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Better option would be to open it in inkscape and use Path->Trace Bitmap.

Now you can perform a little path editing to smooth out the rough edges without all that messy mouse tracing.

However you might want to touch it up in gimp to give it the various colors. (Inkscape can flood fill the object, but it usually doesn't look quite right.)

I tried Inkscape 0.39 but it crashes on me all the time.

Thanks,
Nyenyec

I'm a graphic artist, and I sympathize with your position, as I used to feel the same. After using the Gimp 2.0 (replaces Photoshop), and Inkscape (replaces Illustrator [still needs a bit of refining, but moving quickly]), the only real gaping hole that remains for me to make a complete switch to F/OSS is an InDesign replacement. Scribus appears to be the likely, eventual choice, but their latest version still needs much work. If you haven't tried Gimp lately, or Inkscape, give them a shot. They're both quite usable, as far as I'm concerned.

1. I downloaded some, and I just realized I don't have any application installed to watch SVG's in my Mac. Does anyone know of a SVG viewer for Mac? And perhaps a converter? I can really use some of these images on a couple of OmniGraffle diagrams that I'm working on...

Take a look at Inkscape in the Fink ports repository;

1. List of ported graphics tools in Fink.

   The Fink Inkscape page (booring but functional).

Inkscape will import or save/export a few common formats. A couple other programs in the list also handle SVG.

If you're trying to make a logo and not a diagram, then you might want to try Inkscape as well. It's a vector-drawing program, similar in nature to Adobe Illustrator (but with fewer features)

From what I've seen, they're standards used on web pages.

Then you're be wrong. Both Inkscape and Sodipodi are tools along the lines of CorelDraw, and guess what, they use SVG as their format! SVG is designed as one thing: a format for specifying vector-based images (along the lines of, say, PostScript or PDF). Nothing more. It can be combined with CSS, ECMAScript, and other technologies for doing other things (eg, displaying graphics on a webpage, or even doing flash-like animations). But SVG is most definitely *not* used just for "web pages".

I don't understand you.

Of course my work is not free.

I don't see what that has to do with software being free or not.

The software I write for my day job is proprietary , but there are more extreme examples; consider Cygnus solutions, who, as a "third party company" charged for their work, producing GPLed software.

(maybe they did some propreitary software I've forgotten about, but the bulk of their work was contracting as I recall)

Cygnus did very well at that up to the time they were bought out by Red Hat (who try to manage through "licensing fees" which aren't quite actual licensing fees, and not doing so well).

The imposition of licensing fees are not necessary in order to be paid for services rendered; a simple contract will do.

Heck, even on an informal basis, in Inkscape we have had a couple developers who were paid to develop GPLed code for us.

Being paid for work, rather than artificial entitlements. What a novel concept.

Contrary to what I posted earlier there apparentely is already one hell of a tool that creates svg-graphics, namely sodipody.

Even better than Sodipodi is Inkscape. It's a fork of Sodipodi, ported to C++ and more actively developed. It's well worth checking out the screenshots page. Sodipodi is pretty much a one man effort, and that man (Lauris Kaplinski) doesn't get much time to work on it. Inkscape is developed in a more collabarative manner, and has made impressive advancements during its short existence.

Contrary to what I posted earlier there apparentely is already one hell of a tool that creates svg-graphics, namely sodipody.

Even better than Sodipodi is Inkscape. It's a fork of Sodipodi, ported to C++ and more actively developed. It's well worth checking out the screenshots page. Sodipodi is pretty much a one man effort, and that man (Lauris Kaplinski) doesn't get much time to work on it. Inkscape is developed in a more collabarative manner, and has made impressive advancements during its short existence.

There's been work on adding Dublin Core metadata support to Inkscape, for its next release.

The need for the metadata support is entirely practical in this case: the Open Clip Art Library requires all SVG submissions have proper metadata embedded, to ensure licensing and authorship correctness. Also, there is an SVG Clip Art Browser that uses the metadata info for its display.

One interesting observation that's come up recently and is being discussed on the lists is what happens when you embed several pieces of clipart into a larger document, how do you access the RDF of the individual bits in Inkscape?

There's been work on adding Dublin Core metadata support to Inkscape, for its next release.

The need for the metadata support is entirely practical in this case: the Open Clip Art Library requires all SVG submissions have proper metadata embedded, to ensure licensing and authorship correctness. Also, there is an SVG Clip Art Browser that uses the metadata info for its display.

One interesting observation that's come up recently and is being discussed on the lists is what happens when you embed several pieces of clipart into a larger document, how do you access the RDF of the individual bits in Inkscape?

When looking into metadata, people should probably be sure to check out XMP

It's from Adobe, and whereas RDF just says how to format metadata, XMP addresses what to include in your RDF, and how to place it into different types of files. They have free libraries, but it's simple enough to follow even with your own code. And... given that it's how all Adobe products are doing metadata, at least in the publishing world it will probably stay something to pay attention to.

Creative Commons has addressed this, and I first hit it in researching implementing metadata support for Inkscape.

I just wish Adobe would port their software to Linux so I don't have to wait for the current crop of open source tools to catch up. They've got a huge lead (Adobe), unlike the rapidly shrinking lead that Microsoft has with their toolset (Office, etc.).

Oh, yes, mod me down. I've dared to imply that the dreaded "M$" has some sort of quality lead over the likes of OpenOffice.org, MySQL or Evolution. Go ahead, I'm waiting.

Good names really do help grease the wheels.

When we forked Inkscape from Sodipodi, we gave a lot of careful thought to branding, and over the course of the project it's paid off in a lot of small ways.

Of course branding doesn't determine the long-term success of a project; there are a lot of successful projects which are even agressively BADLY branded (e.g. GIMP, or (IMO) Sodipodi). Long-term a project stands or falls by its technical, legal, and organizational merits.

But in the short term branding is often the thing that gives you those little critically needed boosts at the right times.

Don't think that cuddly penguin hasn't helped Linux.

The item I like about Xfig is I can create template objects quickly and easily and add them to it library of objects. The last time I tried to make an object for Dia I just gave up.

Now if Inkscape could export to the .xfig format and Xfig to the proper .svg format that would be great! Using both tools would save me sometime.

Well I still happen to use Xfig and would find it handy if I could use both tools together without exporting/importing item and losing the ability to scale the object. Not sure if thats on the roadmap but I would love to see it added.

Sodipodi is pretty good, IIRC.

Inkscape is a fork of Sodipodi, with a more open approach and an emphasis on using C++. The result is a program that builds upon Sodipodi's good points by adding a better user interface, handsome new features (like boolean operations), as well as being a lot more stable.

My impression is that Lauris Kaplinski (the Sodipodi maintainer) was doing a David Dawes impression and holding Sodipodi development back in one way or another, and Inkscape is the result of all the frustration that built up. Now the momentum is with Inkscape which has a bright future with a lot of active developers.

Also, the "unorganised approach to open source" comment in the story is very unfair. Inkscape is a very well organised project and Bryce in particular is very diligent about keeping the future well mapped out. The "unorganised" jibe is really because Bryce and Co let people hack on features they want to hack on, and readily accept them if they meet a decent standard. But isn't that what open source is all about? And isn't the reason for many forks and/or project stagnation due to this being prevented? I'd say "open minded" is a more appropriate term.

Well, I think the main motivations were to change the code to C++, to rely on third-party libraries if these were actively maintained and (I think) were available on different platforms, to get an interface more HIG-compliant and to make emphasis on a small core with extension capabilities.

But you could read it better in this pages of Inkscape's wiki.

Well, I think the main motivations were to change the code to C++, to rely on third-party libraries if these were actively maintained and (I think) were available on different platforms, to get an interface more HIG-compliant and to make emphasis on a small core with extension capabilities.

But you could read it better in this pages of Inkscape's wiki.

If you like inkscape, but you find there is a feature you need is missing, request it here.

The Inkscape developers have implemtneted loads of cool features already, and you can help it make it even beter.

You can even contribute patches if your feeling bold.

Also, here is the Roadmap on their wiki.

according to the roadmap, pdf and eps export will arrive at milestone 9 (inkscape 0.43). The project has currently completed milestone 4 (inkscape 0.39, though .38 is what sourceforge has for download). It'll start to get real interesting for me when I can make .eps and .pdf objects

Also, as far as porting Linux applications to Windows goes, in my experience as a project leader of Inkscape, it's been worth it.

Not only has the Windows version attracted a lot of users and developers, it's also helped migrate a number of them to Linux.

The best way to migrate most people to Linux is not to throw them in the deep end of the pool and hope they learn to swim. A gradual transition works better.

Once all the apps they use on a regular basis are ones which are available on Linux, most people are pretty happy to switch.

That might sound a little naive, but from experience that's the way it works.

It does, however, require that the free applications be better than their proprietary equivalents (for the user's specific needs, at least). We can do that, right?

The Professional version has Sodipodi 0.34 (the most recent) but not Inkscape. That's unforgivable.

Also, why on earth put Gimp into Personal and not Inkscape? A vector app is more convenient for many tasks simply because it's vector, and many users find it easier to do simple graphics in intuitive vectors than in raster. I hate it when the raster paradigm (Gimp/Photoshop) is being pushed as synonymous to "graphics" or even "design", while in reality it's just one of the tools, and not the primary one in most cases.

Tried inkscape?. I am a professional graphics designer. I migrated my entire business to it from illistrator.

Don't forget Crossover office, lets you run Office and Photoshop on Linux.

Also if you want usabillity, get a distro with GNOME 2.6! Its so easy to use, I find Windows painful!

Compare the respective UI's of Sodipodi and Inkscape. Inkscape is a fork of Sodipodi.

I've seen some great artwork produced with Sodipodi, but whenever i've toyed around with the program I found it frustrating. I could never get going with it. I only recently discovered Inkscape (last week, to be exact), but from the beginning I found it to be very intuitive, and was quickly able to produce some neat looking graphics. Furthermore, Inkscape was actually fun to use right from the very beginning, showed no loss of Sodipodi's power and options, and now I plan to use it alot in combination with Photoshop.

I think that the Gimp developers could learn something from the Inkscape project. The 2 biggest knocks on Gimp, IMO, are: #1) the interface; and #2) features. In that order, with most emphasis on #1

(2) Sodipodi is a vector drawing program, Scribus is a DTP program. Not in the same field.

Partly true, partly not. Vector drawing is not the same as DTP, but there are connections between them. The Scribus team and the Inkscape team, for example, are working actively to coordinate their backends and make it easy for users to use the two apps together. You can get an idea of the short-term implications of this here, and the long-term implications here.

Open Source Software attacks Afganistan!

Please try these desktop enviornments! The developers have bent their back over backwords to achieve usabillity! I am using KDE 3.2 and it rocks! Much better than Windows XP! Combine with Mandrake 10 and its the perfect match. Printers just work as well. My Epson Stylus printer just worked, as well as my Digital camera, Scanner, Sound card, Graphics card, TV card and RAM card. The only people who think that open source is hard are ignorant ones! Check inkscape vs sodipodi for example, same job, different interfaces!

Downside is it costs ~$400. A bit pricey for me to goof off with. Thankfully there's Inkscape/sodipodi, but there's no animation support. It's mainly for static images.

Well... for Inkscape I know that it's high up on the lists for some of the developers, and several of them are actually investigating various factors now.

Animation and scripting support are two things that may go in hand-in-hand, but definitely are being worked on. Of course, since it's open source, there's no hard timeline for supporting it, but I would not be supprised to see it in the CVS versions in the next quarter. The internals are being reworked now in a way that will facilitate that better.

As a developer who just participated in a large fork of a GPLed project (Inkscape from Sodipodi), I would concur it most certainly does permit (and encourage) forking.

I do generally use the GPL on my own code as well; I figure if someone can do a better job managing a project built around it than I can, they should go for it.

Forking at some level is actually very common, but a lot of the little forks are more civil and come and go, and generally get re-integrated.

Emacs/XEmacs and gcc/egcs are just the most famous and "hostile" (and actually, egcs was re-integrated after a fashion ... it effectively ended up replacing the old gcc project and took its name). I can think of a _lot_ of other examples too.

SVG will never be a replacement for Flash

--
Inkscape is great for SVG!

There is several native SVG Graphics Tools
- Sketsa
- Sodipodi or Inkscape
- Jasc WebDraw
- XStudio

SODIPODI - vector 2D maturing nicely http://www.sodipodi.com/

FYI if you didn't know some of the Sodipodi developer base grew impatient and forked the code. The new app, Inkscape is off to a very fast, very promising start.

It almost goes without saying that you should look at the GIMP and perhaps also look at CinePaint. Make sure to compile and inlude more extra plugins. Also make absolutely sure to set the gimp to run using the --no-data and other options to make it as fast as possible.

I would aslo highly recommend Inkscape for Vector Graphics. Inkscape is a recent fork of the Sodipoid codesbase and has a much more user friendly interface.

Try out inkscape sometime and tell us what to improve. We have quite a few developers using MacOSX so it should run quite well. Can you tell us anything you would particularly miss from freehand? We are approaching a feature freeze and should have a new version out by tuesday.

Personally, I run Debian on my powerbook, because I feel that by not committing 100% to sharing free software I am breaking my social contract - I am good at finding and fixing bugs in free software and I think that that talent would be wasted if I were to work on a propriatary platform.

<a href="http://inkscape.org/">Inkscape</a>

Yes and no.

The Gimp has had for some time (since version 1.2 IIRC) some support for vectorial drawing: you can define paths using bezier curves, which may be adjusted, saved and restored, and drawn on the current layer using the current brush. But drawing (and selecting the layer) must be done manually.

The next version of The Gimp adds the ability to save and restore paths as SVG paths (before, it used an ad-hoc simple textual format), and also the ability to import an SVG image by rendering it on a bitmap (like it did with PS images).

That's it: a useful thing to have, but it has little to do with vectorial drawing.

There was a GNU project (which apparently failed) that was trying to create a vector art authoring tool. I can't remember the name of it.

You are talking about GYVE: its developement has stopped in 2002.

OTOH, for Free vectorial drawing programs, check out sodipodi (and its IMHO nicer branch Inkscape) and the good ol' Sketch (now called Skencil).

Here's your software replacements:

3DS Max, Photoshop,Illustrator,sampling software, looping software, midi software, etc.

Sorry it took me so long to write them all!

That stuff is interesting.

I really wish they used vector formats instead of Jpeg's though (SVG anyone?). Then you could scale them as needed without messing them up.

Sodipodi
Inkscape
Sketch

There's a new SVG editor under development called Inkscape - http://www.inkscape.org. It builds on the Sodipodi codebase but is focusing SVG and similar standards

It's definitely worth looking over. I had been checking out Sodipodi's last release last spring, but there still were enough rough edges to block my main needs. But with what was in CVS last month, they both jumped up to 'very handy'. And the Inkscape work has jumped things up even more.

There's a new SVG editor under development called Inkscape - http://www.inkscape.org. It builds on the Sodipodi codebase but is focusing SVG and similar standards

It's definitely worth looking over. I had been checking out Sodipodi's last release last spring, but there still were enough rough edges to block my main needs. But with what was in CVS last month, they both jumped up to 'very handy'. And the Inkscape work has jumped things up even more.