Hi all,

I was using Adobe Illustrator a very long time ago, which has one advantage over Inkscape which was I could "auto-draw" bezier curves. Meaning I would trace my cartoon sketch line and it would find the best bezier path for the lines I traced. This worked nice, but it is not present in Inkscape as far as I know.

This is not too bad as I found out how to do it. I can trace my cartoon sketch with the bezier/pen tool (point to point) and after that convert the points to auto-smoothed paths using path -> "make selected nodes auto smooth". Works pretty good and I can live with that.

However, I want this turned on by default, or to be applied for a large set of bezier-node objects as for every line I have to do this RSI inducing set of actions like;
a) draw point to point to trace my sketch
b) select the path tool
c) select all paths in the object
d) click the auto smooth button.
e) rinse, repeat ...

This would not be so bad if I could do multiple objects at once but I have to do this for every small patch of hair I want to draw which makes my wrists hurt only by thinking of it..

So how can I auto-smooth all my point-to-point lines, or more ideally, get the adobe illustrator behaviour where the bezier curve will be automatically smoothed when drawing with the wacom tablet over the lines of my cartoon sketch.. See the attachment for clarification.

This would greatly help me with my work, and make it much easier to "vectorize" my art.

I tried the bitmap trace tool, but it gave unsatisfactory results, I would like to re-edit paths later and the trace tool clumps too much lines together (not to mention I am doing double work as I need to ink the sketch then fectorize it).

With regards,
- Jorgen

Maybe using Pencil tool and holding Alt to "fix" the line could help (the red line shows the final result). Don't set Smoothing too low.

Also why not use click and drag in Pen tool to create a smooth node?

Hi,

Maybe using Pencil tool and holding Alt to "fix" the line could help

When I use either bezier or pen tool with alt held down it shows me a hand to move the picture. When I hold alt down while drawing it does not show me a red line. It just draws. I am using Inkscape 0.47 I am not sure if this is available for my version yet.

Also why not use click and drag in Pen tool to create a smooth node?

If I use my tablet and "draw" (draw freehand lines) with the pen tool, it shows me a too jaggy result. Every mistake with my hand ends up like a lump or dent in the lines to be inked which all need correcting. Drawing point to point with a bezier curve tool and smoothing them out exactly gives the result I need, semi-smooth lines, with no lumps in the end result. In any case I need the smoothing turned on all the time actually..

Thank you for your help!
- Jorgen

To add to my previous post, this is the example. The lower "nose" is drawn with the freehand pen, then simplified (Shift-L) and smoothed. The top nose (that is where it should be) is drawn point to point with the bezier/pen tool and also smoothed. You can see the minor mistakes when tracing it actually get blown up and it is lumpy, the top one is looking smooth and requires almost no altering.

With regards,
- Jorgen

For future solutions see this recent discussion on inkscape-devel: What are Auto-Smooth Nodes?

Referenced example for a new type path/node type in SVG:
Reinventing Fire » Blog Archive » Getting to the Point
demo (browser): Catmull-Rom curves in real-time


On the other hand - did you try the pencil (freehand) tool with smoothness set to 50 or higher?

So when I read this correct, they are working on exact that same feature? That's very cool! It will help us cartoonists a lot and save us from the hazard of RSI

With regards,
- Jorgen

I wanted to add that this painful method of how I drawn my cartoons (point to point bezier pen, doubleclick, ctrl-a, shift-a on every single line) is obsolete now. I totally missed out on the "smoothing" slider on the pen tool. I had to ink the last frame of my cartoon, and darn, I found it! That would have saved me a couple of hours of fiddling with lines by hand.

The auto-smooth multiple lines is still a nice feature to have, but it has mainly become obsolete for me.

With regards,
- Jorgen

jorgen.bodde wrote:I totally missed out on the "smoothing" slider on the pen tool. I had to ink the last frame of my cartoon, and darn, I found it! That would have saved me a couple of hours of fiddling with lines by hand.

Didn't read the earlier answers in detail? (the setting [smoothing|smoothness] was mentioned at least twice…)
It's with the pencil tool (not the pen ) - for those still searching...

I apologize, I was still in the context of the bezier pen and I could not find it there. I never looked back at the freehand pencil tool, I wish I had

Thank you all for your help!
- Jorgen

jorgen.bodde wrote:I apologize, (…)

Don't! - that would be my turn (I should have gone to bed instead of adding nonsense comments here).
Sorry