<div dir="ltr"><div></div><div></div><div><font size="4"><b>Background and Questions:</b></font></div><div><font size="4">
Being able to prepare complicated patent drawings has been on my professional bucket list for a couple decades. To do so with purely open source software is kinda on that list.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">I can now design 3D models, generate 2D engineering drawings therefrom, and export the drawings to SVG, from FreeCAD. And I can use Inkscape to import the SVG files and readily mark them up with sheet numbers, Figure numbers, reference characters, curved and straight lead lines, arrows, and feature numbers, and then export them from Inkscape to pdf (or to a bit mapped image format suitable for including in a strict DOCX file). And both FreeCAD and Inkscape are free and open source.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">1. Has anyone else gone down this path and have any observations, dos and don'ts, or the like? Did you use all ten default (or multiple) views in a page or stick to one view? Why or why not?</font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4"><b>Ubuntu Compatibility</b></font></div><div><font size="4">I am currently using FreeCAD and Inkscape on Windows 10. Upon review of Windows 11, it seems to me a bridge too far. Windows 11 locks the user in to Windows and MS products for all eternity. The combination of a TPM 2.0 chip required by Windows 11, mandatory secure boot, and automatic turnon of bitlocker on boot, tied to the users microsoft ID, does that. Ubuntu, FreeCAD, and Inkscape are all free an open source. And I have enough technical oomph to load and use ubuntu on some computers. So I plan to do that, keeping my existing Windows boxes, but moving to all free and open source.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">2. Has anyone run FreeCAD on Ubuntu? Got any sage or stupid advice? Any difference from running on Windows?</font></div><div><font size="4">3.</font>
<font size="4"> Has anyone run Inkscape on Ubuntu? Got any sage or stupid advice? Any difference from running on Windows?</font>
</div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4"><b>Hatching versus shading</b></font></div><div>
<div><font size="4">Hatching, what the patent rules identify as oblique lines to identify cross-sections.</font></div><div><font size="4">Shading, what the patent rules identify has usable to identify curved surfaces and, in perspective view, flat surfaces</font></div><br></div><div><font size="4">4. My issue here is the PTO conversion of image data to bitonal, at least for pdf images. First, I am guessing that bit mapped objects in "DOCX" files are likewise converted to bitonal. Does anyone know if that is the case?</font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">5. Assuming PatentCenter converts to bitonal an uploaded grayscale pdf image file, how does it handle "shading." Shading seems to be ambiguous because it defines what we see and not the data format. For example, I could make something look shaded rendaring a a bitonal image file in which every third pixel was black, the rest white. But that is not generally how its done, right? </font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">6. Is there some method of defining in Inkscape (or some other svg file editor) shading in bitonal data format? </font></div><div><font size="4">7. Can I define the line spacing and dimension small enough in Inkscape so that the result appears to be shading instead of individual lines? If so, what settings?</font></div><div><font size="4">8. FreeCAD and Inkscape allow for RGB or RGBa settings that are equivalent to white, and black. For example, 255,255,255 and 0,0,0. Do we know that PatentCenter will interpret those as the proper bitonal values, aka white and black?</font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4"></font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4"><br clear="all"></font></div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><font size="4">Best regards</font></div><div><font size="4">Rick Neifeld, J.D., Ph.D. <br></font></div><div><font size="4">Neifeld IP Law PLLC<br></font></div><div><font size="4">9112 Shearman Street, Fairfax VA 22032</font></div><div><font size="4">Mobile: 7034470727<br></font></div><div><font size="4">Email: <a href="mailto:RichardNeifeld@gmail.com" target="_blank">RichardNeifeld@gmail.com</a>; <br></font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font><br></div></div></div></div></div>