[lug] Installfest flyer

[Michael J. Hammel]

On Thu, 2003-04-10 at 14:11, D. Stimits wrote:
> rm at fabula.de wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, Apr 10, 2003 at 05:12:21AM -0600, D. Stimits wrote:
> >
> > >Vector is better suited to scaling, but it has to go into a gimp layer.
> > >I'm not sure how easy/hard it would be to export SVG into gimp. So far
> > >as I know, there is not an easy way. But that leaves a question for some
> > >of our gimp experts: Is there any SVG support in gimp, or is any
> > >planned? That would make my day if gimp could import and/or export SVG.

There isn't any SVG import/export available from the GIMP that I know of
currently.  I also don't know of any planned support.  GIMP is a raster
tool.  SVG is a vector format.  To get SVG into GIMP you have to render
the vector into a raster format and import to GIMP.  To get SVG out of
GIMP you'd end up doing what they do for Postscript - render to a raster
format and wrap it in a Postscript wrapper.  It still won't be vector in
that case, but it's in a format that PS interpreters can handle.

> I'm curious what tools are being used for SVG authoring, and for the 
> conversion from SVG to other formats? Long ago, I did technical 
> illustrations under CorelDraw while writing manufacturing automation 
> software, and wish there were better vector-based drawing under Linux 
> (for free of course). SVG I think holds a lot of promise in this area, 
> but it doesn't seem to be sufficiently supported yet.

Vector tools are severely under represented in the open source world. 
There are a few tools - see
http://www.graphics-muse.com/cgi/gmcat.pl?id=16
Artstream had promise as a commercial product when I saw it a few years
back at LinuxWorld, but for some reason they never seemed to go public
with it.

Sketch and Sodipodi are the closest you'll get to vector art tools right
now.  Dia handles diagramming in vector formats, though I don't know if
it exports to SVG yet.  In general, if you truly need vector support
you're better off in the MS/Mac worlds.

The lack of vector tools is what keeps me working with GIMP so much. 
I'd love to do poster sized art but that's difficult (re: slow) to do in
GIMP without tons of memory and very fast CPUs.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel                               The Graphics Muse 
mjhammel at graphics-muse.org                      http://www.graphics-muse.com
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The essence of our practice is to involve others in a world for which even
we do not understand the rules.  --  Michael J. Hammel, on writing