Length of a curve

Hello,

I am using CorelDraw9 and need to know the lengths of drawed curves (in milimeters). I couldnot find anything related in the CorelDraw9 Help or Tutorial. I will be thankful for any advice.

Hello,

I am using CorelDraw9 and need to know the lengths of drawed curves (in milimeters). I couldnot find anything related in the CorelDraw9 Help or Tutorial. I will be thankful for any advice.

I don't know about Corel, but AutoSketch has a measuring tool. Maybe look at some CAD type applications. Rich

Hi Ejko ... Welcome to TalkGraphics.

I don't know of an easy way to accomplish what you want. CorelDRAW has a built in dimension tool which will measure linear distance in millimeters... but it doesn't measure curves. You would have to copy the curved line, use the bezier tool to straighten it out, then use the dimension tool to measure it.

I wish I had a better solution.

-Ed.

Thank you very much for your input.

There is a commercial vba script for draw that comes to my mind:

http://www.oberonplace.com/products/...orks/index.htm

However, the earliest version it supports is Draw 10. Not much help here, I'm afraid. But it's got some nifty features for Draw 10 users and above.

I found this problem very interesting.
Maybe this sounds like a no-brainer, but here's how you can do an approximation:
Create a circle with a fixed diameter, say 1 mm. Duplicate it and make a blend from the two. Fit this blend to the curve from the start to end points and and increase the number of steps until the edges of the circles just touch each other and runs through the entire length of the curve. Go to the wiremode view to view this and zoom as close as you can so you could increase the number of steps and see when the edges just touch each other without gaps or overlaps. See how many circles are needed and you have a pretty good approximation. You may have to cut up the curve into sections if it is too long. The smaller the diameter of the circles in the blend, the more accurate the measurement will be. Tried it on a circle 100 mm in diameter and managed to fit 312 1 mm circles along the circumference. Remember that the number of steps does not inclue the start and end objects, so there are actually 314 circles running around it. Quite a good approximation. For open ended curves, you'd have to take into account the start and end portions of the circles extending beyond the line and subtract 1 circle from the total number of circles along the curve.

Here's another better method:
Select all nodes of the curve and unjoin them so that the curve is divided into two node segments. Ungroup the shape so you could work with individual segments. Pick a segment and select both nodes. Add nodes again and again so that the segment is basically subdivided into virtually straight segments. Measure the distance between the nodes and multiply this by the number of nodes. Do the same to other segments and add the result.

OK, I have this habit of talking to myself. But maybe if somebody would care to tackle this question, I'd leave it alone.
Adding nodes doesn't work as well as I thought. The nodes are supposed to be equidistant, but it seems they are not. Tried it on a circle but can't seem to make it add up right. Strange.

Go get 'um Grafixman ... I love watching a genius at work http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

-Ed.

Genius I definitely am not http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif. If I had .001% the talent of Dmitry, I'll be writing a plug-in to do this. Tenacious would be a better description.
Here's as good as I can get it in Draw:
Create a two point line segment. Collapse it into a single point by aligning the two nodes vertically and horizontally. Duplicate then make a 999-step blend.
Fit this blend along the total lenght of the path.
Ungroup all and measure the distance between any two points along the dots running along the path. You may have to zoom in very close for this. Multiply the measurement between any two adjacent points by 1000.
There are still slight variations with this method. I tried measuring it by sampling different parts of a curved line. It's only accurate to +- 1mm or so. I guess Draw can only measure that small, or the blending process is not perfectly equidistant.

Hello Ejko!
And welcome to our Forum,-----and sorry Ed, the dimension tool can measure curves too, and without this tool you can know too how the length of your curve in the property dialog of this curve, i will attach JPEG to explain that to you, hope that help.
Regards...
Lord(Mohamed)

Hi Lord,

I hate to "differ" with you ... but the dimension tool is only measuring from point A to point B ... not the distance ALONG the curve ... which is what Ejko was asking for. To prove my point go back to your drawing and using the bezier tool grab the middle of your curved line and stretch it upwards a good distance ... then look to see if the value (106,78 Millimeter) changes ... my guess is that it will not.

-Ed.

Hi

It's not much, but since CorelDRAW 9 there has been a built in function to measure the length of Curves via scripting or VBA

I wrote a simple wrapper to put around this function.

You can get it from my home page, link to it should still be in my signature.

It hasn't been updated for Draw 12 yet, but it is a simple matter to edit the .CSC file in notepad and change the line first line of the program to CorelDRAW.Automation.12

HTH

Peter

Thank you, Peter Clifton!
There is the hard way (my brute force, no brainer, grossly inaccurate approach) and there is the easy way (which I'll be using from now on).
I'm just a simple graphics guy and I stand in awe at what you people do. It's also good that you're willing to share them for free.
Thanks again http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif.

Thank you Peter http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/cool.gif Works great with CorelDRAW 12.

Ejko,
If you are still around ... go to Peter's site and download "CurveCalc" to a directory on your hard drive. Open your CorelDRAW drawing and go to TOOLS, RUN SCRIPT ... browse to the CSC file you downloaded and hit open. You should see something like this.

-Ed.

Or copy and paste it in the script folder in Draw's directory. Run script seems to default to this and it would make finding it easier. Everybody should have this one. Really useful.

I thank you all very much for your effort, it is great to meet so many friendly people willing to help.