[lug] Installfest flyer

[Ed Hill]

On Thu, 2003-04-10 at 14:47, Michael J. Hammel wrote:
> 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.


Hi Michael,

Thanks for the comments about the state of vector tools on Linux.

Just out of curiosity, have any of you folks tried TGIF

  http://bourbon.cs.umd.edu:8001/tgif/index.html
  (web site down at the moment--but available in Google cache)

for vector drawings?  I realize that its for vector-object-based
drawings, not actual images.  But it is a great way to create vector
drawings for simple tech manuals, fliers, etc.  And it very gracefully
outputs to vector-based (resolution-independent) PS/EPS formats for
inclusion in, for example, LaTeX.

Ed


-- 
Edward H. Hill III, PhD 
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Division of ESE, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401
Email: ed at eh3.com  ehill at mines.edu
Phone: 303-273-3483
URLs:  http://cesep.mines.edu/people/hill.htm  http://eh3.com
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