Please advise,

Have a 'need' to rotate the canvas while working on this project.

Best Regards

xroox wrote:Please advise, have a 'need' to rotate the canvas while working on this project.

You already found the feature request at launchpad ;) - the answer to «So, can we rotate the canvas? I am unclear how to do this.» is "Can't be done in current Inkscape, maybe in a future version".

Thanks ~suv

For now I have abandoned the design requiring me to rotate the canvas frequently to work effectively. I will investigate if this is possible with OOoDraw.

I'm curious why rotating the canvas is necessary, and why none of Inkscape's other tools can be used instead? (like rotating the image, for one example)

brynn wrote:I'm curious why rotating the canvas is necessary, and why none of Inkscape's other tools can be used instead? (like rotating the image, for one example)

I know this is old, but I was just searching the web to find if this was yet possible.

The reason why rotating the canvas is desirable is for when you need to draw freehand--using or , for example. The human hand is very good at drawing curves, but is limited by the position of your hand. When people draw on paper, they often twist the paper, or their body, to take advantage of the hands natural movement.

Rotating the image in Inkscape is possible but very awkward when every stroke may require and adjustment to the rotation. Software like ArtRage allows this in a very quick and natural way that makes drawing on screen almost as pleasant as drawing on paper--but it's not vector

I guess that sort of makes sense. In the other program, do you mean that rotating the canvas is faster than clicking Ctrl + A , then rotate 90 deg button (or whatever the key shortcut is) in Inkscape?

Why would they need to rotate the canvas when rotating the graphics tablet does the same thing? If necessary, they can rotate their whole desk, which would rotate the tablet and the monitor (which rotates the canvas).

shawnhcorey wrote:Why would they need to rotate the canvas when rotating the graphics tablet does the same thing? If necessary, they can rotate their whole desk, which would rotate the tablet and the monitor (which rotates the canvas).

A tablet is not really easy to use because you draw something on your tablet that is displayed on the screen, unlike paper where what you draw is displayed where you draw it. If you rotate your tablet, it won't be parallel to your screen anymore and will be even more difficult to use. Rotating the canvas doesn't have this problem.

Mathieu147 wrote:

shawnhcorey wrote:Why would they need to rotate the canvas when rotating the graphics tablet does the same thing? If necessary, they can rotate their whole desk, which would rotate the tablet and the monitor (which rotates the canvas).

A tablet is not really easy to use because you draw something on your tablet that is displayed on the screen, unlike paper where what you draw is displayed where you draw it. If you rotate your tablet, it won't be parallel to your screen anymore and will be even more difficult to use. Rotating the canvas doesn't have this problem.

Huh? The tablet is on your desk. The screen is vertical. They are not aligned. You mentally rotate and translate your movements to what you see. Just rotate your tablet. It works.

brynn wrote:In the other program, do you mean that rotating the canvas is faster than clicking Ctrl + A , then rotate 90 deg button (or whatever the key shortcut is)

Significantly. Try it yourself. Use your mouse to draw something--download an image to trace would be even better. Zoom into a portion of a drawing, then do as you say. And do it over and over and over like you would when drawing many lines in drawing. And remember, 90 degrees may not be the angle you need to best draw a line--you need to free rotate it. But you'll soon realise that if you try.

With ArtRage and can easily pan, zoom, and rotate by holding a modifier key and dragging the canvas--it's effortless and quick. If you are interested, you can download ArtRage for free and to try for yourself.

shawnhcorey wrote:If necessary, they can rotate their whole desk

That literally made me laugh out loud. How did we all overlook that the obvious and superior solution would be to rotate our desks The old light-bulb joke came to mind.

shawnhcorey wrote:Huh? The tablet is on your desk. The screen is vertical. They are not aligned. You mentally rotate and translate your movements to what you see. Just rotate your tablet. It works.

Are you speaking from experience? I know for myself, rotating the tablet so is no longer aligned with what I see on screen makes drawing very difficult--a bit like drawing with a mirror, although not so bad. I expect with practice it's something many artists have got good at. But in some cases I'll turn a canvas up side down, and that's definitely not going to work with a tablet.

Note that I'm not arguing we can't live without it. But most of what Inkscape offers is not "needed" but it's there because it makes creating images easier. The ability to rotate the canvas would be a great feature.

shawnhcorey wrote:

Mathieu147 wrote:

shawnhcorey wrote:Why would they need to rotate the canvas when rotating the graphics tablet does the same thing? If necessary, they can rotate their whole desk, which would rotate the tablet and the monitor (which rotates the canvas).

A tablet is not really easy to use because you draw something on your tablet that is displayed on the screen, unlike paper where what you draw is displayed where you draw it. If you rotate your tablet, it won't be parallel to your screen anymore and will be even more difficult to use. Rotating the canvas doesn't have this problem.

Huh? The tablet is on your desk. The screen is vertical. They are not aligned. You mentally rotate and translate your movements to what you see. Just rotate your tablet. It works.

The screen and the tablet are two planes, and there are many ways for two planes to be parallel. Just imagine a horizontal line on your screen, and, on the tablet, a line that goes from the middle of the left side to the middle of the right side. The line on the screen and the line on the tablet can be parallel, right? If they are, the tablet is (approximately) in the right position to draw.

If you rotate your tablet a little bit, it will become really difficult. You simply can't put your tablet in any position.

When I draw with mine, I start my drawing, then I find the position is not corret so I rotate it by 5° clockwise. Then draw again. Still not good, rotate by 3° counter-clockwise. Then draw again. Almost there: rotate 2° clockwise. Then draw again. Ok, the position is right.

There are very expensive tablets that have an embeded screen so there is no problem but then it will be $2000 instead of $75.

microUgly wrote:Are you speaking from experience? I know for myself, rotating the tablet so is no longer aligned with what I see on screen makes drawing very difficult--a bit like drawing with a mirror, although not so bad.

Yes. Nor is your tablet perfectly aligned. Right-handed people usually have it rotated a few degrees counterclockwise; left handers, clockwise. Yes, it takes a little practice but not much; not as much as, for example, drawing hair.

Yeah, I've never used a tablet, so I don't understand some of the subtleties. I'm having a hard time understanding about rotating the tablet, but I sort of get it. I've been assuming, all this time, that when you draw on a tablet, you can see what you're drawing, both on the tablet and on the screen. Is that not the case? If you can only see what you're drawing on the screen, then it totally makes sense that rotating it would be tricky.


Thanks for the explanation, microUgly. I understand now

brynn wrote:I've been assuming, all this time, that when you draw on a tablet, you can see what you're drawing, both on the tablet and on the screen. Is that not the case? If you can only see what you're drawing on the screen, then it totally makes sense that rotating it would be tricky.

Yeah, these are old school "graphic" tablets, not your new fandangled iPads that all the youngins have They have no screen unless you buy a multi-thousand doller one that Mathieu147 referred to.


iPad and Android tablets are a different beast to these. They can't really compete with "graphics" tablets. You can still draw with them, but not with the accuracy you can with a graphics tablet. Graphics tablets are usually pressure sensetive and the more expensive ones can detect the tilt of your pen also.

Oooh, yeah I completely understand now!

Still learning every day

I know this is an old post, but I am looking for an answer to this as well and cannot find one. The question asked was how to rotate a canvas. It was not how to rotate a computer, tablet, monitor, hand, or anything else. If you cannot answer the question then why post anything at all?

Here is a valid reason for rotating the canvas; Because the axonometric grid cannot be rotated. Can anyone understand why that might need to be rotated or are you all going to tell me to rotate my monitor also?

The reason I need to axonometric grid rotated is because there are grid lines at 0, 90, and 270 degrees. That means vertical and no horizontal lines. I need horizontal lines to line up graphics horizontally for marketing. Things like text. Does this make sense to anyone? Does anyone know if this grid can be rotated or if there is a plugin for Inkscape that will allow this? My neck is getting sore from tilting it 30 degrees to the right all day...(that is a joke).

Any response is appreciated.

Hey,

just wanting to chip in to this topic for a moment too...

Apart from the artistic/motoric reason to be able to rotate your canvas, I have a different one.

I often have to draw fire escape plans for our schools. Every now and then, the buildings are not all aligned 90° towards each other.
So it would be really handy to be able to rotate the canvas as to have a new "horizontal line" in which I can then draw rectangles, etc...

One could argue that zooming in and out is also not needed... one could use a bigger display :p
(just for the record: that last comment was ironic)

Hi.

A workaround "kludge" -
one way to "Rotate the Canvas";
As this will be using groups all layers in the file will be "flattened" to one layer!

For this example I use a A4 page of 210x297mm.

Start by drawing a rectangle snapping to the page corners.
Create a layer called "Kanvas"
Select all objects in your drawing,
Move the selection to the "Kanvas" layer.
To make sure your work area stays inside the new page needed
- go to page properties and set the page size to 364 x 364 mm. ( sqrt (210^2 + 297^2) )
Use the align tool to center the selection on the "new" page.

You can now rotate the selection to any angle using the transform tool. (Shift Ctrl M)
Do your file edits making sure you keep your work inside the "Kanvas Rectangle" - when finished
select all and use the transform objects dialog to rotate it back.
To get the original page size back - page properties - resize page to content.

Just an idea, make all layers -if more than one- sublayers of the one you draw on, and, add the transformation to the layer group itself, and not to the objects inside.

DaveGerard wrote:The reason I need to axonometric grid rotated is because there are grid lines at 0, 90, and 270 degrees. That means vertical and no horizontal lines. I need horizontal lines to line up graphics horizontally for marketing. Things like text. Does this make sense to anyone? Does anyone know if this grid can be rotated or if there is a plugin for Inkscape that will allow this?

Tad bit late, but you can set up multiple grids.

As of March 2017 you can now rotate the canvas using Ctrl + Shift + Scroll https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/170498

@hellocatfood: This pertains to the development version, and I don't expect it to be available in any stable Inkscape version before end of 2017.