New Tweak Tool modes
New modes were recently added to the Tweak tool for transforming a large number of objects. This is very useful to visually “sculpt” scatterings of small objects.
The new modes are:
- Move
- Move in/out
- Move randomly
- Scale
- Rotate
- Blur
- Duplicate/delete
Discover these features in this video:
see the release notes for more details on this tool.
This post and video by Steren Giannini are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Spiro curves and Freehand shapes
This post will focus on two new features of Inkscape 0.47 :
A Spiro curve is a curve defined entirely by its points, you don’t have to worry about handles. The resulting curve uses the minimum possible curvature to pass through the points. The visual result is that it becomes very easy to build very natural, smooth and nice paths.
The second feature of this screencast is freehand shapes. Basically, before this the pencil tool could only draw lines of constant width, with freehand shapes, you just choose the type of line you want to draw.
Inkscape Labrat by Steren Giannini is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Edit externally
Since last summer, Inkscape can directly do some raster modifications of your images inside your Inkscape files.
But unfortunately, sometimes you need to do more than this. Before this feature, the procedure was to first find where your embedded image was stored, open it in your favourite bitmap editor, save it, and reload your Inkscape canva.
Now you just have to right-click on your image, and select “Edit externally”. Your pre-configured bitmap editor will then open your image. After saving it and going back to Inkscape, the image is automatically reloaded.
Check all this in the following screencast.
I’m using a wallpaper I made to promote Creative Commons using the Bick Buck Bunny characters. Download it here.
Inkscape Labrat by Steren Giannini is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
New Pen Tool behaviour
Some new behaviours where added to the Pen Tool.
The first one allow you to draw only straight lines and the second one only straight line segments
that are parallel to one of the coordinate axes.
These features will be useful for artists, and much more to technical designers.
I’ll detail the “Spiro” curves later…
Inkscape Labrat by Steren Giannini is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Eraser tool
A new eraser tool has been created.
This screencast features its two modes:
- The first one is very similar to what we can find in bitmap editors : it just substract to the selected path your drawing.
- The second mode is a “quick erase tool”: any shape touched by the tool is erased
Check it here:
Inkscape Labrat by Steren Giannini is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
LPE for groups
The next feature I and some friends worked on as part of my student project was Live Path Effects for groups.
In the Inkscape 0.46 release, you can only apply LPE to a single path. Now with a new data structure, you can apply a LPE (or even a stack of LPE) to a group.
For some effects, such as Sketch, you only expect the effect to apply recursively to all of the group items. But what about the Bend effect? You want the whole group being deformed by the deforming path, and that’s exactly what it does.
Now you can easily live-deform a whole drawing!
Inkscape Labrat by Steren Giannini is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Live Path Effects Stacking
I’ll start this blog by Inkscape features I developed with some friends at Ecole Centrale de Lyon in the scope of a student project.
A new effect system was born with version 0.46: the Live Path Effects. They are non-destructive effects which can apply on path. Unfortunately, you can’t apply more than one LPE on a path.
We worked hard to create a new data structure to allow LPE Stacking.
In the following screencast you can see a stacking of 3 LPE:
You can as well notice that effects can be set visible or not.
Inkscape Labrat by Steren Giannini is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
