Revision as of 14:14, 5 October 2010

NOTE: this page is only partially uploaded. Additional content will be added here October 5-7.

The Big Picture

In Inkscape, it's easy to color in any path region (say, a circle) with the paint-bucket tool (or solid Fill in the Fill and Stroke pane). However, all that the Egg-Bot sees is the path around the outside, and it will be very happy to just draw the outline for you.

Egg-Bot is a vector printer, not a raster printer. If you ask it to draw a circle, the pen tip actually moves in a circular path on the surface of the object that you're drawing on. This is like an old pen plotter, and very different from an inkjet or laser printer, where the entire surface is scanned back and forth. This means that if you want to fill in a region, you need to actually construct a path that the pen will trace through the entire filled region. Plots where you fill solid regions can potentially take a long time, so it's a good idea to use alternate methods when possible. However, making solid fills is sometimes the only way to get the effect that you want.

In the procedures that follow, we'll show how you can create pen paths that fill a given region, what you might call "toolpaths" in machining terms. There are a number of different approaches that work best in different circumstances.

Hatch Method

This method is described in detail in our smiley face tutorial.

In short:

• Select a single path
• Open the live path effect editor: Path>Path Effect Editor
• Apply new effect: Hatches (rough) and click "+Add"
• Use the extension to set defaults: Extensions>Eggbot>Preset hatch for fills
• Use the "edit paths by node" tool to set the angle, spacing, and bending of the lines.

You may also need to use the Fill & Stroke panel to set the stroke to be a visible pen and the fill to "none."

This "Hatch" method can handle paths that consist of multiple disjoint regions, for example, a set of stars or non-intersecting circles, but it does not work with "hollow" regions, for example a ring or washer (2D torus) shape.

While it is slightly complicated and does not work in every situation, it's usually the best method in any situation where it can be used. It produces excellent results that plot very smoothly and efficiently, with preset deceleration at each switchback and an absolute bare minimum of pen lifts.

Inset Method

Path > Inset

Interpolation and stitch methods

Interpolation

Generate from path> Interpolate

http://inkscape.org/doc/interpolate/tutorial-interpolate.en.html

Stitch Paths

Combine paths Live path effects> Stitch sub-paths

Combining Interpolation and Stitch Paths