reverse polish cumbersomeness?
Inkscape rocks. The more I use it, the more I like it.
But why the heck is the “origo” (0,0) in the bottom left corner of the canvas??
I can not understand the logic behind this, maybe it is something that is planned to be fixed to be “the rest of the world -compatible” later?
October 3rd, 2006 at 17:01
I suppose for analogy with the Cartesian plane…
October 3rd, 2006 at 17:08
As a mac developer I know that all of OS X views (NSView subclasses) have the origin in the bottom left corner. Apparently this is how PDF works too.
October 3rd, 2006 at 17:16
exactly, it’s because it is analogous to Cartesian plane.
October 3rd, 2006 at 18:25
Postscript also has the origin in the lower-lfet corner. I think this is better then the “usual” way for it is compatible with everything that was done before computers were invented.
The main problem, in my opinion, is the direction of the “Y” direction, that is reversed in the “computer” way in relation to the cartesian plane.
October 3rd, 2006 at 18:30
“In two dimensions:
Fixing or choosing the x-axis determines the y-axis up to direction. Namely, the y-axis is necessarily the perpendicular to the x-axis through the point marked 0 on the x-axis. But there is a choice of which of the two half lines on the perpendicular to designate as positive and which as negative.
…
The standard way of orienting the axes, with the positive x-axis pointing right and the positive y-axis pointing up (and the x-axis being the “first” and the y-axis the “second” axis) is considered the positive or standard orientation.”
You seem most upset that it’s on the *left*. I don’t know anybody who puts a 2 dimensional coordinate axis starting on the right.
October 3rd, 2006 at 21:31
Weird, especially considering that the SVG specs put the origin at the TOP left of the page. For some reason I never noticed that before — I usually use the grid rather than look at the numbers…
October 4th, 2006 at 12:21
It is due to sodipody legacy. The developers are working on flipping the coords, but it is a complex task which could destabilize the code base and noone is currently working on it full time.
October 4th, 2006 at 16:27
> why the heck is the “origo” (0,0) in the bottom left corner of the canvas??
As far as I know that is leftover from Sodipodi. Mathematicians and tech geeks seem to like it. There may be some trickery you can perform using Viewboxes to get around this, I’m not certain though.
Inkscape needs more feedback from artists like you to help balance out all the request for technical drawing features.
October 5th, 2006 at 03:39
Tech geeks? That’s not me…
Truth be told, I can’t stand Inkscape. It always seems to be getting in the way. I can use Linux for most things, but Inkscape is just no Illustrator.
But this is the one thing (I can’t think of any others) that Inkscape gets right I figure the top-left origin is used my many programs because that’s what all you geeks’ IBM PCs did back when.
Sketchup, for example, uses a normal coordinate system, and I don’t think that’s a “tech geek” app.