Simple filling within drawn outlines

Hi There,

I am having trouble with filling in the spaces within pre-drawn outlines as part of an animated video project. I have had a change of heart regarding the use of mere 'skeleton' outlines and wish to convert many of them to filled areas using the outlines already drawn. I know I may sketch closed areas by drawing a boundary line and simply closing it, but that is not convenient in this application. I have tried a variety of methods described in the 'help' files, such as converting my lines to 'shapes', but so far every attempt has seen colour flood the entire area of the on-screen raster and obliterate the outlines themselves. What I wish to know, is a simple two to four step procedure, which would allow me to re-activate existing closed shapes in some way and fill them in to create the filled shapes I so badly need.

Now to the good news. I have successfully animated, at 1 million year intervals the tectonic plate movements of all of Oceania, that is Australia, Gondwanaland and as much of South East Asia as is visible from a point which centres the visible globe on -35deg.S and 140deg.E and all this existing material has been checked by making it into a finished animation which works well. But, I have yet to add New Zealand and it's continental shelf-area, the much bigger 'Zealandia' to the animation. I have a series of strategies which use specially constructed geometric devices to centre the various land movements over, and they work as well. I simply need to be able to take existing closed outlines and to fill them, easily in as few steps as possible, and of course, with a zero failure rate.

Can anyone assist me with advice please.

Ian Smith

Dunedin, New Zealand

Hi Ian

Can you give us an example of what you are trying to do?

colour flood the entire area of the on-screen raster and obliterate the outlines themselves

on screen raster? you are using bitmap not vector?

a .XAR file with an example of what you are trying to do would be helpful - the kind of 'closed shapes' you are trying to fill

I am unable to upload an example at present. However, just imagine loading an outline which is already 'closed' but appears as just that, ie an area bounded by a previously drawn line from earlier work on a 'Xara' session.
I wish, somehow to re-activate that line, push a button or two, and fill the enclosed space with uniform colour which wasn't there previously. I have tried several methods as listed in the 'Xara 'Help' files. Only, so-far,
re-drawing the outlines in one continuous motion has worked, although 'selecting' part of an outline and re-activating the remainder has worked also on occasions; but I wish to re-activate previously drawn outlines as well.

Hope this helps,

Ian Smith

If it is a closed shape, and you cannot fill the shape with a colour, then it might be that the lines have been converted into shapes.
When you select an outline, and left click on a colour, does the colour of the line change?

also try selecting a 'closed line' and then going to the arrange menu and clicking 'break shape' - if its a closed shape you will get fills, if its not actually closed [even though it may look like it visually] you won't

if you want to retain the line as well as the fill, then copy the line first; after you have done the break shape paste the line back, using paste in place; you can group them as one object

If there os a break in the line it sometimes be difficult to find. For instance I am working on something that just would not fill, finally I managed to find the break, now every thing is fine. I tried selecting and changing the color to see if I had more than one line, everything. It appeared to be only one line but the break was so hard to find. Actually I think there were multiple problems.

Handrawns sugestion is a real good one.

Really need a xar/web file here to comment further.

Hi,
I have found that sometimes Xara for an unknown reason changes a line to shape and when you add a fill it fills the new shape, which is only the width of the original line..which to me is annoying...shat i have to do is zoom in to maximum and select node editing too to find the nodes and break one node and search for the other nodes and break them then select a line and rejoin...hope you follow that..
Jim