I dabble in graphic design and I of course love OSS applications because of the enthusiasm and practicality that is typical of their design. Inkscape started as a fork from Sodipodi by a group of programmers who were bent on C++. I personally was fine with this because the main Sodipodi author brought his personal politics into the project website and sample art. After sinking a load of time into converting the Sodipodi core to C++ from C, Inkscape started to develop some new features. Sodipodi quickly became the “Popular People’s Front” of one and Inkscape took off like wild fire. Inkscape is hands down easier to use than any other professional vector graphics software I have ever used including Illustrator.

For the second summer in a row now Inkscape has benefited from the Google Summer of Code. However this year there were some very significant features that resulted. I have been using a pre-release of Inkscape with these features on a new website for Fairmount Printers and I am very impressed.

The new docking system improves MS Windows window focusing issues. The bitmap to path tool seems much faster although the SIOX selection is not fixed yet. They have added a number of raster filters so you don’t have to switch back and forth from The GIMP or Photoshop. They have a lot of aesthetics to work on in the Effect area though. Text manipulation has not been improved much on the surface yet. You still have to adjust letter spacing and manual kerning from key combos.

I saved the best for last. Inkscape can now import PDF directly which means that it can import a large number of formats indirectly. The resultant SVG is surprising cohesive. For those who have tried to open a PDF or PS file intended for a printer before you will be pleasantly surprised.