Placing raised text on a perimeter

[directive0]

Hello all,

I've got this marquee that has raised lettering that I need to arrange around the perimeter of a circle, I can't wrap my head around what method to use to do it. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

[directive0]

darn, VW totally seems like a program that would have some wonderfull time saving algorithim for this kinda thing. I just gotta bite the bullet and do it I guess.

[Travis]

I don't know how to do the letter alignment/spacing efficiently directly in VW. We've often designed signage however, and have generally done the letter spacing/proportion work in Illustrator and then imported it into VW. (Illustrator will export .dwg or .dxf files that preserve their vector capabilities upon import.)

Good luck,

[Robert Anderson]

You'll have to have your text in Truetype fonts. Use the TrueType to Polyline command, then extrude the polylines. You'll probably have to work a letter at a time, since you're on a curved surface, and rotate the extruded letters individually.

PS: TrueType to Polyline does not support "styles", so you should find a typeface that looks right for what you want in "plain text" style.

[mike m oz]

Just a thought on a way you can do this.

- Create the individual letters as Robert suggests above.

- Turn each letter into a symbol.

- Select the first symbol and with Circular Array space them out around your circle. This will get their orientation correct. (Work out your angle by dividing the arc you want to the centres of the first and last letters by the number of spaces).

- Use Symbol Replace on the OIP to get the correct letters in the correct locations.

If you then need to adjust the letter sizes you can do it by scaling each letter symbol individually.

There is an Arc Text plug-in on the VectorDepot site developed by Charles Chandler which 'Draws text in a an arc shape'. I have never tried it so don't know if it will do exactly what you want - it may be worth you downloading it and giving it a go though.

[Travis]

Mike,

There are a couple drawbacks to your method: accounting for letter-spacing and kerning. To look "good" to the eye, different letters require more or less space between them and their neighbors. This is separate from the width-of-letter issue (a "w" is wider than an "i"). I suppose a lot depends on the font used and even more on the level of presentation required by the client.

This is why we use Illustrator or Freehand. They're both very, very good at letter manipulation. You might consider using a graphic designer to take care of this part (an hour would likely be plenty of time) and then import his design and work over it.

[ 02-08-2005, 06:31 PM: Message edited by: Travis ]

[mike m oz]

Travis I know its not a perfect method - it could be refined by included a locus in each symbol at the centre of the arc so that each letter could be rotated by small increments to get the spacing and kerning correct.

You could also map the text onto a transparent 3D surface via RenderWorks if you wished.

Unfortunately the Arc Text tool is 2D only and therefore will not do what directive0 wants.

I have a vague recollection that Julian Carr at OzCAD had a tool at one stage which would wrap text onto a cylinder - try contacting him to see if that is the case, and if so if it is still available.

[Travis]

Mike,

What if one were to type the required lettering out horizontally and then draw line segments to the center of each letter. These segments might then become the basis to create the radian guidelines per your suggestion. (Regretfully for this purpose, VW's text tool is pretty limited, but maybe a word processor could be helpful to adjust spacing and kerning.)

BTW, this obviously has become a mental exercise for the two of us. It's late, I'm off. Have a great day!

[mike m oz]

Travis

I am not that much into programming so i generally try and nut out ways of doing things. sometimes it's fun.

This one sounds to me like providing this capability should be added to the wish list.

[directive0]

I'm glad my client has provided a suitable brain teaser for you both. I'll try the method you sugggested.

[Guest]

Try the Arc Text plug-in on VectorDepot (http://vectordepot.com/PlugIns1.shtml). Once you've got the text looking right in 2D, ungroup the PIO, leaving the individual text objects exposed. Use TrueType to Polyline to convert the text into polylines, and then extrude the polylines to get the raised lettering.

[ 02-14-2005, 03:40 PM: Message edited by: Charles Chandler ]