I have used 3D Box tool and it works wonderfully!

But now I need to draw plain lines (not boxes) in perspective. I have not found a way.

I know that I can draw a line to vanishing point with Pen tool and then cut it by creating new node etc., but that is clumsy. Also, of course I can make 3D Box and ungroup it and delete unwanted parts, but that is even slower.

Is there a way to draw just lines as quickly and accurately as boxes with 3D Box tool?

I Googled, read wiki and tried even to read the book by Tavmjong Bah, but didn't find any elegant solutions. I am sure there's a way, Inkscape is way too powerful not to have this, but I'm just too thickheaded to find it... Help!

I think you might be looking for the Envelope extension (Extensions menu)? But I'm not positive about that, I've never used it myself, but read lots of messages about it.

Maybe you can turn a 3D box into guides, try and see if it helps.

Thanks!

Guides are working solution, to a point. I just draw enough them (towards vanishing point etc.) and use guide intersections!

However, I end up with loads of guides. Are there ways to delete guides?

However, this is quite neat trick, thanks a lot!

Oh, I see, hover over guide + del deletes a guide. Wonderful!

Complete solution: I draw guides to horizon vanishing point, use guide intersections to snap and get perfect perspective lines! This is very cool indeed.

Thank you!

1. pen tool: draw straight lines (each line has two nodes)
2. Select all lines and combine them to a single path (ctrl + k)
3. Select the path with
4. select all end nodes and allign them to a single node via "shift-ctrl-a"-dialog
5. now with you can hoover over those aligned nodes and can move them as one single vanishing point

I hope, it helps...

I'm glad it helped

I didn't want to start a new topic...

I'd like to share few observations I made during the making of...

Bucic wrote:my very own cockpit layout figure:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Qv6Gusorw&hd=1

As you can see whole panels had to be put onto perspective. The basics are known:
* only path can be subjected to perspective
* polygon describing the perspective has to be path too, drawn in the following direction
2....3

1(5) 4
*before running the perspective extension select the object to be modified then the polygon describing the perspective
*if many objects are to be modified etc. ... then use Path - Combine path and combine them all


____
My additional observations:
1. I ran into whole lot of problems with unpredictable perspective extension outputs and it was not caused by drawing the in the wrong order. It was all caused by some combined paths being Grouped! Since I've discovered it I was always making sure I issue the Ungroup command until nothing is grouped. Only then Combine.

2.
I've discovered that guides can be easily rotated when holding the Shift key.
Shift + \ - hides/shows guides
delete guide - simply drag it outside the area of rulers
Object - To guides - very useful too

3.The 3D Box tool could be very useful but I can't seem to find a way to adjust vanishing points for different 3D boxes independently http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL ... Boxes.html

And here I've just hit a wall :/ I can't map 1 onto 2 by any means. Ungrouping and breaking paths before perspective doesn't help.

Bump.

Hello.

Thank you very much! I'll look into it later.

For me it's the most serious drawback of Inkscape - lack of proper perspective/cage deformation tool. I could illustrate my whole book (aviation related, lots of figures needed) but that one thing makes it impossible even though the figures would have been simple, like these:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... attern.jpg

(the bottom figure)
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b68/B ... bucic2.png

Don't you think it's about time? IMO the tool should be considered as basic and should be pushed into some quirky, cumbersome extension not suitable for any kind of serious work. It also brings to mind a thought that Inkscape suffers from development stagnation, judging by the pace of introduction of new features.

I'm not familiar with any other graphics programs, besides Inkscape. (The GIMP just a little, but I don't recall a perspective tool.) So I don't understand what such a perspective tool would do, besides what the extension already does. Could you elaborate on what kind of features you're looking for?

I disagree about development stagnation. You realize, I'm sure, that Inkscape is open source, and created entirely on a volunteer basis? I think currently the addition of new features is sort of on hold, because the developers are focusing on some major transition in what I might call Inkscape's infrastructure. I'm sorry not to be using the proper terminology, and that's a very paraphrased version of my understanding of the current state of Inkscape's development.

I don't mean to be grumpy but there's no point to go into details. If you're not familiar with possible applications of perspective tools you should read about it in Adobe Illustrator documentation or tutorials. Currently working with perspective in Inkscape is like creating svg's in XML editor with a preview window...

Just recall the entire Inkscape perspective procedure (that alone, that it's a procedure, makes it a miss) and look at the simple figure I've done download/file.php"font-weight: bold">4 times the amount of time I'd spend working with a proper perspective / free transform tool.

http://www.informit.com/articles/articl ... &seqNum=26



In Illustrator it's done in a no questions asked manner i.e. you just do it.

On the stagnation thing. The fact that I is an OS project is rather irrelevant. The fact is a fact - features are being introduced extremely slow past 0.46 IIRC. Infrastructure work you say? Indeed, there's something going on re the core part http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Roadmap Interestingly GIMP has just received its own free transform tool http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLt3Uo5cMbA

Don't forget the Gimp clone with perspective tool.

Anyway, I'd like to know where can I bump that feature by voting or something. Is the https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape the only place for this?

If there's not already a new feature request for this, then yes, you're welcome to start a new feature request "bug report". (anyone is welcome to)

But I wouldn't mention the "development stagnation" thing, if you want them to take your request seriously.

brynn wrote:If there's not already a new feature request for this, then yes, you're welcome to start a new feature request "bug report". (anyone is welcome to)

But I wouldn't mention the "development stagnation" thing, if you want them to take your request seriously.

So the launchpad it is. Regarding the development stagnation - even I must admit that the statement is most probably false. I meant stagnation as measured by the number of end user features being introduced, which obviously is not the same thing and certainly calling the current state "development stagnation" is not fair towards those currently involved.


EDIT:
OK, I think I've located a proper Launchpad wishlist entry https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/235848
Please create launchpad account (or log in using your Ubuntu One password) and comment, plus click on the "This bug affects me" link in the upper part of the page.

Related launchpad entries:
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/inksca ... on-handles -> http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php ... erspective , http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php ... on_handles

Bucic wrote:For me it's the most serious drawback of Inkscape - lack of proper perspective/cage deformation tool. I could illustrate my whole book (aviation related, lots of figures needed) but that one thing makes it impossible even though the figures would have been simple, like these:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... attern.jpg

(the bottom figure)
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b68/B ... bucic2.png

Don't you think it's about time? IMO the tool should be considered as basic and should be pushed into some quirky, cumbersome extension not suitable for any kind of serious work. It also brings to mind a thought that Inkscape suffers from development stagnation, judging by the pace of introduction of new features.

What's with this project?
Have you tried blender for 3D modelling?

Bucic wrote:For me it's the most serious drawback of Inkscape - lack of proper perspective/cage deformation tool.

I agree that it's a significant limitation, however the restriction is at least partly down to the SVG spec. That only contains affine transformations (scale, rotate, skew), not perspective or other transformation types. As Inscape uses SVG as its primary file format, the developers are somewhat hampered by such limitations in the spec (see also the lack of gradient types). That's not to say that it *can't* be done, but rather that it's not easy to do it in a way that's both backwards compatible with other SVG viewers and won't be a hindrance if/when SVG2 (or 3 or 4) finally does add such a thing to the spec*.


In practice you might actually find it more practical to take the approach I did when I wanted to apply a perspective deformation to a group of objects:

1) Obtain a bitmap image of the group via File > Export Bitmap or Edit > Make a Bitmap Copy.
2) Load the bitmap (or copy and paste) into The GIMP or another bitmap editor that has the deformation tools you need.
3) Deform the image to your heart's content.
4) Copy and paste the resultant image back into Inkscape.
5) Put the image behind the group, make the group translucent, then edit the individual objects within the group to match the bitmap version.
6) Delete the bitmap.

In other words, perform the deformation manually, but using another application to provide a template for you to work against.


* As far as I can tell non-affine deformations have been dropped from the SVG2 spec in favour of deferring to the CSS transformations spec. Whether this makes it more or less likely to make an appearance in a future version of Inkscape, I have no idea.