Inkscape

Bob Jamison wrote:
> The fix is in the patch tracker, and here is the corrected example:
> http://inkscape.org/win32/siox/howto.svg
>   
Oh this is pretty awesome. Not sure if you've written up anything for
the tutorials on this but here are some questions that could go into it.
1) how does the svg file size compare ?
2) does it change much if potracing from png, gif, jpg ?
3) relative time to convert ?
4) once you have the svg image (ie the horse) is there a way to better
blend the color groups (it's a little "blocky") - maybe like specifying
the line as thicker and a gradient color ?

Hi!

jtaber wrote:
> Bob Jamison wrote:
>   
>> The fix is in the patch tracker, and here is the corrected example:
>> http://inkscape.org/win32/siox/howto.svg
>>   
>>     
> Oh this is pretty awesome. Not sure if you've written up anything for
> the tutorials on this but here are some questions that could go into it.
> 1) how does the svg file size compare ?
>   
I would say that since you will be tracing a smaller sample of the image,
the svg size should be smaller.  However,  as I've always said,  tracing
has never been intended to create a finished product.  Its purpose is
to generate curves for the user to further manipulate.

> 2) does it change much if potracing from png, gif, jpg ?
>   
Not at all.  It starts with the same pixbuf in memory that normal 
tracing uses,
then feeds a resulting pixbuf to the other filters for processing.

> 3) relative time to convert ?
>   
It has been adding about 5 to 15 seconds to trace times.  Yes, it's
slow, but it's a very CPU-intensive operation.  Hey, this is high-tech
image recognition stuff here.  :-)    But yes, we will definitely work on
reducing the times, same as we (especially Mr. Selinger, to whom
we owe so much for Potrace in the first place) reduced that of normal 
tracing.

> 4) once you have the svg image (ie the horse) is there a way to better
> blend the color groups (it's a little "blocky") - maybe like specifying
> the line as thicker and a gradient color ?
>
>   
Just try tweaking the other filter settings to get what you want.  
Notice that the
example used only 8 colors.  But again,  I state the #1 item.  The trace 
is not
intended to be a final product.  Besides,  trying to create a 
photo-perfect image
trace would be a silly waste of time.  Tracing is supposed to be an
exercise in information reduction.


This was only completed at the last minute here, so use it, try to break 
it, etc.
I hope that people find it useful.



bob

On Mon, Jun 05, 2006 at 01:56:48PM -0500, Bob Jamison wrote:
> This was only completed at the last minute here, so use it, try to break 
> it, etc.
> I hope that people find it useful.

This is an awesome feature, and it's great to see it getting in.  One
thought though -- since it's come in pretty late, and probably won't get
sufficient testing/bug fixing prior to release, could you configure it
as an experimental feature (i.e., add a preference item to turn it on
with a clear warning that it's experimental, and have it off by
default)?  This way, users will still be able to access it, but if there
are problems it won't generate a flurry of unnecessary bug reports and
questions.  We've had really good luck with this approach for other new
experimental features in the past, so it'd probably be helpful here too.

(We've had a few people with questions/confusion on the irc channel, due
to long processing times, etc. and some concern over stability due to
how new it is, but we all thought it'd be better to have it listed as
experimental than to have to leave it out of the release.)

Bryce

bulia byak wrote:
> On 6/5/06, Bryce Harrington <bryce@...> > This is an
> awesome feature, and it's great to see it getting in.  One
>> thought though -- since it's come in pretty late, and probably won't get
>> sufficient testing/bug fixing prior to release, could you configure it
>> as an experimental feature (i.e., add a preference item to turn it on
>> with a clear warning that it's experimental, and have it off by
>> default)?
>
> No need to do it that complex, IMHO. Just add "(experimental)" to the
> label of the checkbox in the Trace dialog. There's plenty of space
> there for it.
>
I think if the issues are mentioned in a tutorial (which most people
will hopefully first read) then things like a long processing time are
not a problem.   In the next few days I'm going to try to get the new
tarball running and try this out on some rasters - I'll write up a few
paragraphs from the user side - if that makes it to a tutorial in this
version fine, if not it can go to the wiki.

On 6/3/06, Arpad Biro <biro_arpad@...> wrote:
> unlocalizable strings
> should be disambiguated (same string, different meaning)
> "Use <b>Edit > Object(s) to Pattern</b> to create a new pattern from
>
> selection."
> Transform dialog, Matrix tab: "_Apply" conflicts with "_A".
> ("_Apply" is from GTK.)

please file a bug with all these so we don't forget to fix them after 0.44 :)

> Text toolbar: "Align left" and "Align right" are mixed up
> (used to be "Rag left" and "Rag right")

fixed

> "Select only one <b>image</b> to trace"
>
>   why emphasize "image" here?

for easier scanning

> "PovRay (*.pov) (export splines)"
>
>   is "export" a verb or an adjective here?

better change that to "splines only" - add that to bug report

> In /src/dialogs/layers-panel.cpp we have these strings: "New", "Top",
> "Up", "Dn", "Bot", "X". Where do they appear on the interface (the
> layer dialog buttons have no captions for me, just tooltips)?

Jon, can you answer that?

> #: ../src/ui/widget/panel.cpp:138
> "Wrap"
>
>   where does this word appear on the UI?

in palette's menu

-- 
bulia byak
Inkscape. Draw Freely.
http://www.inkscape.org

bulia byak wrote:
>
> hmm, still better would be "paths only", much easier to understand
>
>   
Remember, that means POV splines, not SVG.



bob

On Jun 5, 2006, at 7:07 AM, bulia byak wrote:

>
>> In /src/dialogs/layers-panel.cpp we have these strings: "New", "Top",
>> "Up", "Dn", "Bot", "X". Where do they appear on the interface (the
>> layer dialog buttons have no captions for me, just tooltips)?
>
> Jon, can you answer that?

Those are there for the buttons as fallback text in case the icons  
for them can't be loaded.

bulia byak wrote:
> On 6/5/06, Bob Jamison <rwjj@...> wrote:
>> bulia byak wrote:
>> >
>> > hmm, still better would be "paths only", much easier to understand
>> >
>> >
>> Remember, that means POV splines, not SVG.
>
> Yes, but we convert to them from SVG paths, right?
>
Any SPShape, so it is paths, rects, ellipses,  etc.


bob

> > In this file there are two more occurences of "theFace->units_per_EM == 0" 
> > to test if the font is a bitmap font. Should these be replaced by
> > "FT_IS_SCALABLE" too?
> >
> >   
> Yes definitely, the 'units_per_EM == 0' test shouldn't be used to 
> determine wether a font is scalable or not.

David, please send me an updated patch against 0.43 so that I can fix
it on the patches web page.


    Werner