Winding rule?

[PhilM]

Actually no.

Here is an example with 2 circles, one you can not fill and one you can. Both were exported as Acorn draw file and then imported to Xara.

OK, well, I hope this doesn't make things yet more complicated but in that file both shapes are closed and both have the normal even-odd winding rule. The reason that the shape on the left doesn't fill is because it carries an internal flag that disables the rendering of any fill attributes. Designer would never create a shape in that state and nor would any of the modern import filters. I'm not sure why the old Acorn Draw filter creates a shape in that state.

Were you able to fill the shape on the left in Draw? Did it offer any control over a path's "IsFilled" flag? (I can't remember.)

Phil

[gwpriester]

theinonen - Select both circles and Join them. Then Break Shapes.

[mwenz]

...However Designer doesn't provide any UI to control winding rules because it's an arcane and technical feature that 99.99% of the time you don't need to know about or change...

Well, well, well. Silly old sod I am for using an arcane technical feature. In the past I have explicitly finished some elements in, well, AI, CD, DP (love the live quick shapes) or EW when I want to use vector brushes I have accumulated or made JUST to have access to this arcane technical feature.

I guess I should have experimented until the cows came home. I might have stumbled upon this arcane, hidden ability in the application I would rather use to draw in.

Oh, and perhaps if people had access to this arcane technical feature, they might have used it, Phil.

[mwenz]

What's really fun is that if you select both circles and press ctrl+1 (add shapes), then break apart, the circle on the right can no longer be filled.

[mwenz]

Oops. Was wrong...

[theinonen]

Were you able to fill the shape on the left in Draw? Did it offer any control over a path's "IsFilled" flag? (I can't remember.)

I exported from a Windows version of RISC OS software in a Draw image format and not from the actual Draw application itself.

Even on RISC OS I remember that if I wanted to join shapes to get a hole I needed to change the winding rule from the ArtWorks 2 or it would not work. Same thing needs to be done in Xara for the holes to appear but as there is no direct way to change that then the trick from gwpriester works instead, or another way is to paste attributes from something drawn with the program.



Woohoo it works.



Thanks everyone for help.

[gwpriester]

I know these things Mike, because I am much older than you are. You will discover these things in time.

Acutually, it was inspired by the attached two Xara Xone (the old Xone) Tips & Tricks pages.

[mwenz]

Ah, Gary. If I was half as smart as you my head would explode.

I really don't see how the examples you show have anything to do with winding, on the other hand. With the wavy line example, a PDF sees the filled line area as two distinct objects. The winding examples as a single object. But I digress...

[Gare]

Gary P. did a very good visual on the Winding Path rule. Some programs don't care, but it's software made by Adobe, or Disciples of Adobe, such as Macromedia and Pixer and especially font-making programs, a path that is a counter to the outside must travel in the opposite direction, and the outside—if hypothetically walk along it, must be to your right.

We have a separate and unequal thread going on here, on how 2D Xara compositions can assist 3D modeling programs.

My Best,
oG