Pixelated Point of Triangular shape

[rspwater]

Hello Inkscape Community. I'm having an issue with the pointed part of a design that is a needle (as in needle and thread for sewing), the point appears pixelated, I'm not sure why and after looking at a number of videos to learn how to resolve and re-doing the design several times, I still can't find a solution.

I've created the needle in a couple of different ways - using the bezier, also created a rectangle then modified into the needle shape, and I've even used the Grid background as a guide to ensure a more precise placement of the point in relation to the other points that make up sides and top of needle. When I zoom in real close on the point, it looks fine but when I zoom out the point starts to distort or appears pixelated. The design is a profile/icon for an ecommerce platform, when I upload to the platform, the point looks pixelated there as well. I've made the nodes corner, smooth, symmetric etc to try to figure out which is the correct node type, and also adjusted node handles to adjust shape but point still appears distorted. Attached is the design - can anyone offer insight on what I'm doing wrong or suggest how to resolve? Thanks.

[brynn]

We can't tell much from the PNG.  Are you able to share the SVG file?

What is your operating system?

Unless we find something in the SVG file, I think the problem might be sort of an optical illusion.  I can see it just by looking at the small version of the PNG which you attached.  Comparing the top of the earth to the bottom, the bottom looks sharper, and the top looks a little fuzzy.  I think it's because of the angle at which the needle tapers, and how thin it is when it crosses the border of the water/blue color.  Also the blue color itself is not as much contrasting to white, as the green is. 

I think our eyes are trying to see that very thin line of the needle, and it makes that area seem blurry.  Oh hey, here's a test.  If you take the needle away (or put it on a hidden layer) how does the top of the earth look then?

I notice that part of the left side of the earth has a green sort of like stroke, but not really a stroke.  Probably you did some kind of path operation, or for some reason, the green extends around a lot of the water there.  I wonder if putting a dark or green stroke around the whole earth might help?  Or maybe if you could extend Greenland up to the top, so there's no water between Greenland and the the top of the earth, it might help. 

I know, not geographically correct to change Greenland.  I guess it depends on the final size of the image.  If it's going to be small like the PNG thumbnail, you'd probably not notice that it's not perfectly correct.  But if it's going to be the full size of the image, yeah, that would be noticed.

Oh, I see where the green sort of stroke came from.  It looks like the blue object is shifted to the right slightly, relative to the green land object.  But still, maybe a darker stroke around the water might help.  I don't really know, but easy enough to try it.

Other than that, I wonder how lifelike the needle really needs to be?  Could it be thicker?  What is the finished size of the image, where it will be used?

[rspwater]

Hi Brynn - thanks for your reply. Attached are SVG files, one to replace PNG file previously sent (but with the green left edge corrected), and the other with a stroke around the earth and also the needle thicker as you suggested. I think adding a stroke to the earth and making the needle thicker definitely helped with the blurring, so thanks for your suggestions. When I zoom out, the point still gets distorted and agree that it may be an optical illusion.

The earth was still fuzzy at the top after taking the needle away, thought the fuzziness was because the two objects were not aligned, that wasn't the case after aligning but adding the stroke did help as did making the needle thicker. This is for a shop icon on Etsy, I believe size is 500 * 500 px. I have not uploaded to see what it looks like but hopefully once uploaded the blurry parts are not there. Let me know your thoughts on the attached. Thanks again!   

[rspwater]

Re-sending one of the files as it may have had other designs on the page.

[brynn]

You can remove the file with extra stuff in it, if it's important that you don't want it online.  Just open that messsage for editing ("Modify" button) and there's a text link which I think is "Clear attachment".

From what I can tell, at 500 x 500 px, you won't see the same illusion/blurriness.  But you need to change  the scale setting in your file, to make sure it's the right size.

File menu > Document Properties > Page tab
At the top, change the Display Units to px
About halfway down change the Scale setting to 1.0

After that, if you need to change the units, just change the units only.  The Scale setting will change automatically, but it's changing as it needs to, to keep everything the right size.  So just ignore it, and only change the units.

For me, at 500 px there's just a tiny bit of blurriness, which looks like it's on the needle rather than the water.  But I have a trick that seems to help.  Instead of a flat fill for the needle, I applied a gradient to the bottom part, just the tip  .  And at the very bottom of the needle, I made it a darker brown.

Are you familiar with using gradients, or would you like instructions?  Here, I'll attach your file which I edited  (re-sized to 500 px and put gradient on the needle) (and fixed the Scale setting too).  So you can see what I did.  But if you need help with gradients, just let us know.

Oh, but I just noticed the name of the file starts with "favicon".  It will be hard to see much detail if the image is as small as a favicon.

[rspwater]

Thanks so much for taking time out to work on the design. I'm familiar with gradients but at this point I don't do much with them. I realized favicon is not the right word for the design, it's actually more of a profile image or in the case of its use on Etsy, they call it a shop icon (this is for an e-commerce storefront on Etsy). After adding strokes and revising the design the needle looks fine on Inkscape but after exporting and uploading to Etsy the needle is still quite blurry. DPI is at 300, but anyway beginning to think the Etsy platform may have something to do with it. Think I'm going to revisit this design later, maybe change design altogether. While were chatting, can I ask for your help on another issue related to downloading the latest version of Inkscape, which I downloaded last week, or should I start a new post? If the latter which is the best section to post, Skills, Challenges & Artwork?

[brynn]

If it's a quick question, you can just add it on here.  But if you think it might result in a longer discussion, then start a new topic.  You could post in Beginners Questions, and if it belongs somewhere else, we'll move it.

[rspwater]

This should be quick so I'll ask here. Note that I updated my profile, with an avatar and added which version of Inkscape I'm using and operating system, the latter may help with question, actually two quick questions.

1. Since downloading latest version last week, document properties dialog box keeps opening off screen, not completely off but partially and I have to drag it to see all of box. Attached is screenshot, in this one, box is almost completely off screen, other times when opening it's not that far off but still doesn't open as it should. Last Inkscape version I was working from which I downloaded sometime in early 2017 didn't have this issue. I work from only one screen and not two. I searched online for a solution but have not yet found to fix on my own.

2. Staying with document properties box, what should Scale X be for each display unit? Found some information about this while researching for the answer on the forum and online but I'm not sure if mine is set right. When display units is set to MM, Scale X is 1.0; changing display to PX, Scale X then changes to .26453. Are these two correct? At one point while working on a design, when zooming in and out and wanting to be at 100%, zoom would go to 101% and not 100%. Another thing that made me wonder about if settings were right...when pressing "5" on keyboard zoom goes to 72%, shouldn't it be 74%? The zoom to 100% is ok now but I had never seen that before and the issue as well as the 72/74% example made me wonder if my settings are off.

Thanks! 

[rspwater]

Forgot screenshot of dialog box. Please see attached.

[rspwater]

One more thought about question 2 regarding display units and Scale X. I had forgot to mention that I had previously seen another post that indicated display units should be set to PX and Scale X should be at 1.0. As mentioned in my question, mine is set to MM, believe as the default, and Scale X is 1.0.

Let me know of display should be PX and Scale 1.0, and if so what then should Scale X show/be when display unit is MM?

[brynn]

Yes, that's a known problem with Document Properties dialog.  Apparently everyone has to drag it over before they can use it.  Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

I explained about the Scale setting in my last message....Reply #4.  But I'll do it again.

1 -- Set Display Units for px
2 -- Set Scale for 1.0
3 -- Never touch the Scale setting again, ever, unless you know what you're doing

If you need another unit such as mm, change only the unit.  The Scale value will change when you do that, but just ignore it.  That's Inkscape doing its own thing, to keep your image the right size.

I don't know off the top of my head what the value is in Scale, when you set the unit to mm.  But Inkscape knows what it's doing.  So as long as you do steps # 1 and 2, and after that, only change the units, and never touch the scale, your image will be the right size.

For the record, I've been arguing to developers that this Scale value should not be visible to users.  (hidden behind an "Advanced" button, or something)  It's a whole long story, which I can barely understand.  But when they did what they did, they injected a ton of confusion for most users.  I hope they will go back to how it was before, but it doesn't sound like they will.

I guess I have to address this issue once a week on average.  It has become the most common problem that we see in forums now!  Forget the invisible objects (the previously most common problem), now it's the scale issue.

[rspwater]

My apologies as I completely missed the previous response about scale settings. Thank you, I greatly appreciate all your help!!

[brynn]

No worries.  It was a convenient soapbox 

You're welcome.  Good luck on the new project!