Filling voids on bowl forms and shapes.

[georgetroy]

I enjoy drawing bowl shapes and sometimes like to do a complete fill. I'm have trouble trying to get a complete fill from separate enties. I make a curve for one side of a bowl and duplicate the other side horizontally. The next step is to put a oval at the top. Next step is a straight line or oval for the bottom. When I go to fill I get a trapzoid void in the middle. When I join elments or other wise I need a solid fill without trying to make one continous line. I hope I have descibed what I'm trying to do here. Suggestions are welcome.

[georgetroy]

I enjoy drawing bowl shapes and sometimes like to do a complete fill. I'm have trouble trying to get a complete fill from separate enties. I make a curve for one side of a bowl and duplicate the other side horizontally. The next step is to put a oval at the top. Next step is a straight line or oval for the bottom. When I go to fill I get a trapzoid void in the middle. When I join elments or other wise I need a solid fill without trying to make one continous line. I hope I have descibed what I'm trying to do here. Suggestions are welcome.

[gwpriester]

Welcome to the Xara X Conference Geotroy

I'm not sure I am following what it is you are trying to accomplish, but assuming that your shapes are filled to begin with, and not open paths, try seleing the shapes and then from the Arrange pull down menu, selecting Combine Shapes > Add Shapes.

This what you are trying to do?

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

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XaraXone

[Shadowcat]

This isn't quite the same, but you might like to try experimenting with something like this... there's probably an even easier way, but I'm not too experienced with the software...

1) Create an ellipse that is the open top of the bowl.

2) Clone (ctrl-k) the ellipse and set a new colour. This will end up being the body of the bowl. Switch to the select tool, and shift-drag the bottom handle down until the bowl is as deep as required. (The top will also expand up, but we'll fix that next.)

3) Choose Arrange -> Convert to Editable Shapes from the menus to convert the new ellipse. Now go to the shape editor tool, select the top point of the ellipse, right-click and choose 'delete points' to remove it. Next select the left point which will cause a red handle to appear above and below each of the left and right points. Grab one of the top handles and ctrl-drag it down to the horizontal. Grab the same top handle on the other side and repeat. You now have a perfect half-ellipse; push it to the back (ctrl+b) to see the full bowl opening again.

4) If desired, you could now clone the opening, then shift+select the bowl, and use Arrange -> Combine Shapes -> Subtract Shapes in order to cut away the (cloned) bowl-opening shape from the bowl body. (Separate the two shapes to see the result.)

5) You'll have to figure out something to make the bottom of the bowl flatter [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

6) Fill the shapes however you wish...

This makes simpler, more elliptical bowl shapes than you might be doing currently, but maybe it's useful to play with doing it this way...

[Shadowcat]

So I thought of a decent way of making the bowl bottom after posting that [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

After step 2, clone the body, set the colour of the clone to transparent, and shift-drag the corners out so that the outline of the clone intersects the bottom of the filled ellipse along the path that you'd like the bottom of the bowl to be.

Now select both the filled bowl and the clone outline, and use Arrange -> Combine Shapes -> Intersect Shapes to make it happen.

You'll have some additional points to delete when you remove the top half of the shape... (just select all the points together (shift-click each additional point), and then 'delete points')

[georgetroy]

Thanks for your replies. I'm a woodturner building a new web site featuring my work on segmented & stave bowls. I have photos of my work and enjoy making a design from various drawing programs and then printing that design on 1/4" graph paper before I hit the woodshop. It is fast and easy to make open curves because then you can tinker with it and get it just right, but as I have discover getting fills is more difficult. A segmented bowl can easily have 150 pcs on up. Gary since you are from New Mexico you are probably familar with Southwest Art I do that also. Will try to post an attachment here to show you finished work. I also founded a club on Yahoo about segmented & stave turning we have over 450 members. http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/creativewoodturners

[gwpriester]

A bit oversized however. Could you substitute a smaller image, about 600 pixels wide?

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

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www.gwpriester.com </a>


XaraXone

[Ross Macintosh]

The way I'd handle making a bowl in Xara is illustrated below. It is a coincidence that I've drawn a wooden bowl. Your pic of the bowl you turned wasn't yet posted when I started. Your's is very beautiful. Have you ever tried turning old apple wood discoloured by fungus growth? I've seen some examples and they are very beautiful.

In my minitutorial, steps 1 thru 4 represent the approach you suggest. If I understood you correctly, the question mark represents the next step you were inquiring about.

Step 5 shows what I'd do. Typically I don't fuss with trying to join all the lines together. Instead I would just draw a shape over the top using the 'shape editor tool'. The lines drawn earlier act as temporary guide lines that can be deleted after drawing the shape. I just roughly drew the top of the new shape because in the next step it gets put to back where you can't see it.

Step 6 - Guess what? I sent the yellow shape to back. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] I then gave it the same wood bitmap fill used earlier. I adjusted the fills handles untill its scale, repeat, and graining looked right for the bowl interior already drawn as step three.

Step 7 - I grouped all the objects that made up the step three objects so that when I would need to reorder object they would be a group acting as one. I cloned the bowl side and gave it black fill and transparency. Xara's interactive transparency handles were used to sculpt some three-dimensionality into the bowl. The shape was cloned again, filled white, and given eliptical transparency to create a highlight.

Step 8 - You can then proceed to go to town with adding additional elements/details as you see fit. Notably I added a rim to the top to give the wood some thickness. I used 'combine shapes>subtract shapes' to cut out a smaller oval from a larger one. The result was given the wood fill and was beveled. A touch of feathering helped make adding the rim very effective.

Bye for now.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[Steve Newport]

Is this kind of what you were looking for? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif[/img]
If so tell me and I'll make a tutorial for it.

This was done really quick, so not as much detail and precision as it could have. Hope this helps

Steve Newport

[georgetroy]

Hey thanks guys we are getting there any lessions or how to do is appreciated. I will give you (ALL)one of my attaboy or attagirl awards. Your fills sure out do my simple outline drawings. Gary will try another photo here. I used XaraX to reduce the size down. I sure like the pixel review it gives you that is fantastic!!!!