: Is there any vector drawing applcations that the origin of coordinate system is top left corner? I've been using Inkscape, but the origin is at the bottom left corner, and I can't seem to

@Kimberly620

To recap some of the discussions. Inkscape measures from bottom left, with up is positive standard mathematical notation, and standard postscript (this will be changed to unify it with the internal SVG Y axis - see this issue). Illustrator uses a GUI standard top, left, y coordinates positive is down.

You can not change the setting in Inkscape. But i am pointing out, that you dont need to change the setting to gain this benefit. All you need to have is a custom panel that shows you a transformed coordinate. Or change cords at export etc. This is reasonable since your not actually reading the underlying coordinates anyway (your reading world coordinates and the locals are transformed anyway). This should be pretty trivial to implement.

If you really rely on changing definitions which probably would break quite a lot of code (eg. cross product and would now result in opposite answer). In any case there's something wrong with the approach anyway. Have to download inkscape to test the panel idea. But I dont know if this helps to the OP as there's no description of where the problem is except changing coordinate which does really not do anything useful since your not viewing internal machine state anyway.

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@Martha945

I think you are under the impression that moving the origin to the top left of your canvas lets you work with coordinates where (10,10) is ten to the right and ten down. But it doesn't work that way. Let me explain:

The output of vector applications are points and paths. They are plotted on a coordinate system. The coordinate system used reflects the specification of the output file. Most vector applications are developed to generate Postscript files.

The 'default' origin in the Postscript coordinate system is bottom left. This is because your canvas will be in the positive quadrant of the coordinate system. Working with positive values is easiest.

Some software let you move the origin. If you place the origin of a Postscript file to the top left of the canvas, then the y-values of points on that canvas will be negative. That is because the canvas is now the bottom right quadrant. So moving the origin will technically change a thing. To move a point up/down you still need to add/subtract units of the y-value. It doesn't matter which quadrant you're in. Adding a unit moves a point up, subtracting a unit moves a point down.



Long story short. The type of data you wish to generate defines the coordinate system. Don't fight it, or try to change it. Try to understand it. Work with it.

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