mechanics of fill

[bshand1]

I've been meaning to ask this for a while.

If make a shape, make a duplicate, mirror it and overlap them to make a second shape, then add shapes. The resultant shape won't fill, but if I then break shapes I get two identical shapes that will fill.

What's going on, mechanically I mean? It's fine, but I my curiosity about why things work has got to me. Anyone explain?

[Scotty]

Hi Wolfie,
I don't know the machanics behing it but, You have two shapes in you illustration a square looking 'C' ( an unclosed shape)right an unclosed shapejoned with another unclosed shape is two shapes still unclosed.what you have to do is used shape editor tool to join the end nodes of the line adjacent and close them. When you breake them apart they autimatically get closed.
am I making myself clear
Jim

[gwpriester]

Mac is correct. If you have an open path, your C-shape for example, where you have two open ends, you cannot apply a fill.

When you Add Shapes you still do not have a closed path. (In theory you should, but you don't). Because the added shape is now still an outline. You can see this if you switch to Outline View.

But for some reason, when you break shapes, see attached, you get two, count'em two, shapes. (I never knew this!)

There is another tip on the Xara Xone TIPS page that shows another way to apply a fil to an open path.

Gary

[MEB]

Ohh! Nice tip!!!
It´s a nice discovery at least for me... If you know how much times i tried to join two open paths without moving their nodes (you know trought the normal way) when for example i need a perfect simmetrical shape..

Miguel B.

[bshand1]

Originally posted by gwpriester:
But for some reason, when you break shapes, see attached, you get two, count'em two, shapes. (I never knew this!)

Hi Gary

Yes! That's exactly what I found too - my two purple shapes. I'm glad that no-one else had noticed it because it certainly confused me!

One interesting thing is that it doesn't always do it. If the overlap is too small or too great it seems 'break shapes' it just splits it back into its original parts again. I think that's what it is, it doesn't seem quite consistent.

Brett

[xalres]

It's not so much the fill mechanics but the join shape mechanics at work. I tried your original test on my machine and got the same result.

When you initially join the shapes you get a square with a slightly smaller square cut out of the middle. I think when you join two lines, the resulting shape is a representation of the edges of the lines.

To test this I turned the view quality to minimum and zoomed all the way in. instead of just one line forming the box (which would be the case if the shape was a solid square) there were two lines.

This is why when you break the shapes you end up with two squares, because there were two squares being used to describe the shape.

[bshand1]

Aha! That was the explanation I was looking for. Very interesting.

Thanks Xalres.