Last few weeks Inkscape has tested my nerves. I don't use it that much, but now I got so frustrated I just uninstalled it.
So, as title suggests, I want my path object to have blur past it's boundaries.


I just can't work with this blur, I can throw it in the recycle bin with the entire Inkscape folder.

Is there a way to change the boundary size like in GIMP, or should I look for an alternative program?

Yes, there is.

You can try to use the blur slider in the fill and stroke tab for the effect (Shift+Ctrl+F),
or, if you added it by other filtering,
open the filter editor, and at the general filter settings, set a larger area.
Like coordinates to -1, -1 and size to 3, 3 -which will result a filtered area be three times larger than the object's unfiltered bounding box.

Lazur URH wrote:You can try to use the blur slider in the fill and stroke tab for the effect (Shift+Ctrl+F),

I used the blur slider regularly, but now it's doing the boundaries problem.
Even after some tweaks with stroke thickness and blur adjustment I still can see the uncanny blurs.


The most frustrating thing is I won't notice the problem until I deselect the object.

I think using filters/extensions would prolong my Inkscape projects from mere minutes to days even.
Also it does on my Win8.1, Ubuntu and my tablet w/ Win8.1.

Then, a quick (?) but ugly solution could be grouping your objects with something invisible to make the bounding box larger, then applying the filter on the group.

Sort of. As blur is related to the bounding box in %, you would need different values for the same amount of feathering than without it.


Maybe in your example, grouping would make a more consistent look though.
Like, if you have more text in your image at different places,
the shadows grouped together and blurred at once may come out better.


Apart these it can possibly be a rendering issue of the new cairo renderer in the current stabile 0.91.

Could you share an SVG file where this problem is happening? It will help us figure it out.

I've tried it locally here, but I don't see that effect. However, I don't know exactly how you created the images you're showing.

I found out that if I use Stroke To Path it will fix my problem, but still.



It's interesting I have this problem on my other devices too.
Perhaps there's some procedure I should be doing?

Ok, well I can't explain this, but it seems to be related to the stroke width. On that black "#2" the stroke width is 50! If you remove the blur, you can see that the 50 px width is so excessive, you can hardly guess what the 1st character is. When you change the stroke width to something more reasonable -- anything under 20 for example, the problem disappears. (Well with 20 px, you can barely see it's beginning to look "chopped off". But as width is reduced, it disappears around 18 px.)

Actually, there's a tiny bell ringing in the back of my mind, like I might be about to remember the explanation....but atm, I'm coming up blank. I know this has been discussed in the forum in the past, though.

Anyway, if you're using the stroke width as a means of making the characters a little larger, perhaps trying to create a customized Bold style, there are other ways to do it. So far, I don't see this same issue with them. (The problem must be somehow attached to the stroke. Maybe related to text as well, but I havent' finished testing yet.)

Some of these are Path Offsets -- Outset, Dynamic Offset and Linked Offset. I'm not sure about how much precision you need. But since you're blurring so much, it probably doesn't matter. But just for your own test, start with 2 identical characters. Apply a stroke to one and make say 10 to 20 px wide, and apply an offset by a similar amount to the other. You will see the the offset adds some distortion, such as rounding sharp or acute corners. But with the blurring, maybe not important.

If the distortion isn't acceptable, you can use, as you've already learned, Path menu > Stroke to Path. It changes the stroke to its own closed path, and much more faithful to the original than the offsets (although still some minor distortion can occur).

I'll do some more testing, and try to search the forum, if I can remember enough. Lazur's much better at remembering old topics than me, so maybe he can find. Or if it's a bug, maybe ~suv will give us some more definitive info than my guesses.

Edit
Hhmmm, doesn't just happen to text. Will happen on anything with a stroke, when the stroke is wide enough. How wide? - I'm still testing

I remember this one, mostly covered by my reply here.
But now I'm pretty sure it's the new renderer's bug, 0.48.4 r9939 -I'm currently working with- displays all blurring fine in that file.