Hi I've been using inkscape for a few weeks now, its really a fantastic program for being free. I have a problem though I was hoping I could find an answer for. Is there a way to hide sections of a path?

I draw an object. I want the object I draw (whats on the left) to look like the one on the right. Right now, to hide certain parts of a stroke, I'm creating a shape then making it so there's no stroke and then just tracing my shape. Is there an easier way?

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There may be a few different ways to do it. To some extent, it depends on whatever else is happening in the drawing. For me, I would probably duplicate the object, remove the fill color, break the path at appropriate places, and delete the unwanted part. As long as the duplicated shape remains exactly and precisely on top of the original, it will look like you want. So you may want to group everything, to prevent them accidentally coming apart.

In some situations it might work to apply a gradient to the stroke, so that part of it is transparent. Or I could envision clipping possibly coming into play in some cases. Other members might have some other ideas as well

Like Brynn says, it depends on what else is going on. First, duplicate your object and move it over in case you might need it later. Having said that, I have found it works well to either use the 'break the path at selected nodes option' or use the 'delete segment between two non-end point nodes' option. You need to be in the node mode, then highlight the two nodes to work with, they musst be next to each other along the path. If there are too many nodes, you many need to delete or move some first, if there aren't enough, then you might need to add a node or two, because you don't want to change the shape of your object. I try to ensure that there are nodes beside the two I'm removing. What happens is that you'll remove the path, which removes the stroke, and then you can still manipulate the nodes. You can also now use your duplicated object for effects like Brynn said, or to make the object look like it's got more than one color on the stroke when a gradient won't work.