Episode 175: Polygonal Blob

After a visit to Libre Graphics World with a report about the state of GIMP 2.8 and a look into the future.

I tackle a question I was asked at the 28c3. Is there a way to draw geometric figures in GIMP? Well, I found three.

The selection tools provide a variety of ways to make a geometric selection which later can be stroked or filled with a colour or pattern. The paths tool can be handy too, I didn’t cover it in this show.

The Gfig plugin allows the construction and editing of such figures, but there are a lot of drawbacks and some risk of fatal crashes.

And finally – is GIMP the right tool? Why not take Inkscape, dabble a bit and export the result to GIMP? Inkscape is easy to use for simple tasks – they have a really good user interface. For more complicated stuff there are the tutorials at screencasters.com. Long time no show there, but perhaps Richard and heathenx can be pestered into making some more. They haven’t given up but gone into hibernation a bit.

And if you are in or around Toronto – Steve Czajka is holding an interesting course there.

The TOC

00:40 State of GIMP 2.8 – http://libregraphicsworld.org/
01:55 28c3 in Berlin
02:30 Drawing geometric figures – a missing feature?
03:30 Select and stroke
03:35 Rectangle, Ellipse and Free Hand selection tool
04:15 Help from Guides and the Grid
05:00 Stroke
05:50 Combining selections
06:20 Subtracting selections
07:10 gfig plugin
07:30 Lines,rectangles, circles, arcs, polygons, stars and more
08:10 Limits and drawbacks
09:00 Editing
11:00 CRASH!!!!
11:30 Don’t use GIMP! Use Inkscape!
15:30 Getting the work back to GIMP.
16:00 Making a colour transparent
17:00 Choose the right tool
18:00 Version control for GIMP – not yet


Meet the GIMP Video Podcast by Rolf Steinort and Philippe Demartin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://meetthegimp.org.