Polyline Edit Handles

[Bruce Kieffer]

I recently tried to draw a shape of a table saw push stick over top of a scanned image of that stick. I gave up after 1/2 hour. Shouldn't be this hard, but I cannot control the shape by moving the points in VW. Please put handles on the points. Make them work like they do in FreeHand (or Illustrator). I opened up FreeHand and completed the task in less than 5 minutes.

[Kevin McAllister]

This would be brilliant. I agree that the learning curve for this task in Vectorworks is steep.

Kevin

[Pat Stanford]

What tool and mode where you using?

The new Tangent Arc mode of the polyline tool is great for tracing.

And after you are done with the trace if you double click on the polyline (or select the polyline and choose the 2D Reshape Tool), you get not only the vertices of the polyline, but the arc point and center points as well.

And in the 2D Reshape tool, you can draw a marquee and drag (or nudge) all of the vertices/points inside the marquee at the same time.

[AndiACD]

I wholheartedly agree with Pat. The Reshape Tool is the foundation for VW on which all my drawing mods are made. Brilliant tool.

Just in case, Raymond Mullin has created a Plug-In called "Reshaper" that augments the tool. A dialogue that works for both 2D & 3D shapes.

[Bruce Kieffer]

Pat,

I've been using the polyline tool. I have attached my file. Would you be willing to make a screen shot movie of how you would trace this? I tried the Tangent Arc mode. Still too unpredictable for me, but maybe I don't know how to use it. I left my tracing attempts in the file as Design Layers 1 & 2. They are set to invisible.

Thanks.

Edited July 11, 2010 by Bruce Kieffer

[Ray Libby]

I just traced it using arcs and lines, it took me 3 minutes. I do this a lot tracing molding profiles.

[VincentCuclair]

Hi Bruce! Couldn't help giving it a go ).......here's my try with a 2D polyline, took me 2 mins using only Corner Vertex Mode and Point on Arc Mode .......easy to edit by double clicking and using the handles........hope it helps.....

Edited July 11, 2010 by Vincent C

[Kevin McAllister]

Ray's method is interesting because it gives you individual control of each segment and it can easily be combined into a polygon using the paint bucket mode of the polygon tool.

I think the real point here is its next to impossible to do a good tracing the first time using the polyline tool directly because its not very intuitive. It is possible to get a good shape after the fact by using the reshape tool. All of these options still require significantly more steps than it would take using the tools in Illustrator.....

Kevin

[Bruce Kieffer]

OK folks. These look great. Please give me some tips so I can practice. A movie would be great. I recently tried Snapz Pro X and it makes great movies with sound. Too bad it costs $70. That's hard for me to justify for a rare need. I'm exploring other options:

http://www.freemacblog.com/mac-options-for-capturing-a-video-of-your-screen/

[Bryan G.]

Bruce,

Definitely you can use the reshape and accomplish all you need. It is used about 60% for my tracing, and as you know thats, well, allot. You probably need to get used to it in your workflow.

I will be down your neck of the woods this week, so if you would like me to stop in and show you how I am using the reshaper, it may help.

[Bruce Kieffer]

That would be great! Call me and I will have the coffee ready. We can discuss lots of stuff. I'm available Tues, Weds, and Thurs. I'll send you a map. I'm two blocks from the library where we had our meeting last week.

[Pat Stanford]

OK, my movie on how I used the polyline tool to trace the stick is up at:

http://www.vectortasks.com/Movies/Movies.html

Note that part of the trick is getting the settings right before you start.

[Bruce Kieffer]

Pat,

Thanks much for the movie. That's a great help. I'll mess with it more, but I do have a feeling that having handles to adjust the curves would still be easier.

Could you tell me what software you used to make the movie?

[Pat Stanford]

I meant to do a portion on editing the trace and show how you get handles when you use the 2D reshape tool. I guess I forgot.

How would you use handles to adjust while you are in the middle of tracing? You can only do one thing at a time, either draw or edit.

I used SnapZ. I also have ScreenFlow, but have never made the time to figure out how to best use it.

[Ray Libby]

I think the workflow should be to draw it correctly and not rely on editing.

[Bruce Kieffer]

I made a movie showing how I do this with FreeHand. It's in my DropBox. You can view it at:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5106796/psm/psm.mov

[Pat Stanford]

Bruce,

Very nice. You can folow almost the exact same procedure in VW.

Straighten, Draw guides, Use either the polygon tool or the polyline tool with the corner vertex mode. Draw the straight line version.

Double click the poly to bring up the Reshape tool.

Select the Add Vertex mode with either an Arc type vertex or Cubic Spline vertex chosen. Click and drag on the center points of the segments to get the shape you desire.

Freehand might offer a slightly better controls for the fine tuning of the connections between the segments, but I think the VW version is pretty good.

Try it and see what you think.