Hello,

thanks for you admins to give us this forum and help. Thanks for inkscape software!

Well, my studied graphics guy was able to do manually a rainbow, but the style isn't complete yet.

This is what he did (he told me it's a lot of work):

[svg]http:www.premiumcorals.de/temp/rainbow.svg[/svg]

My wish is to have this drawing filled, so the color gradient has to follow the object! I've seen some tutorial videos in the web, but they just simple multiply lines, color group them. It's not possible to haver a nice color gradient in that case. Also I can't narrow it as I like.

[svg]http:www.premiumcorals.de/temp/leer.svg[/svg]

What magic idea do you have to get a solution?

Thanks a lot,

Sven

p.s. I've uploaded the svg files on my homepage, the link is correct but tthe preview doesn't work?!

You can't do this easily right now (mainly because inkscape is based on svg and svg doesn't support those kind of gradient) with the stable version of inkscape.

But it should be in the dev version
http://tavmjong.free.fr/SVG/MESH/Mesh.html
http://tavmjong.free.fr/SVG/MESH/Mesh_Inkscape.html

I don't exactly follow what you're asking. The 1st one could probably be faked with interpolation. If you want to use that rainbow effect in the 2nd image, I'm not clear if you just want to use the first image to fill the 2nd? You could use the 2nd image as a clipping path on the 1st image, to do that.

Or, maybe you want the shape of the 2nd image to be like a single stripe, or rainbow color? Again, I'd try interpolation.

@v1nce

It's exactly what I'm looking for! I'm trying to get done by myself hat is: http://tavmjong.free.fr/SVG/MESH/flame.png - but I can't . I've installed everything in a virtual machine and just don't know

1. Very simple, I don't know how to start!
2. I still don't know if my inkscape and cairo version is working now with mesh!
3. A svg with mesh causes my Inkscape to crash.

I really appreciate any help,

Sven

The SVG mesh is still in very experimental stages. Crashes are to be expected. Only a very few of this forums' members will know very much about it.

sven.fischer.de wrote:This is what he did (he told me it's a lot of work)

1176 objects to give you the effect you asked for, it sure sounds like lot of work.
Inkscape can only do something like the picture below as of its current developmental state, but more features are on their way, I'm sure.

Hello Druban,

it's exactly what I'm looking for - where's the menu item to start with? Could you give me an svg to see how it works?

Thanks,

Sven

Hi Sven,there is no single menu item but the whole thing should take only about ten minutes to do. I don't claim that all the steps are necessary or are in the right order! Power users like ~suv and Xav might come along and point out errors in my method, so be sure to check back here regularly for their elucidations and emendations.Note the small filesize compared to some other methods.

You will see in a second why the overlapping is important...

Lol... or not! I kind of forgot to mention it.... If they are just butted up and not overlapped the colors will not blend lke a gradient. You can play with the amount of overlap and transparency to simulate different gradients, I used about a 40% overlap and no transparency.

Druban - thx for this tut. I was able to re-create it in about 10 minutes. You have an amazing mind to think this stuff up! I would never have thought about using A&D to pull the ends of the triangles together, I would have done that manually. I love the results.

flamingolady wrote:Druban - thx for this tut. I was able to re-create it in about 10 minutes.

That's great, FL, I was just guessing about the time to be honest. I hope you'll find some use for the technique in your regular practice. Thanks for the kind comments!

Indeed, very clever! I thought you might have used interpolation.

However, I'm not sure if this technique will work for Sven. His desired shape has such a tight curve, almost a circle - http://www.premiumcorals.de/temp/leer.svg

brynn wrote:However, I'm not sure if this technique will work for Sven.

You're probably right, B. I was just offering users in general a way to simulate gradmeshes and used his example as a starting point. I hope he can adapt his needs to the tools available to him, as we all have to do!

brynn wrote:I thought you might have used interpolation.

Six of one... especially in this case! It would be nice if Inkscape had a menu level replicate/duplicate and repeat transform command ... (not clone). I estimated that the method I suggested would add fewest nodes, and I was being stingy with filesize.
Of course you know all this, but new users searching the forum might like to know that very tight curves on wide objects create anomalies in the bend LPE (similar to the ones in the ) - you can see one in the very bottom of the example. More bend (without glitches) is available for longer objects so you have to balance the amount of bend with the length and width of the object for best results...

Which version are you using ?
0.48.3.1 can't bend group. (Or am missing something ?)

Will rectangle and enveloppe deformation lead to different (better ?) results

Ah yes, agreed. Actually it was that little "glitch" that prompted me to comment.

I don't mean to detract from your excellent tutorial. But I do have one question. When you used "Make selected lines curves" button, you said to make the lines bendable. Once you apply the Bend LPE wouldn't it bend the clipped group, whether you used that button or not? I haven't done the whole tutorial, but I tested on a single triangle. It does bend, even if they are straight line segments. Or does the Bend LPE perform differently on straight line vs "bendable" lines?? I haven't compared in a precise way, but it looks about the same either way.

Lol, I think v1nce has just answered my question (who posted, again, while I was typing). I'll bet that there's some difference in the dev version that creates the need for "bendable"! I'm in 0.48.1 and I'm pretty sure that you (druban) usually use a dev version.

v1nce wrote:0.48.3.1 can't bend group. (Or am missing something ?)

I just tested 0.48.3.1 and it allowed me to bend a group, and a group of groups. Did you try to bend a non-path object (ellipse etc.?) Try this: select a group. Call the path effects dialog. Is it grayed out? Is the add button active?

brynn wrote:When you used "Make selected lines curves" button, you said to make the lines bendable. Once you apply the Bend LPE wouldn't it bend the clipped group, whether you used that button or not?

I did mention in my post that the step to make paths bendable might not be necessary. I will change the graphic to mention this too ASAP.
Later: In the interest of simplicity I have dropped that part of the exercise entirely.

Oh, sorry about that. I must have been paying such close attention to the tutorial, that I forgot what I had already read.

note: I didn't have any issues bending the grouped object (using reg v 48), but I did have an issue with the clip mask, it wasn't clear to me if I should have grouped it with the original group (looks like I should have), so I didn't, but then I couldn't get it to be the same shape as the bent rainbow group, so I just ended up creating another clipmask.
I just love this site, learn something new every time!
thx again
dee

flamingolady wrote:I did have an issue with the clip mask, it wasn't clear to me if I should have grouped it with the original group

FL, the LPE works on one object, although in recent versions you can give it a group and it's happy. I believe before it had to have a single path. However if you give it a clipped object it ignores the clip shape and only works on what's in the clip group, which is not satisfactory, so you have to give it all the objects including the clipping shape in one group, and apply the clip after the LPE by opening the group and selecting all. This is only the way I have worked out and there might be a simpler way.

druban wrote:Did you try to bend a non-path object (ellipse etc.?)

Yep. It was a group of rect. After turning 'em into path objects it (kinda) works (even if group of rect with enveloppe are worst than triangle with bend at drawing a rainbow)

Any reason for inkscape not turning non-path object into path when distorting using LPE ?
Would it be too complicated ? Or just nobody thought about it ?

I mean, when you're applying basic operations (skewx, scale...) on object you may prefer them to stick to non-path object (coz it's easier to deal with rect than with path)
but when you're applying LPE you know you won't stick with basic objects and you'll have to deal with paths

v1nce wrote:Any reason for inkscape not turning non-path object into path when distorting using LPE

I feel your pain, Comrade V1nce!
Please don't ask me why things work the way they do - I have no answer! But I do have a solution for you although it is complicated.
Also it is different in 48.3 than in the development builds so this method will have to be adapted for anyone using one of those.
Rectangles not in a group i.e. single - can have LPEs applied to them without any problems AFAICT. Rectangles in a group cannot in 48.3 but can in dev builds. In 48.3 the workaround is to select each nonpath object in the group one by one and apply the LPE to them. Then when you select the group and apply the LPE to it it will work on all the members of the group. In the case of the bend e.g. any curvature that you apply to each individual - if you do - will vanish as soon as you add bend for the whole group so don't waste your time bending individual members... just add it to each one and move on to the next.
In devbuilds groups made up of only groups or only nongroup nonpath objects work but groups made up of a mixture of groups and nongroup nonpaths will need to have the nongroup nonpath object separately LPE'd and then it will work with the group.
Please note this is only fom my experience and not from any familiarity with the code! I wish there were an easy and eloquent way to describe all this. Think of all this mess as the digital equivalent of getting blobs of paint on your clothes!

Looks a bit complicated.

Right now I don't need to bend complex nested groups
so I think I'll turn any basic object into a path and bend the whole.

Groups (and basic shapes) are to ease the design by user but are they usefull/used in LPE ?
Wouldn't it be simpler if LPE were providing a flat [collection of] paths
instead of a mixture of [nested group of]* (path and non path)