[GSoC proposal] Airbrush and Calligraphy paintops

[Boudewijn Rempt]

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, Fela Winkelmolen wrote:

> I'm posting here a draft of my Google Summer of Code proposal, in case anybody 
> has comments or suggestions

I think you need to add a bit more about yourself, you current skill level etc.
I also think you should try to be more specific about the goals, i.e, define more
closely what the airbrush and calligraphy effect would become. Otherwise, way cool!

> There are airbrushes that separate the function for air and paint flow (dual 
> action airbrushes), but I'm not sure that makes sense in the digital version. 
> Do wacom airbrushes support that?

I don't think so, although it's possible, I think, to abuse the pressure parameter 
for that. But I don't have an airbrush device, so I cannot check that.

> I was also thinking about another parameter for the airbrush. My initial idea 
> was to not simulate the single particles, mostly like the current airbrush 
> looks like, but thinking more about it maybe we don't always want 
> this "infinite granularity", but we want the particles to be actually seen. 
> So the granularity might be configurable. Actually there may be the need of 
> two parameters: size of the particles and opacity.
> When the particle size is 0 it will use something like the fuzzy circle, the 
> opacity in that case will have the same effect as the rate. If for example 
> the opacity is 100% and the particle size is one pixel if would look a bit 
> like the airbrush of MS paint (if I remember correctly).

Yes, that's a cool idea.

> Another parameter might be how "blurred" the stamp is around the border, or, 
> in the case of particles, how concentrated the particles are at the center 
> compared to the border.

Indeed!

> Also the calligraphy tool may need to be a bit more sofisticated. The way it's 
> described above it behaves mostly like the Inkscape calligraphy tool.

maybe add a "splicing" option -- if you use a real goose-feather nib, if you press
too hard, you get two lines instead of one. Also, check out the digital ink feature
of Corel Painter -- maybe we can use something similar here.

Boudewijn