Hello!
I've recently started using Inkscape and followed a tutorial on knot effects with Path Effects Editor "knot" option but I couldn't replicate the results in some versions of Inkscape. Since I'm kinda new (and not sure if it's a bug or just something I'm doing wrong) I was hoping to get some input here.

Anyway the process is as follows. I create few simple shapes, arrange them so they overlap, select them and combine with Ctrl+K, select the combined path and go Path -> Path Effects -> add Knot.

So now the points where the paths of each shape intersect become editable with the "fixed width" parameter in the Knot tab section.
By tweaking fixed width the path around intersection either "opens" up or "closes" the original shape.

The problem is that in the tutorial the "opening" and "closing" ends of the knotted path move equidistantly in respect to the intersection (crossing) when incrementing or decrementing fixed width. Essentially when clicking on positive values arrow the knotted path ends "open up" by the same amount and when going towards negative they close up. However in Inkscape 0.91 one end is offset and moves closer to the intersection so tweaking fixed width always brings one side closer to the intersecting path while other is quite far away.

I've tested several versions of Inkscape and it seems this works in 0.47 while in 0.48 and 0.91 I get mixed results.
Here are few examples, first case is three circles, second one is with 3 polygons and third a circle that has its center shifted and is tile cloned around it. Green color is before applying knot effect to the path, red is with it.

Inkscape 0.47, all cases work.
Inkscape 0.48, don't have the pic but circles and polygons worked fine and tiled clone was badly offset.
Inkscape 0.91, only polygon one works, others are offset (bottom end isn't centered it touches the intersection).

Seems to me like a bug but I might be missing something, what do you guys think?

Hello

In Inkscape 0.91 I have similar when three (3) circular paths are interesected. But when I add more nodes to the circular paths I get better results



More information about the knot extension here:
http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL ... -Knot.html

In summary:
I also think is a BUG for the knot path effect in 0.91. Please search in Inkscape.org where to fill the bug, or look if already have been notified.

Good luck

The bug report section is at launchpad: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape

hulf2012 wrote: But when I add more nodes to the circular paths I get better results

Hey, thank you for answering and the link, it seems you've found the solution as it works flawlessly when I add more nodes to the path. Here is the circle in 0.91 with one additional node in each segment (4 total) and it looks like it did in 0.47.

Should I still report this? It does work when adding more nodes but it used to work on simple ellipses as well.

Yesterday, I wanted to test if this is maybe already fixed in 0.92, where a couple of those 'object to path' things have been tweaked (as far as I understand) - but the program didn't run at all... As I'd like to have a working copy of the devel version anyway, and think this has to do with my chroot environment, I'm installing a virtual machine right now.
I'll try this out in the development version, and will get back to you.

Well, no. It doesn't work at all in the trunk version (only shows a single intersection), but says: There was an error when applying the path effect...

Edit: it does work well when I insert a couple of nodes.

Yes, please search through the reports and make one, if there isn't one.

Hi Moini, tnx for testing this out! I've kinda checked it briefly on the 0.92 win64 version but it didn't work for me even with the additional nodes. Anyways the report is here.

Edit: It really does work well with additional nodes in 0.92 like you said.

Thank you!