Re: Supershapes for dia?

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004, W. Borgert wrote:

> Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 22:27:41 +0000
> From: W. Borgert <debacle debian org>
> Reply-To: dia-list gnome org
> To: dia-list gnome org
> Subject: Supershapes for dia?
>
> This would make a nice addition to dia:
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/curves/supershape/
> (with C code exmample).  Any takers?

"The supershape equation is an extension of the both the equation of the
sphere and ellipse"

Very cool.
Curved stars and polygons, a weird droplet shape.
Ooh pretty!

It is like Spirograph* all over again.

I think for a complicated sphere/ellipse like this to be really practical
it would require something like handles to allow interactive adjustment a
feature that Dia doesn't have.  I think it would be difficult to make this
into a simple to use feature and I'm not even sure the markup would be all
that easy generate either (a complex SVG path I'd guess)

I'm not sure this is ideal for Dia.  In my humble opinion, the ideal would
be if other applications would provide the drawing tools Dia needs and Dia
would focus on fast production of technical diagrams from premade shapes.
A more generic way to plot equations as paths in Dia might be
approrpriate to Dia.

I have forwarded a copy of this mail to the Inkscape developers who I hope
might be interested to implement an advanced Ellipse tool like this.

Despite my reservations on how best to implement this it it would
certainly be great if someone was interested enough to implement it.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/

* Obligatory Simpsons quote:
"Dr. S: Wait: did you know that there's a direct correlation between the
decline of Spirograph and the rise in gang activity?  Think about it."

PS Please dont crosspost in reply to this message.  I have deliberately
set the Reply-To to go to me.  The Dia list will overwrite this and set
the Reply-To as the Dia list and the Inkscape list will leave it alone, so
please respond only to the relevant list.