Extending or connecting several lines at once?

[Hugo]

I'm using VWA 10.5.1 under Mac OS X 10.3.2 and I have several paralell lines I would like to extend to a single perpendicular line. I use the Connect/Combine tool in order to extend each line, one by one. But I would like a faster way to do this.

Is there any tool/way to extend all the lines with only one operation? It is very tedious to click on each line and go to the perpendicular and again and again and again...

Thank you,

Hugo

[Guest]

Currently, the way you are doing it is the only way with the connect combine tool.

Another thing you can do is select all the lines and drag them so they pass through the item you'd like to 'extend' them to.

Then lock the line they are moving to, select the split tool, split by line mode, and draw a line over the locked line.

Select the items to the left of the line and delete them. THen, unlock your first line.

OR you can extend the lines to be extended (again using the 2d selection tool) past the line you want them to meet at. Use the trim tool to trim each line - which you just click on the trash part of the line.

[P Retondo]

There used to be an extend tool that did more-or-less what you would like, but for some reason it left us and despite pleading has never come back! Maybe it is being transformed, and when it returns will allow multiple selection + "Enter" to extend a series of lines, instead of having to click on each line.

[ 01-09-2004, 01:18 PM: Message edited by: P Retondo ]

[Guest]

The old extend tool in VW 8 did NOT extend multiple lines at one time to meet at the intersection of another line.

It moved them one by one.

Although, that behavior was a tad bit quicker as you just selected the lines and clicked on each line to extend. It knew what to extend to based on the selection criteria.

Now you have to click on a line and the line to extend it to. Repeat for the next line.

It's one extra click.

[propstuff]

Hi all,

Katerina Panagiotakis has written such a plug-in which can be found in the Plug-ins section of Vector Depot. (As well as many other useful bits and pieces such as "Get mid point".)

Again Katerina, and all of you out there who make your work available for us VectorScript fools for free, a big thankyou from me :-)

cheers,

N.

[Hugo]

Thank you Katie, for your almost instant reply!

I'll try your suggestions and see which one is best for me. Thank you again,

Hugo

[PeterT]

Just my two cents: the old extend tool was much easier to use for extending multiple lines than the new connect/combine tool.

With the old tool you could just go down a row of lines and click on each line to extend it to a selected line. Now you must click and drag to the perpendicular line each time (or click click).

One click is always better than a click-drag-release, or a click-drag-click, especially if you are doing it ten times in a row, or if you are zoomed way out, or if your "extend to" object is off-screen.

The new tool is fairly worthless for a simple extend, I don't even use it for that any more. If you have to drag your mouse to the second line to extend the first, why not just grab the line by its end point and drag it to the second, and save yourself the step of selecting the connect tool?

The connect/combine tool has some great merit of its own, but it will never replace the old extend tool, which I used to use a hundred times a day.

Please continue to give us new tools, but don't take away our old ones.

Regards,

Peter

[Hugo]

Propstuff,

THANK YOU very much for the plugin!!!

It is EXACTLY what I was looking for... AWESOME!!!

Hugo