Inkscape

Filters cut off abruptly

Asked by Jeana Routh

When I apply a filter to an object that causes the size of the object to increase (eg Ink Bleed, Lapping, Dripping, Burst...), the effect is cut off abruptly in a box shape. Note that this box is not the original bounding box, but slightly larger.

This was not always a problem - in previous versions of Inkscape these filters tapered off nicely until the effect was finished. Unsure which release broke it...

Problem occurs in both Win7 and OSX 10.6 - haven't tested under Linux of any flavor.

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Jeana Routh (amyrlin) said : 		#1

After going through all the filters in Inkscape, here is a complete list of those which misbehave:

Simple Blur
Bloom
Dark Glass
Electronic Microscopy
Glowing Metal
Matte Bevel
Melted Jelly
Melted Jelly (Matte)
Neon
Pressed Steel
Stained Glass
Translucent
Fancy Blur
Motion Blur (both H and V)
Noisy Blur
Thick Paint
Velvet Bumps
Lapping
Pixel Smear
Ripple
Rough and Dilate
Enamel Jewelry
Dripping
Fire
Ink Bleed
Snow Crest
Dragee
Glowing Bubble
Matte Ridge
Metallized Ridge
Refractive Gel A
Air Spray
Cubes
Leaves
Cutout Glow
Dark and Glow
Fuzzy Glow
Glow
In and Out
Inset
Burst
Cracked Glass
Crumpled Plastic
Felt
Gouache
Inkblot
Riddled
Warped Rainbow
Wax Print

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su_v (suv-lp) said : 		#2

> (…) the effect is cut off abruptly in a box shape
1) What type of test object did you use?
2) Does it have any (preserved) transforms applied?
3) Did you apply several predefined filter effects on the same object? (The multiple filters get merged into one huge filter definition, which can override a specific filter effects regions size set by one of the first applied effects. To avoid this, best practice is to group the object after having applied one filter effect, and apply the next filter effect on the new group. Repeat for each additional filter effect applied to the same object).

> Note that this box is not the original bounding box, but slightly larger.

It is called the 'Filter Effects Region'. Its size can vary (depending for example on the applied predefined effect) and it can be adjusted in the filter editor, at the bottom in the tab 'Filter General Settings'. The default size is x=-0.1, y=-0.1, width=1.2, height=1.2.
See also
<http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Filters-BasicUse.html#Filters-EffectsRegion>

There are a few of the predefined effects which are known to have a small or too small filter effects region [1], but the list is definitely not as long as yours - your tests must have been affected by other factors. Maybe you could share the SVG files used for it? Launchpad's Answers section does not allow attachments - you could use a servcie like DropBox, or a free image hosting service like <http://imgh.us> which accepts and serves SVG).

[1] e.g. Bug #667665 in Inkscape: “Borders for Filtereffect Glow too small”
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/667665>

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Joe Tang (jtantogo-1) said : 		#3

problem still present on windows version Inkscape 0.48.3.1 r9886.

(Havent tried it on ubuntu yet.)

using combination of drop shadows and metal filters

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