PowerStroke

2008-03-28T06:57:33Z

JegHegy: /* GUI */

= Power stroke =

The proposed power stroke LPE is as follow:

[[Image:Power-stroke-1.png]]

== Functionality ==

This LPE allows a modulated stroke from manually entered values.

Further development could allow direct width reading from a pressure-enabled device.

== Workflow ==

The user simply creates the line, it might for example be based on an outline.

Then the user applies the LPE to his shape, it overrides the normal stroke rendering and allows custom line width at different nodes of the path.

Only the stroke-width property of the path is overridden, the rest of the stroke properties keep working as usual, when relevant.

== GUI ==

Se image above. User selects a nodes or a set of nodes and affects values to those. When a node is selected, you can see what its value is by the change in values in the number entry or by the state of the push button.

Additionally, hovering over a node could show the value of a node. Graphical feedback could even possibly set different icons for nodes that are set and others that are interpolated.

Perhaps Alt+drag a node to change the thickness?

A combination of a metakey and the scroll wheel would be intuitive as well (with status bar message stating you can do that, of course). -- [[jegHegy]]

== Comments by JohanE ==
This is very well doable, but would require a new "Nodepath" implementation that enables writing special values (preferably a struct) per node. There is already something like this, the "nodetypes" attribute, but it is too restrictive. Expanding this would enable this effect, and opens up many other possibilities. Nice idea !

Swatch Book

2008-03-05T08:58:52Z

JegHegy: /* Swatches in SVG/Inkscape */

= Overview =

This page is for discussing the concepts around swatch books, for Inkscape and any other programs, and what things users might want.

Feel free to contribute here, on the mailing lists, or in our Jabber/IRC chat rooms.

== What is a Swatch Book? ==

Basically a "Swatch Book" is a collection of swatches that an artist or designer might put together for reference during a project.

Although a large number of people are familiar with various commercial spot color books, a swatch book is not limited to just colors. Decorators, designers and others often have books with more than simple color chips. That leads into the question of just what is a 'swatch' - [[JonCruz]]

== What is a "Swatch"? ==

In general artistic design work, I normally hit a different
definition of "swatch". It's not just a color, it's a "sample" or
"material". It could be a simple solid ink color, or it could be a
heavy plaid cloth. Moving into software, "Gold" is another good
example. "Gold" is a texture, not a color (just ask the Blender
artists out there). From an artist/designer's viewpoint, they tend to
think in terms of a swatch book as "a collection of things I've
pulled together to use for this project". I *think* some of the
problem comes from saying "Pantone swatch book" and such but not
keeping in mind that it is just a subset of general "swatch books".
That is, it is a "swatch book but with only solid paint swatches".
Then again... I have used foil Pantone books, so those definitely
fall into the "material, not just color" category. - [[JonCruz]]

Some examples I've seen in swatch books are
* Fabric
* Ribbon
* Paint
* Spot color samples (Pantone, Trumatch, Focoltone, Toyo, etc)
* Paper
* Wood
* Flooring
* Tile
* Counter material

The key here might be to think "material" instead of just "color". Although one might work with just colors, others might want to extend to a bit more.

= Use Cases =

And think of the use case. Say a comic artist is working on a
project. He would probably want a "swatch book" for each of his
characters, and perhaps one combining them. Then he might also want
to add a book per character per lighting condition ("daytime",
"nighttime", etc). When he went to use it, he might like to just
select "Fred's skin" and apply it to an area. Then "Fred's shirt" for
another. Those might just be simple RGB colors, or the skin might be
a simple gradient and the shirt might be a checked pattern.

However... the artist most definitely would benefit from being able
to define those books once and then just reference them from each of
the programs he uses to create things. - [[JonCruz]]

= Swatches in SVG/Inkscape =

For SVG work, we'd probably like to be able to include gradients and
patterns also. "Brushes" might also be nice... but I think those are
something a bit different. For the apps I've seen that differentiate
brushes from patterns, brushes get to be more of blobs of complex
procedural code. - [[JonCruz]]

This involves more than just the swatches, but I found the brush weight profiles in Xara X[1|treme] quite intuitive. Basically it's now doable in 0.46 with LPE and an auxiliary shape that defines the variable brush weight, but Xara's simple dropdown of pre-defined profiles worked quite well. Just a thought. - [[jegHegy]]

= Mockups =

TBD

= References =

* [http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/create/2007-September/000994.html My post] to the CREATE list on Sep 27, 2007.

Inkscape Wiki - User contributions [en]

PowerStroke

Swatch Book