Some way to thicken the outside edges of a wireframe?

[Figs]

Lets say I have an isometric cube where you can only see the visible (front-facing) edges, and all the lines have a stroke width of 1 unit.

How can I automatically make the outer lines thicker (eg 3 units) and leave the inner lines the same, or at least achieve that visual effect? I say automatically because the wireframes I have are far more complex than cubes. I want to avoid anything that involves manual selection or doing anything by eye (such as painting a background).

Thank you

[steve.ledger]

Automatically? You want the program to work by thought power maybe?
Editing will always involve manually making some sort of selection and then manually making key presses or mouse clicks to instruct the application to make the changes to the selected objects.

You say your wireframes are more complex than an isometric cube.. Can you at least show us exactly what you're dealing with?

[Figs]

Automatically? You want the program to work by thought power maybe?

Yes, it's a computer program. It's quite reasonable to expect it to be able to recognise the outermost edges of an enclosed area that contains other lines. If that feature is not in this software then fair enough, but don't claim that's it's ridiculous to expect a computer to compute, and then add a smiley as though that excuses you.

Can you at least show us exactly what you're dealing with?

No, there doesn't seem any benefit in showing other contributors what a cube looks like. My question was clear and specific. If the answer is no, I'll get some other software.

Please don't hi-jack the thread with chit-chat replies that don't go any way to answering the question.

[pauland]

I'll get some other software.

Good plan.

[gwpriester]

How are you creating the cube?

The line weight for each cube shown here was changed with 1 click. Is this what you are asking?

[Figs]

I'll get some other software.

Good plan.

Lol. Yes, shocking isn't it? Who'd have thought that anyone would dare ask if this software had a particular feature? What a strange thing to occur: for someone to register and ask on a tight-knit forum. No surprise that the zealots get defensive because their baby software can't do something. I find this funny :-)

Enjoy your horrid forum :P

[pauland]

@Gary, the OP wants to process images, not modify vector drawings.

Figs, no issues with you asking. It's just the pompous, rude response that isn't so good.

The software won't automatically process images to do what you want. It's not a matter of being a zealot - Xara isn't the right software for you and I've already seen enough attitude.

Good luck with your search.

[Big Frank]

This strikes me as being really easy to achieve and I don't understand the need for any of the extraordinary behaviour already exhibited.

[pauland]

The cube was just an example. I guess the OP has more complex images in mind and many of them.

It's rather hard for any general graphic software to infer depth queues from a single image and then modify edges accordingly - definitely a niche application.

[PhilM]

Reasonable answer to a reasonable question (if the OP is still around to see it):

Group your shapes and apply a 1-step contour to the group. The shapes inside are still individually editable and the contour will automatically respond to any changes made to them.

ContouredCube.xar

Phil