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  1. #11
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    Default Re: Feature Request: LivePaint / Paint Bucket tool

    I use Live Paint tools in AI fairly fequently and like the PS style colour fill proposed by inkscape but like other people have mentioned it would be better if the fill would be vector and not bitmapped. Yes this would be a good tool to used in Xara but my request would be for a vector style fill as in AI.

    Everyone are making requests at the moment for better and different tools at the moment. My simple request would be to ask the Xara removes all the small bugs that have been reported for years and to sort out the programme that we have got especially in the brushes area. I have no interest on how the brushes are rendered and how it is technically done I just wish that I had brushes in Xara as I have in AI.
    Design is thinking made visual.

  2. #12
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    Default Re: Feature Request: LivePaint / Paint Bucket tool

    Quote Originally Posted by Albacore View Post

    Everyone are making requests at the moment for better and different tools at the moment. My simple request would be to ask the Xara removes all the small bugs that have been reported for years and to sort out the programme that we have got especially in the brushes area. I have no interest on how the brushes are rendered and how it is technically done I just wish that I had brushes in Xara as I have in AI.
    That makes a lot of sense to me. I think Albacore makes a very good point here.
    I would like a feature such as live paint in xara all else being equal, but to be honest, since I have other programs that do this well - with the addition of the proposed inkscape release, its not actually necessary - getting the bugs and the brushes, especially the brushes, sorted out in xara is a definitely a higher priority.
    -------------------------------
    Nothing lasts forever...

  3. #13

    Default Re: Feature Request: LivePaint / Paint Bucket tool

    Albacore, I'm with you. The world doesn't stop, software is evolving, new tools are created every day. I think before Xara implements new features, old bugs should be fixed and then go from there.

  4. #14

    Default Re: Feature Request: LivePaint / Paint Bucket tool

    Quote Originally Posted by remi View Post
    On the one hand, it seems that's not possible to develop a really clever Bitmap Tracer (who would trace images the way, we are able to do by hand), but then this doesn't mean, that's not possible to develop a clever "Bitmap Tracing Assistant Tool".
    To get a little off topic I've always thought it would be really cool if some drawing program provided a simple interface to some of the livewire segmentation algorithms that get used in the biomedical field. As the user draws a rough approximation of a line in an image the computer continously fits that line to a boundary in the image. This might actually make it practical to trace photographs in addition to simple line art. This video should give an idea of how it works in practice.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lAo9WC60MM

    Quote Originally Posted by Albacore View Post
    I use Live Paint tools in AI fairly fequently and like the PS style colour fill proposed by inkscape but like other people have mentioned it would be better if the fill would be vector and not bitmapped.
    My understanding is that the final object is, in fact, a vector. There is just an intermediate bitmap step in order to deal with complex fills.
    Jed

  5. #15
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    Default Re: Feature Request: LivePaint / Paint Bucket tool

    Quote Originally Posted by handrawn View Post
    ... in fact, for my normal cartoon work purposes it may [sadly] cut xara out of the loop altogether, but it depends on how well it is implemented.
    Before all users think, Inkscape would be already an equivalent replacement for Xara Xtreme, think twice, because sometimes it seems to me, that the Inkscape community loves to do great marketing and all people are happy, but don't looks behind the curtain. Remember: all these features of Inkscape are planned features. The slow rendering issues are "addressed", but not solved. Impressive Speed improvements are "expected", but the Cairo library is currently only used in Inkscape's outline mode and nobody knows, if the Cairo library is as fast as Xara Xtreme's one.

    Personally, I'm really thankful for Carl Worth's try to break the "xaralx is non-free software" deadlock in the OpenSource project of Xara Xtreme for Linux. That was a great idea. But I also learned from the things, Carl said in the developer list, that Cairo looses most hardware acceleration because of the necessary to draw into an off-screen bitmap and Carl said clear, that this "does mean you just get cairo's (not too impressive) software doing all the rendering".

    In a email from February, Carl (one of the main developer of Cairo) wrote:
    "But the design goal of cairo is actually to provide sufficient
    primitives for anything a 2D application might want to draw, (and in
    particular if there's a possibility for graphics hardware to
    accelerate it).

    For gradients, it was quite obvious that linear and radial gradients
    would be required since they are so common. Beyond that, what I've
    always wanted to add to cairo is a single "mesh gradient" of same type
    that would be sufficiently general for applications to implement any
    desired gradient at all.

    But, yeah, we don't have anything like that implemented yet.
    "

    Quote Originally Posted by Nostaw View Post
    I think before Xara implements new features, old bugs should be fixed and then go from there.
    I don't think so. You're right, that error fixing is important, but that's usual business for a software company.

    My point with this feature request for Xara Xtreme is, that I would love to see, that Xara's developers are able to keep pace with the new features of competition products. And if there is a (really easy) way available, to develop a facility for users of vector editors, why should Xara not be able to implement this within a short time?

    Remi
    Last edited by remi; 05 April 2007 at 04:58 PM.

  6. #16
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    Talking Re: Feature Request: LivePaint / Paint Bucket tool

    Quote Originally Posted by remi View Post
    Hi Miguel,
    [*] A lot of users knows the tools of bitmap editors, but don't know much about vector tools. From time to time we all see questions from beginners here, who asks for a "Magic Wand Tool" within Xara Xtreme. OK, we all are able to explain the differences between bitmap editors and vector editors and why there is nothing like a "Magic Wand Tool" in a vector graphics editor. But if we think about it, we have to accept the fact, that the "bitmap way" (using a simple tool to find similar pixels and places a selection around) is more intuitive than the "vector way" (creating new shapes by hand over a imported bitmap).

    Remi
    Hi Remi,
    I see your point regarding a pixel based selection approach:Thereīs certain things we could do if the selection worked that way (converting pixel based selections to vecor shapes and vice-versa for example). I have some ideias on how this could be useful in my daily work.

    However i donīt completely agree what youi stated in the quote above. Vector programs shouldnīt work or behave like bitmap based editors even if most people are more familiar with the "bitmap way of work".
    I believe most people expect to find a magic wand or an eraser on a vector program because they simply donīt understand the diference between vector and bitmap images and the advantages of each one has over the other. For a lot off people those things are in the same group: they are all images and so they should work and behave the same way.
    But we know that thereīs diferences. And how to take advantage of them.

    What should be done in my opinion is trying to educate and show those diferences to these people so they can understand and take advantage of the vector format. Trying to fit a pixel based workflow in a vector program to turn it more acessible to more people just donīt make much sense to me. And mixing vector and extensive bitmap capabilities in a vector program somewhat defeats the purpose of a vector format.

    For example a lot of people ask for an eraser tool. Itīs makes sense in a bitmap context but whatīs the point of it in a vector application? You just simply select the shape and delete it or edit the shape until it looks like the way you want. This is far more flexible and more important offers much more control of what you are doing and remains always editable and scalable.
    You canīt have this type of control in a pixel based application.
    So the software should reflect and improve this type of flexibility and freedom instead of focusing in alternate ways (bitmap workflows in this case) of doing things just because they look more intuitive or natural for inexperienced people.

    Besides of fixing some important bugs (boolean operations precision), i think Xara should improve the vector drawing capabilities of Xtreme, taking advantage of the amazing speed of their rendering engine. An improved vector brush tool (similar to what illustrator offers) that allows to group diferent lines with transparency to create a realistic vector brushes that follow a path (skeletal brushes) would open a lot of possibilities for diferent
    types of expression and works.

    An improved feather tool that allows some more control. Think of a mix of the way we actually control gradients -linear, eliptical etc- and a way to control the progressive blurring of the feather (similar to floor shadow) aplied to a shape.

    Or a tiling tool -pick a group of shapes and use it to tile/fill a shape. Actually you already can do this effect using blends. However Xara will have to "compute" the blends every time you zoom in or zoom out becoming a little more slower (TIP: converting the blends to shapes will help the redraw speed but are less flexible).

    Another little improvement i would love to see is snapping to "important" points in a line/shape (end, middle points of the line for example) similar to what Google Sketchup does. Sometimes i need to connect two separate lines without changing their position: i mean i need to have one end control point of one of the lines overlaping other end control point of the other line so i can join them in one line. Thereīs no way to do this actually, unless you use two guides and move both the end control points so they overlap precisely over the cross point in the guides and then move one of them slightly until the plus sign appear..uff too much trouble just to join two lines without changing or move segments or nodes in the lines.

    Oops! Iīm sorry for this long and a little offtopic post...
    Better stop now...

  7. #17
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    Default Re: Feature Request: LivePaint / Paint Bucket tool

    Quote Originally Posted by handrawn View Post
    Remi

    Iin fact, for my normal cartoon work purposes it may [sadly] cut xara out of the loop altogether, but it depends on how well it is implemented.
    Yes but only for cartooning - which in my case means handrawn [ ] and scanned - and then simply needing to be colored/lettered/madeup/tweaked
    And similar such scan based work.
    Not for from scratch vector drawing.

    Quote Originally Posted by handrawn View Post
    I would like a feature such as live paint in xara all else being equal, but to be honest, since I have other programs that do this well
    Specifically Toon Boom studio. This is a cartoon animators tool and too expensive to buy simply to color static cartoons, but it does that job very well.
    it vector fills - it closes gaps even large ones automatically without needing to draw lines [resists temptation to ask for this in xara ] - it allows independent control of individual color transparency within object - I could go on, but.

    Quote Originally Posted by remi View Post
    Before all users think, Inkscape would be already an equivalent replacement for Xara Xtreme,
    Remi - I take your point
    actually I rarely if ever think in terms of one program replacing another full stop [ridiculous idea, and a hostage to fortune] - I think in terms of maybe one program replacing another for a specific/project task[s].

    Heck I've gone on a bit too - just one last thing - please please please xara get the brushes sorted out...
    -------------------------------
    Nothing lasts forever...

  8. #18
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    Mar 2005
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    Blackheath, Australia
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    Default Re: Feature Request: LivePaint / Paint Bucket tool

    People,
    I use Xara a lot and love it. About a week ago I wanted to fill in the squareish shapes created when you draw a series of roughly horizontal lines and then draw a series of roughly vertical ones across them. The sort of thing that results in a quilt pattern or a chess board. Now I had not had occasion to use Xaras combine and slice functions much in the past and I found it very confusing and indeed at times a PITB. Nevertheless after persevering and some help from past forum threads I got what I wanted.
    It took a lot of time though and I did think that it would be nice to have a fill control that worked with vector lines in a more intuitive manner, much as do the fill operations in raster programs. Sweet dreams I thought.

    The present thread is talking about just such a thing but people seem a bit confused on the raster/vector situation. And since I follow the Inkscape forum as well as use Inkscape I thought I could just clarify a little bit with respect to fill operation.

    1. Inkscape is a vector based program.
    2. Its fill function works on vector lines. Ie. If you draw a square with four crossing vector lines you simply go into the square and flood fill it with colour. Similarly with more complex drawings. Just fill each section. It is so simple that I am blown away by it.
    3. Its fill function also works on imported raster files. For example I just pulled in a photograph of a railway station and zoomed in on a section of sky between some struts and filled it with yellow.

    This is not something Inkscape might do in version 0.46, it is here and now in the current nightly builds. I just brought down the Win version from 4th April and it worked. The 0.45 versions that people have mentioned are the current stable versions and are out of date in respect of fill.

    I do not have time to work up some examples at present, and in any case I want to explore the limits of the controls, but will try and do so next week if someone does not beat me to it.

    Erik

  9. #19
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    Mar 2005
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    Blackheath, Australia
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    Default Re: Feature Request: LivePaint / Paint Bucket tool

    People,
    I found some time to do a bit more fiddling with Inkscapes paint bucket fill function and am attaching three scans.

    One is a straight bit of vector filling on some crossed lines. It is very easy to do this.

    The second is a bit of filling in of two petals on a Waratah flower. This is only about the third time I have tried my hand at a raster type fill and clearly it takes a bit of practice on something which is all very similarly coloured.

    The third is a bit of filling done on a scanned hand drawn map. The almost closed shapes are the easiest to fill. The unclosed shapes can be filled after drawing a vector line and then removing it. The scanned lines were the hardest because they are almost single pixels and take a bit of fiddling with threshold values. In practice straight lines are more easily hand traced anyway.

    But on the whole this fill is going to be very useful after I have mastered it.

    Erik
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

Name:	Inkscape -Vector Fill.jpg 
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Name:	Inkscape - Raster fill.jpg 
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    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	Inkscape - Imported Drawing.jpg 
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ID:	36886  

  10. #20

    Default Re: Feature Request: LivePaint / Paint Bucket tool

    Quote Originally Posted by EJ View Post
    1. Inkscape is a vector based program.
    2. Its fill function works on vector lines. Ie. If you draw a square with four crossing vector lines you simply go into the square and flood fill it with colour. Similarly with more complex drawings. Just fill each section. It is so simple that I am blown away by it.
    Are you kidding? That sounds amazing! How do you like the handling of this? I'm downloading Inkscape right now.
    EDIT: I can't find the paint bucket tool in version 0.45.1 (built MAR 21 2007), or does it need to have GIMP preinstalled?
    Last edited by Nostaw; 06 April 2007 at 08:49 AM.

 

 

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