equal parts

[suzannah]

Hi all,

Is there any way to divide a line or rectangle into equal parts automatically, that is without doing the math. And ideally if the initial line or rectangle is resized the equal parts would also resize. I am only thinking of this as a 2D operation.

Thanks in advance

SR

[Robert Anderson]

VectorWorks has a "snap to distance" option in the Constraints palette. Say you have a line to which you want snap to 1/7 parts. Enable the "snap to distance" snap to 1/7 and you will get a snap at each seventh of the line. Sort of the same as subdividing the line without having to..

[EvB]

A pretty flexible way to divide just about anything is to offset a line a bunch of times (determined by the number of divisions desired +1) and then group them. This group can be stretched to the object to be divided and the intermediate segments are snappable reference points.

[ 12-15-2004, 05:04 PM: Message edited by: EvB ]

[suzannah]

Thanks EvB!!

That was the elegant solution I was looking for.

SR

[CEA]

You can also use the "LINE INTO SEGMENTS" command to divide a line into any number of equal parts.

[Petri]

One more technique, not so much for dividing, but related:

In the Object Info, go to the dimension you want to change and type the calculation, eg. if the current width of a rectangle is 3600 and you want 1/7 of it, type /7 behind the 3600 and press enter.

For creating duplicates at odd distances (like that 514.28571428571 (3600/7), not to mention odd x/y displacement combinations, there are free 'duplicate by vector' utilities at VectorDepot.

You can use the four basic arithmetic operators (+ - * /) in all dialogs, too, like layer scale, object scaling and so on.

[ 12-16-2004, 07:26 AM: Message edited by: Petri ]