Press Release: The Inkscape Community Releases Inkscape 0.46
The Inkscape community today announced the release of Inkscape 0.46, the newest stable version of the multi-platform, open source vector graphics editor.
This newest Inkscape release includes a plethora of new tools and improvements, many of which were developed with the assistance of the 2007 Google Summer of Code program.
Inkscape can now directly import vector PDF files, and PDF export is greatly improved. Thus, Inkscape 0.46 provides an easy, open source tool for editing and creating PDF documents.
The 2007 Google Summer of Code also produced the new 3D Box tool and Live Path Effects. The 3D Box tool makes it possible to create and edit three-dimensional boxes and perspectives. Live Path Effects, another GSoC project, can be used to create "brushes" and organic effects on paths while keeping the original paths editable.
The new Paint Bucket Tool allows bounded areas to be filled with color at the click of a mouse button, creating a closed vector path based on what's visible on the canvas. It is very fast and convenient for coloring scanned line drawings.
The new Tweak Tool allows you to modify objects as if they were made of molding clay - now you can freely sculpt any path without worrying about path nodes.
Gradients can now be edited completely on-canvas. All gradient stops are visualized by draggable controls, and multiple nodes can be selected and moved simultaneously. This approach allows for more precise and complex gradients than the traditional gradient strip.
Color management has also been improved, with initial support for color spaces other than sRGB, including Adobe RGB and calibrated CMYK. This makes it possible to use calibrated color values, including CMYK values, that are preserved across applications.
The Gaussian Blur filter, introduced in Inkscape 0.45, was the first SVG filter supported. Inkscape 0.46 expands on this adding implementations of most filters defined in the SVG standard. There is also a new powerful dialog for creating and altering filter stacks. SVG filters can be used for beveling, turbulence, distortions, shading, and many other creative effects.
Finally, Inkscape 0.46 introduces many workflow and user interface improvements. Dialogs can now be docked and minimized to the main editing window, reducing visual clutter and making the relationship between documents and dialogs clearer, especially when working on multiple documents in separate Inkscape instances.
With 0.46 out, the Inkscape community is already working on the upcoming 0.47. Full compatibility with SVG Mobile/Tiny is slated for version 0.50 and version 1.0 will include complete W3C SVG 1.1 compliance.
Hundreds of users and developers have contributed to Inkscape - adding features, suggesting ideas, reporting bugs, and writing documentation. We invite anyone to contribute to this exciting project. The more help we get, the more innovative, feature-complete, and stable Inkscape becomes.
Download Inkscape 0.46 for Linux, Windows or Mac OS X
For More Information
Complete Release Notes for 0.46
Community Contributed Screenshots
About Inkscape
Inkscape is a multi platform, open source drawing tool that uses the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) scalable vector graphics format (SVG). Some supported SVG features include basic shapes, paths, text, markers, clones, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, and grouping. In addition, Inkscape supports Creative Commons' metadata, node-editing, layers, complex path operations, text-on-path, text-in-shape, and SVG XML editing. It can also import EPS, PostScript, and most bitmap formats, and exports PNG, PS, PDF and various vector formats. Inkscape's main motivation is to provide the Open Source community with a fully W3C compliant XML, SVG, and CSS2 drawing tool. Additional work includes conversion of the codebase from C/Gtk to C++/Gtkmm, emphasizing a lightweight core with powerful features added through an extension mechanism, and maintaining a friendly, open, community-oriented development process.
