[Bf-committers] GPencil I/O Project: Request to integrate libharu lib to export PDF format

[Campbell Barton]

Hi Antonion,

>From what I can tell libharu hasn't been very active since 2013, their
site states they're looking for a new maintainer.
Would we become the defacto maintainers of this library?

I checked their issue tracker, while many reports are support requests
and build issues, there are some more serious looking issues too, eg:

https://github.com/libharu/libharu/issues/73
https://github.com/libharu/libharu/issues/71
https://github.com/libharu/libharu/issues/63

Is there a significant advantage in integrating a library compared
with bundling a utility that converts SVG to PDF?
In this case it could be an optional dependency, or we bundle the
conversion tool in official releases so PDF support is still
integrated from a user perspective.

On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 6:31 AM Antonio Vazquez via Bf-committers
<bf-committers at blender.org> wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
>
>
> As some of you may already know, for version 2.92 we want to focus on the
> Import and Export processes of Grease Pencil (T83190).
>
>
>
> Currently, the grease pencil is in some way an "island" in the studios
> pipeline and we need to add tools to integrate it. Part of these
> integration processes were the work we did to make image traces (2.91) and
> shortly, video traces (2.92).
>
>
>
> During the contacts that the members of grease pencil team usually have
> with 2D studios, they have detected that some commercial software very
> important in the studios pipeline does not support the import of SVG, but
> of PDF. In addition, the PDF format allows working in many softwares and is
> very useful for generating storyboards and work in comics.
>
>
>
> Past weeks, I have been working on a new I/O module for grease pencil in C
> ++ and I already have the SVG Importer (T79875) and the SVG Exporter
> (T83191) and PDF Exporter (T83192) working. All work has been done on a
> private branch on my PC.
>
>
>
> You can see a PDF exporter video here: https://youtu.be/BMm0KeMJsI4
>
>
>
> To export to PDF I have used an open source library (libharu
> http://libharu.org/) and would need to integrate that library into Blender.
> This library is very simple (<1.6 MB on Windows) and allows export to PDF
> easily.
>
>
>
> Finally, exporting to PDF opens up a world of possibilities and especially
> when the new LineArt module will be integrated into Blender.
>
>
>
> If we agree to integrate libharu, I can prepare the patch for review the
> I/O code I did.
>
>
>
> I would like to hear your opinions.
>
>
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Antonio Vázquez
>
> Grease Pencil Team
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-- 
- Campbell