Jonathan Neuhauser

@joneuhauser
50 Followers
21 Following
91 Posts
Dad, scientist, musician. Also does some open source work, mostly @ Inkscape.
Show threadJonathan NeuhauserMar 22, 2025
If my file format adventures are interesting to so many people, I should prepare a #FOSDEM talk about it, I guess?
Show threadJonathan NeuhauserMar 21, 2025
But if (x,y) is the corner, you multiply l with 0 - so you cannot have a gradient radius larger than 0 in that case!
Show threadJonathan NeuhauserMar 21, 2025

Today‘s favorite discovery: it is mathematically impossible to place a radial gradient exactly at the corner of a rectangle in Illustrator.

The gradient is defined by its position (x,y) and its length l. But that’s not actually the radius of the gradient. To get that, you have to transform the rectangle to a 1x1 square centered at the origin, then measure the distance between (x,y) and the nearest corner and multiply with l to get the radius (then transform back).

Jonathan NeuhauserMar 21, 2025

Over at #Inkscape, we are currently reverse-engineering the file format of Adobe #Illustrator so that we can natively read those files. We’re making good progress, but let me tell you…

.ai files are by a wide margin the most convoluted, confusing, redundant mess I have had the displeasure of working with.

But that‘s what you get when you have 40 years of historical cruft, with no conscious effort of maintaining consistency. We should not make the same mistake with our additions to #SVG.