filter to work around missing eps transparency

[Johannes Tophøj Rasmussen]

Transparency is not supported by the eps format and already several ideas have been posted in this forum to work around this. I propose adding a filter to inkscape that breaks overlapping, transparent objects apart and assigns each new object new opaque colours corresponding to the transparent colours. If you have two objects A and B, B being transparent and partially covering A you can do this manually:
1) Select and copy the two objects

2) using the colour picker with the 'pick colour premultiplied by alpha' and 'assign' click A
3) select path > difference

4) re-insert the copied objects by edit > paste in place
5) move A in front of B
6) use the colour picker similarly on B
7) path > difference

8) re-insert the objects 'in place'
9) use colour picker on the intersecting part of A and B
10) path > intersection

I propose a filter that does this automatically and 'recursively' in the sense that it should break apart all selected objects. Possibly it should add the fill colour to the new objects. I have not given the flow of the algorithm more thought in the case of more than two objects. Just an idea