problem posted 10 months ago.

[remi]

Think positive.

[handrawn]

initial impressions of the inkscape 0.46

it does the vector-fill well - I'll try and get some examples up - bit hampered at the moment because 0.46 is refusing to reopen saved svg files on my system - thats nightly builds for you - I can open them in 0.45.1 though, so should be workable for now give or take.
one or two other irritations as I expected, nothing major.
I remain impressed so far...

EDIT: the pdf import to xara from 0.46 is not too bad now I've the hang of it - though it tends to come in upside-down and its not so far been editable in xara
Importing via 0.45-1 has issues with the graduations as it happens.....

ah well early days yet.

[handrawn]

Sorry about the mishmash in the last post but I'm quite excited about this - it should make a major chunk of my work a whole load simpler.

In a nutshell what I found so far is:

what worked before in 0.45 and imported into xara via pdf, still seems to work but needs to taken via 0.45-1, otherwise it tends to go wrong at this stage of 0.46 development.
So graduated paths ok.
the new graduated fills however don't seem to import into xara properly at the moment.

[handrawn]

Can get the graduated fills into xarapro as long as they are graduated color2color and not color2alpha - this was always the case with inkscape pdf to xarapro as I recall - and best if the underlying bitmap is stripped out first in 0.45-1, otherwise the pdf is a tad on the large side and can take forever to load.
So its good to know that, as things stand now at least, the essentials can be done if required.

I'm not overtly partisan one way or the other, so if inkscape will do this 'livepaint' then I can live without xara doing it - its not going to draw me away from xara for mainstream vector drawing.
I therefore stick by what I said in previous posts - I think it would be a great feature for xara to have, and a good selling point, at least for the likes of me who work as much if not more in bitmap as vector.
However xara is a vector drawing program so addressing the issues there, and especially 'proper' vector brushes remains my priority for now.
But who knows how things will develop.....

The unclosed shapes can be filled after drawing a vector line and then removing it.
Erik

You can put all these on their own layer above it still appears works - then delete them all in one go

[jclements]

EJ's example and Handrawn's is the essence for such a tool.

SOME BACKGROUND INFO:

When CorelDRAW first came out with their SmartFill tool I was very happy. I immediately saw where it would be great help when importing certain vector based artwork. In particular DXF files where many times line-work are not fillable/enclosed objects but a series of touching but "unjoined" segments. What a time saver. HOWEVER, there were some areas of overlapping line-work that could not be filled.

So I posted my example where I was having difficulties to a Corel forum, requesting the SmartFill tool be tweeked a bit or perhaps a VBA script be written that could account for tighter tolerances and other conditions. I got a reply from Alex Vakulenko, software engineer and head of Corel's scripting group and operator of http://www.oberonplace.com/. To make a long story short, Alex said that SmartFill tool code took a very large amount of effort to develop .... particularly the aspect of it analysing mathematically the paths of vectors/bezier paths/segments and determining their exact intersection points. Also, the source application of the imported line work can be issue because of how they describe their nodes, control handles, etc., and then how well the import filters can translate into Corel terms.

Alex is no slouch. So I take his word that this is no simple task and thus it would require a concerted effort for the Xara team to come up with something similar ... but in true Xara tradition much better.

I definitely would like such a tool in XaraPro's arsenal, but I am not holding my breath.


Regards, John

[remi]

Alex is no slouch. So I take his word that this is no simple task and thus it would require a concerted effort for the Xara team to come up with something similar ... but in true Xara tradition much better.

Yes, it's not so easy. But if you follows Inkscape's great approach, then it's really not so complicated:

1. Render the current drawing into a bitmap (for the user invisible).
2. Use already well known graphic algorithms to recognize the boundaries (for the user invisible).
3. Insert the calculated vector shape in the drawing.
4. Finished.

Remi