Greetings. I'm trying to create something like this:



But smoother (smooth gradient from center to sides) and more "friendly for editing". I tried to use "Pattern along path" effect, but it's not exactly that I want, because that way only pattern geometry is used as a pattern, gradient is ignored. Same thing with "Arrange to line".

Is it possible?

Hi.

You can use the bend lpe on groups for such effect.
(Draw the gradiented shape as a group of paths and apply the lpe on it.)

Thank you, but what about non-constant thinkness? And "gradiented shape as a group of paths" can't be smooth anyway, right?

It can look exactly as you depicted in your image. Are you after a smooth transition?
Would need filtering to draw something close.
Or using gradient meshes, but both seems to be an overkill for a line drawing.
Keep in mind that this is a vector drawing program and strokes with realistic fading lines like with watercolour and wet brush are more fractal-like. Too much data to be rendered at once, probably better to use a raster editor for that.

If the original intention is to draw with such lines.
If not, interpolating paths and fill attributes can look smooth enough.

Hello

If you have already the first image of your first post in SVG, just apply a blur (or a filter for blurring) to them (I think it can be applied to the group of them) , and you will see that the colour transitions become smoother.

About "friendly for editing", I don't see how. It will depends of the use you want, how far you want to edit: move it, bend it, change the colous or opacity?.

Move it, and bend it, and change colors and opacity

Thank you for your replies, now I know that there is no magic trick that help me reach exactly that I want, but I will use your advices to reorganize my principles of drawing.

Have you tried to interpolate already?



Cheers
P.

That's exactly that I wanted! Interpolation is that magic tool I was looking for. Many thanks.

(Well, gradients will be "stepped", not ideal, because it's impossible to get infinite number of steps, but, as it was said already, this is vector graphics so let's assume it's ok).

@romanshuvalov

So what exactly do you want to do with this shape ?

I plan to use it as "shade" (shadow) of non-flat surface. This particular example has sharp beginning and ending, but using interpolation from small shape to 100% transparent bigger shape gives result that can be used for my purposes.

romanshuvalov wrote:I plan to use it as "shade" (shadow) of non-flat surface.

Like a bevel ?

romanshuvalov wrote:(Well, gradients will be "stepped", not ideal, because it's impossible to get infinite number of steps, but, as it was said already, this is vector graphics so let's assume it's ok).

Well - you can smooth it by blurring it and masking the shape to whatever you like - just to let you know.

Cheers
P.

Yes, like a bevel.

No, blurring does not give same result.

If you use blurring then why not using fecomposite instead of masking?

Thank you for your tip, but my goal is different.

It will not be just shape with bevel. It will be non-flat surface like this:


(this is fragment of OpenCycleMap)

Do you see that small gray shadows? That's that I'm trying to draw. In my case it's impossible to draw real relief in order to apply diffuse lighting.

Still a bit confused.

That map has isolines, which you can generate a 3D surface upon and add diffuse lighting to it.*
So how is that impossible, in theory?

Because in action the isoline's vectors alone can be heavy.
And what the output format would be?
If you want to print it from a pdf, the filters need to be rasterized, so you would end up with embedded raster images -can be machine melting large if the resolution/size is too big.


*Blender has a nice add-on to triangulate point clouds.
With subdivision surface modifier you can make it look more polished, and you can render a raster image of it in "any" size.

I'm guessing romanshuvalov wants that, based in the isolines, and vector for a direction of light , some parts of the map have "shadows"... maybe using filters: offsetting and blurring. We need an expert in SVG filters here.

The other way is doing by hand and eye, adding patches of blurred shapes.

But if it just need interpolations... well... glad He found the solution,.. allthough... I don't understand the original problem neither.

My previous example had a diffuse filter added for the effect.
It's "real" 3D shading instead of blurring and offsetting, though that's not so complicated to make either.

That map has isolines, which you can generate a 3D surface upon and add diffuse lighting to it.*

I predicted that answer... No, I don't have any isolines, this is just an example. Sorry I didn't found example that exactly shows I need to reach.

Anyway I think I found solution (interpolation + blur) so I have no problem anymore. Thank you for help.