Vector Shape + Image in InkScape

I would like to use a carbon fiber background image inside of a vector shape in inkscape.

But I can’t seem how to either import the carbonfiber.jpg as a pattern or to intersect the raw .jpg with the vector shape. Any ideas?

Thanks! Worked like a charm :slight_smile:

I am still pretty green and don’t see myself getting too crazy with my project, so Inkscape is OK for now. But I will keep your comments in mind if/when I grow my site.

As best I remember from my Inkscape days:

  1. Hit ctrl-i and navigate to your picture to import it
  2. With the picture selected, hold down alt and hit i. This will convert your bitmap to a pattern that you can use as a fill. Additionally, it will transform the bitmap into an editable rectangle pre-filled with your new pattern.
  3. Your pattern will now be available in the fill and stroke dialog for use in any future shapes.

If you haven’t used Inkscape much, let me give you a bit of advice: Invest in Corel Graphics Suite, Xara, or Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop instead!

Inkscape is great for a free program and my hat is off to the devs, but I was never able to get bitmap embedding to work properly in Inkscape, which was a deal-killer for me.

I hate to resurrect an old thread, but for the benefit of searchers, I wanted to follow up and say that Inkscape has apparently fixed the embedding issues in .48.