A.4 Graphics

The following section presents some of the Linux software solutions for graphics work. These include simple drawing applications as well as fully-fledged image editing tools and powerful rendering and animation programs.

Blender

Blender is a powerful rendering and animation tool available on many platforms, including Windows, MacOS, and Linux. Find more information about Blender at www.blender3d.com.

Dia

Dia is a Linux application aiming to be the Linux equivalent of Visio. It supports many types of special diagrams, such as network or UML charts. Export formats include SVG, PNG, and EPS. To support your own custom diagram types, provide the new shapes in a special XML format. Find more information about Dia at www.gnome.org/projects/dia.

Digikam

Digikam is a smart digital photo management tool for the KDE desktop. Importing and organizing your digital images is a matter of a few clicks. Create albums, add tags to spare you from copying images around different subdirectories, and eventually export your images to your own Web site. Find more information about Digikam at www.digikam.org. You can also refer to our Digikam chapter in KDE User Guide.

Eye of Gnome (eog)

Eye of Gnome is an image viewer application for the GNOME desktop. Find more information at www.gnome.org/gnome-office/eog.shtml.

f-spot

f-spot is a flexible digital photograph management tool for the GNOME desktop. It lets you create and manage albums and supports various export options like HTML pages or burning of image archives to CD. You can also use it as an image viewer on the command line. Find more information about f-spot at www.gnome.org/projects/f-spot. You can also refer to our chapter in GNOME User Guide.

gThumb

gThumb is an image viewer, browser, and organizer for the GNOME desktop. It supports the import of your digital images via gphoto2, allows you to carry out basic transformation and modifications, and lets you tag your images to create albums matching certain categories. Find more information about gThumb at gthumb.sourceforge.net.

Gwenview

Gwenview is a simple image viewer for KDE. It features a folder tree window and a file list window that provides easy navigation of your file hierarchy. Find more information at gwenview.sourceforge.net.

Inkscape

Inkscape is a free SVG editor. Users of Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, and Visio can find a similar range of features and a familiar user interface in Inkscape. Among its features, find SVG-to-PNG export, layering, transforms, gradients, and grouping of objects. Find more information about Inkscape at www.inkscape.org.

Kivio

Kivio is a flow-charting application that integrates into the KOffice suite. Former users of Visio find a familiar look and feel in Kivio. Find more information about Kivio at www.koffice.org/kivio.

KolourPaint

KolourPaint is an easy-to-use paint program for the KDE desktop. You can use it for tasks such as painting or drawing diagrams and editing screen shots, photos, and icons. For more information, refer to kolourpaint.sourceforge.net.

KPovmodeler

KPovmodeler is a POV-Ray front-end that integrates with the KDE desktop. KPovmodeler saves users from needing a detailed knowledge of POV-Ray scripting by translating the POV-Ray language in an easy-to-understand tree view. Native POV-Ray scripts can be imported to KPovmodeler as well. Find more information at www.kpovmodeler.org.

Krita

Krita is KOffice's answer to Adobe Photoshop and The GIMP. It can be used for pixel-based image creation and editing. Its features include many of the advanced image editing capabilities you would normally expect with Adobe Photoshop or The GIMP. Find more information at www.koffice.org/krita.

OpenOffice.org Draw

See .

POV-Ray

The Persistence of Vision Raytracer creates three-dimensional, photo-realistic images using a rendering technique called ray tracing. Because there is a Windows version of POV-Ray, it does not take much for Windows users to switch to the Linux version of this application. Find more information about POV-Ray at www.povray.org.

The GIMP

The GIMP is the open source alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Its feature list rivals that of Photoshop, so it is well suited for professional image manipulation. There is even a Windows version of GIMP available. Find more information at www.gimp.org. You can also refer to our GIMP chapter.

VueScan

VueScan is a scanning software available for several platforms. You can install it parallel to your vendor's scanner software. It supports the scanner's special hardware, like batch scanning, autofocus, infrared channels for dust and scratch suppression, and multiscan to reduce scanner noise in the dark areas of slides. It features simple and accurate color correction from color negatives. Find out more at www.hamrick.com.