How to overlay intersection with original object in Inkscape?

Question

Say I'd like to produce the following diagram in Inkscape.

How were I to proceed? I can create three overlapping circles and I can create intersection objects from them but the problem is to align the intersection objects with the original circles. When I copy the three circles and paste them again, they turn up anywhere on the page and not in their original spot. It's very hard and in fact practically impossible to exactly realign the four intersection objects because even the slightest mismatch will create something like color fringing.

---

Edit: This is what I actually need and what I got so far with manual placement:

To be honest, the upper right intersection element is only darker than the other two because somehow I didn't get it to be bright. Maybe it's because of the gradients in the circles or maybe just because I don't have a very good mental model of what the overlays do.

Answer 1

An alternative approach would be to create the three circles as separate layers. Position the layers so they intersect as required and use blending mode 'Screen'. This will give you the color mixing that you show in your example. To make the background black you can fill the remainder of the page of create another layer, fill it with black and move it to the bottom of the stack.

There is another method to create the intersecting areas that will be more suited to your drawing.

1. Shift select the three circles.
2. Ctrl-D to duplicate the circles (they will appear right on top).
3. Shift select two circles at a time and do Path -> Intersection. This is display the intersection area between the two circles. Select whatever color you like.

In your case you'll need to repeat step 2 thrice, since you need to get three, 2-circle intersection areas. To get the intersection area at the center, shift select the three 2-circle intersections you just created, Ctrl-D, then Path -> Intersection.

Answer 2

It seems to me easier, draw three path, and the use tool spinbox labelled grow/shrink to fill them.

So avoid interction tool.

Answer 3

Very late to this party, but if anybody else needs to know how to paste an object on the original place where it was cut from you can just use Paste in Front (Cmd+Shift+F). That would make it easier to perform these boolean operations on shapes.

Answer 4

Shapebuilder was released in July 2023 with Inkscape 1.3. With it this is quite easy: just make sure you deselect the "replace objects" option of the tool and to group the objects beforehand