Closing shapes

I'm using Pro Engineer to make accurate outlines of product designs, then importing into Xara for gradients, graphics, shades etc.

The outline imports as lines and I'm looking for a faster way of making a closed, fillable shape out of all those lines.

Now I'm doing it the Eggspressway (!), walking around the nodes with TAB and moving the ends away and back again until I get the"+" sign. Please tell me there's a faster way to do it.

JimR

I found a workaround:

- Select the lines that makes up the closed shape
- CTRL 1 to add shapes (8 lines become 1 shape)
- BREAK SHAPES. Somehow this makes to identical (but closed) shapes
- Delete one of the shapes
- Stop writing shapes in every line...

JimR

CAD programs generate lots on unconnected lines. As you have found out. :)

Yes but they make parametric lines and curves with precise measures and they can round corners and a lot of other nice things :cool:

I work with several industrial designers that has the same workflow. One of them use Rhino for 2D product outlines, then import into Illustrator for gradients, colour, shadows, text etc.

JimR

Hi Jim

AFAIK the way you are doing this is the way to do it in xtreme/designer - the only addition I would make is that you may sometimes need to 'convert line to shape' [arrange menu] after selecting all lines and before ctrl+1, when your shape is complex. Otherwise the combine operation [ctrl+1] may not give you the result you expect


this is based on importing pdf lines from illustrator and inkscape mostly

Here's a small video, Egg-style. How do I get an SWF video playing inside the post?

JimR

I think there is a sticky or an FAQ somewhere that explains it - opens fine here as an attachment [Firefox 3] :)