gimp/plug-ins/selection-to-path/README

Andy Thomas (alt@gimp.org) 9th July 1999


This plug-in will take a selection and convert it into a path.
For the purpose of the plug-in the selection boundary is defined
in a similar manner to that worked out for the "marching ants" markers
of the selection. I think this gives the best user feel/feedback since 
the created path "follows" the "marching ants".

I cannot claim responsibility for the underlying algorithms. These
were taken directly from the GNU font utilities (the "limn" program 
in particular) written by Karl Berry and Kathryn Hargreaves.

Their email addresses quoted in the README are:-

Karl Berry              karl@cs.umb.edu
Kathryn Hargreaves      letters@cs.umb.edu

Please see fontutils-0.6 package for more details. I have included the 
README from the limn part of the package.

I thank Karl & Kathryn for producing such a well written set of utilities.

I have just added a gimp front-end onto them. 


How to use it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Simply select an area and then select either "<Image>/Selection/To Path"
menu item or the "Selection To Image" button in the paths dialog. The new
path will be created. Currently if the LCP dialog has not been activated
then the path will not be visible... A bug I have just found - simply
bring up the LCP dialog and select the Paths tab to see the newly created
path.

An additional function can be obtained by having the "Shift" modifier pressed
while using the button in the paths dialog. This will pop-up a "power-users"
menu where the parameters to the underlying algorithms can be modified. 
WARNING:- Some values may cause the plugin to enter extremely long operations.
You have been warned. 

Have fun!


Andy.

PS. Please direct any bugs etc found in this plugin to either
myself or the gimp-developer mailing list. Thank.