Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Inkscape - Mosaic



Got the idea from an Illustrator tut.

When I saw it, I thought of Tiled Clones in Inkscape right away and wanted to see if I could get something similar.

I tried the pixelate thing in Paint Shop Pro 9 (see above link) and that just made everything more complicated with worse results in Inkscape as far as I could figure out (broken clones, etc.).

In Inkscape:
I set preferences to import images as patterns automatically.
File, Inkscape Preferences, Misc, uncheck import image as bitmap.
(Just opening the image might work too, but I was working with an image pattern.)

So after importing the desired image pattern, I'm ready to set up for tiled clones.

Make a tiny circle/ellipse that will be used for tiling and place it at top left corner of image pattern.
My image size was 296W x 291H px and my circle was 9 H/W.

The circle fill/stroke:
fill = "unset paint" ("?" icon)
stroke = "no paint" ("x" icon )
OR
fill = "no paint"
stroke = 2 line width, then set to "unset paint"

Circle must be selected (Selection Tool)
Edit, Clone, Create Tile Clones
Click the Reset button
Symmetry Tab = P1
Enter width and height of image pattern

Shift Tab: (adds spacing)
Shift X Per Column is:
20 (if fill is unset paint)
or
40 (if stroke is 2 line width & unset paint)

Shift Y Per Row is:
20 or 40 (same as above)

Trace Tab: (clones colors of image pattern)
Trace the tiles under the tiles is checked
Pick from the drawing = color
Apply the value to the clones' = color
Click Create

Move the source images out the way, and you have the beautiful cloned mosaic vector.
I added a black background layer to mine.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amazing how much simpler to do this in Inkscape (and with lots more features, too).

Anonymous said...

Thank you for a great tutorial.

Justin said...

Thank you for posting this. You've helped me create a wonderfully unique graphic for my website!

Anonymous said...

no, I don't get it. It dosn't want a take effect. All clones has the same color even after I click on "fill with pattern... Why?

Unknown said...

Thanks a lot! I was looking for this technique for days.