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Hi,
I learned a lot about spirals today and am still puzzled over how to get a long string of numbers (Pi) to scale smoothly down in size in a spiral...or maybe to "fit a path" in Adobe Illustrator.
Ai is new to me. Photoshop is not.
Any help?
TIA
drcarl
Attachment 106111
I'd love to answer your question but I know nothing about ai. Maybe one of the photoshop,ai gurus will come along and answer it for you.
I'd be thrilled if SOMEone, Photoshop or Illustrator, would come along with the clues....er, answersQuote:
Originally Posted by wizard509
I think your answer is going to wind up in the domain of bitmaps graphics...a filter probably...rather than vector art, drcarl. If anyone can figure out an algorithm to scale text down exponentially, they take the cake, you know? This question came up on Creative Cow about 5 years ago, and the best answer was (In Illustrator, and the same with Xara), "Fit the text to path, and then when the path starts getting too small, reduce the size of the text."
It's a manual approach. Requires the patience of a saint.
My Best,
Gary
Most anything is possible in Illy...just not always a "perfect" solution.
Paste your Pi text in Illustrator.
Size your text to be the size your start size will be.
Below the text, create a rectangle pretty much the full length of the Pi text. Also make it about the same height of the text.
Using the white pointer (direct select) and pick the top right node on one end of the rectangle and drag it down not quite to the middle.
Do the same with the bottom right node, but drag it up to almost the middle.
Now select both the text and the rectangle.
Click on the Objects menu.
Most of the way down the Objects menu, choose Envelope Distort, Make with Top Object.
Now, with the text still selected, choose to make a new Art Brush.
I named mine Art Brush Scaled Text.
Now apply the art brush to your spiral.
Attachment 106176
It's easy enough to taper the text but to get to a spiral curve is not.
@Mike—you are amazing, Sir.
@Larry—Dmitri Maultin created a spiral generator to use with Xara years ago and here's the link to Gary Priester's Shareware archives click to download the spiral generator from the original Xara Xone.
-Og
Why thank you sir Gary.
And I did use the spiral generator. Great little utility. Can't drag and drop into Illy though. Can't place the file either. It does open though. So I opened it, copied and pasted into my working document.
Mike
Gary I tried that, failing to get the envelope to follow the curve, I tried making a brush but that didn't work for me either.
I'd love to know how to do it using Xara.
Are you trying in illustrator, Larry? Or just in an Xara product?
Hello all
Another approach is to use a macro to incrementally reduce the font size of the string of numbers. This will obviously require access to a keyboard macro utility. For the example below I used Mini Mouse Macro which is free from Turnssoft. They also offer a Pro version for about £4 GBP.
Note, I'm not an expert at macros. That said, here we go...
Here's the sequence of actions for the macro which will reduce text size (one character at a time) in 1pt steps.
- Shift+Right (select character)
- Ctrl+Shift+A (paste attributes)
- Ctrl+Shift+< (reduce font by 1pt)
- Ctrl+C (copy)
- Right (move cursor to right)
My method using Xara Photo & Graphic Design (and Mini Mouse Macro)...
To start with you will need to make all numbers (or text) the same size and copy some of the text to the clipboard to 'prime' the second action (paste attributes) in the macro - see above
- paste Pi numbers (copied off a webpage)
- zoom out to max zoom level (5%)
- change font size to 999pt
- run macro, looped 999 times.
- create and import (drag and drop) spiral line (I used spxe.exe)
- fit text to curve and adjust as req.
Attachment 106201
I've not tried yet, but I suspect there are number of laborious tasks that could be made easier using a macro to playback keystrokes. :D
Well done, Jonopen. Haven't tried it yet, looks fine and done in an Xara product. The thread is about Illustrator...and the same can be done in it with javascript. Just too lazy to write it...
I'll give it a whirl in XDP. Thanks!
Mike
Hah, works a treat.
Thanks, Jonopen.
Mike
Thanks Mike.
I'm afraid I didn't have a recent copy of Illustrator to hand for testing, but assuming there are keyboard shortcuts for copying and pasting text attributes, I believe it should work the same. The timings in my macro were intentionally chosen to run on a slow'ish PC. You might find you can decrease the values (the numbers in the 4th column) to make it fly if you have a high spec PC.
Also it occurred to me that if the default font unit was set to pixels (rather than points), it might result in a slightly gentler incline.
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Attachment 106211
Just in a Xara product MikeQuote:
Originally Posted by mwenz
Then Jonopen's process works just fine. The below was, like Jonopen's example, done wholly in XDP.
Mike
Attachment 106224