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Help Using Inkscape => Inkscape Beginners' Questions => Topic started by: narkewoody on June 26, 2018, 10:07:26 PM

Title: How to fill a lines surrounded area
Post by: narkewoody on June 26, 2018, 10:07:26 PM
Several lines can create a closed area or region with their intersections.  My question is how do I fill this area with a color?  I searched google, someone talked about paint buket tool, I cannot try it because there is no this took on my toolbar :(   Maybe this is the second question.

Enclosed is the graph I need to fill color to the region enclosed by t3, t4, t and the above curve.

Thanks in advance.
-woody
Title: Re: How to fill a lines surrounded area
Post by: brynn on June 26, 2018, 10:52:57 PM
Welcome to the forum!

Yes, the situation you describe is exactly the kind of situation which the Paint Bucket tool was designed for.  It's not a perfect solution by itself.  You usually will need to "tweak" the path a little bit.  In this particular case, the tweaking will be pretty simple, with Snapping.  Well, or even without bothering to set up snapping, really.

Depending which version of Inkscape you installed, the Paint Bucket tool icon probably looks like this  :fba:.  If you really don't have it, I guess it's possible you have a really old version of Inkscape.  In the current version of Inkscape, it should be 5th from the bottom.

Please tell us which version of Inkscape you have, which package you downloaded, how you installed it, and also which operating system you're using.  It's possible if it really is missing, that you didn't install the correct version, or something went wrong during installation.
Title: Re: How to fill a lines surrounded area
Post by: Lazur on June 26, 2018, 11:08:00 PM
Hi.

Forget bucket fill, it's no use for "serious" jobs.

Check this screen capture:
https://youtu.be/O4DwWjSbVQY
Title: Re: How to fill a lines surrounded area
Post by: Lazur on June 27, 2018, 01:31:37 PM
On a second thought the fill between many lpe may also do the job in one go.
Title: Re: How to fill a lines surrounded area
Post by: Moini on June 27, 2018, 02:26:05 PM
As just replied in the other forum at
http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=33791

"It's possible that whoever compiled Inkscape forgot to include potrace during compilation. When it's installed, the paint bucket tool and the Path > Trace Bitmap dialog become available."

But I agree that using the bucket tool is a really bad idea here.

One easy way to do this in an exact way would be to select the graph, duplicate it, combine all its paths using Path > Combine, then add a large rectangle, put it below the duplicate, then select both and do Path > Division to cut the rectangle into pieces. Remove those pieces that you don't need, and apply a color to those you do need.
Title: Re: How to fill a lines surrounded area
Post by: brynn on June 27, 2018, 05:41:53 PM
Wellll.....I'm not sure where "really bad idea" is coming from.  Probably it's not the most desirable solution.  But certainly it's workable and do-able.  In the end, using your solution, the result is exactly the same thing -- an extra path which is holding the fill color.
Title: Re: How to fill a lines surrounded area
Post by: phiscribe on June 27, 2018, 05:47:44 PM
The bucket tool is bad in that it is inaccurate.  Veteran users hate inaccuracy.  Precise shapes are desired.  That said, sometimes I think it is fine to use the bucket tool.  Sometimes good enough is good enough.  If it is off but not visibly obvious, it might be fine for some.  A great deal of the time is plainly visibly obvious.  I use CorelDraw a great deal as well as Inkscape and its similar fill tool is more accurate.  So I miss that in Inkscape.  I always prefer using the boolean tools to get there, but there are situations where the bucket tool would be much faster, if it were just accurate.