Inkscape:Scalable Vector Graphics Editor

Jul 13, 2010 by Shivendu Madhava

If you’re looking for an alternative to Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw, chances are you’ll find it in Inkscape. It comes for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, and setting it up on any of them is a no-brainer.

Inkscape’s primary function is as an editor for the SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format—the W3C’s standard XML format for vector graphics on the Web.Because SVG is nothing but plain text that is rendered to an image by the browser, it is very bandwitdh- friendly, and when used right can create some very impressive graphics. Writing XML code to create graphics is something that only the gifted can do without assistance, however, so such graphical editors are much appreciated by the community at large.

Inkscape’s features will always be restricted to the offerings of the SVG standard, so they’re bound to hit a ceiling sometime. In the meanwhile, you can create graphics with complex shapes and paths, transparency effects, gradients and patterns. You can also import and export files in the Adobe Illustrator (.ai) format.

You can also trace simple raster graphics (JPEG, PNG and the like) to convert them to the vector format, though this feature isn’t as evolved as Corel’s or Illustrator’s bitmap-tracing capabilities.Another shortcoming is the limited freedom that one has in terms of brushes—you can’t set your drawings to look like they were scratched out with a piece of charcoal (not without some difficulty, at least).

Overall, Inkscape is light, easy to learn, and an undoubted essential if you want to create SVG images for your Web site. And with the three major browsers supporting SVG, it might just be time to consider that.

Site: www.inkscape.org