Polar Grid Tool

[MegaThunder]

THANK YOU ALL,

You people are great help, I will try to dot what you have instructed I am allways learning but I never give up on Draw!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Regards

[Grafixman]

http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif. Thanks to Sark and Sallybode, too. I also learned a lot from this topic. Creative ideas from the site link, and new ways of approaching the problem. Sallybode's tip on using powerclip could be the more versatile solution. I powerclipped a corner of the border I made to a triangle and rotate-duplicated it to get the result below:

http://home.pchome.com.tw/art/grafixman/fancyborder.gif

[Sark]

Sally, Grafix & Mega, Hi.

Powerclipping, which is basically just a mask, is a very powerful tool. Sometimes, however, it can be beneficial to keep draw files as simple as possible. Like Lens effects, Powerclips can sometimes cause output issues. This does tend to happen if you have a lot of them in a file, but it's certainly something to keep an eye on.

This excercise was a good example of the many different ways to approach the same problem. No one method is neccesarily better than another, and it is always useful to have several options available.

I look forward to the next challenge. Maybe I should even consider setting one for you to solve. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Sark

[sallybode]

I have done a lot of drawing both in vector and bitmap programs and do more in vector because it remain totally editable. Non-destructive editing is my preference especially because I know that customers change their mind and if you have left no way back, guess what they invariably want? Sark is right, trimming is a better solution in some circumstances. But to me the PowerClip is "quick and dirty". It masks away what no one needs to see.

Actually whatever you have too many of can become a memory hog.

Knowing how you can tear these lines from Oberon apart and manipulate them is very useful as I have had to draw certificates and that is tedious without Secure Design.

[MegaThunder]

Friends Stamp

This is my humble final "friends stamp".

In the top frame I show the modified box.

How did you bend the cornes of the differnt stars?

[Grafixman]

Agreed, putting large complicated things into powerclip and duplicating it produces a lot of hidden objects which would bog down Draw.
But how about using symbols? You could create a powerclipped shape with no outline or fill, save that as a symbol then duplicate and arrange the symbol in a radial pattern. You could then create a kaleidoscope effect that you could alter by editing the symbol and it's powerclipped content.

[sallybode]

If there are many Powerclips on a page, this may be true, if there is one Powerclips with a whole page of complicated items, it gives you back your memory. I had to work on the AV Fair LOGO, it was forwarded to us in CYMK but we needed to print it less than 1/4 of the size and in grayscale. Just as in color photography, when the saturation of colors is nearly the same, it does not make for sufficient contrast to make a good black and white picture, neither does it work in vector graphics. I recolored the drawing using shades of gray to give it the contrast it needed. But when I pasted on the page, with the rest of the information (it was a parade form sign up) things really slowed down, and about came to a halt when I added the same graphic to the next page. I went back to the back up version because this one was too large a file to open, and put the black and white Fair LOGO in a Powerclip and then resized it for both instances and had plenty of memory for the use of the LOGO and the LOGO modified on the second page. Other than that there was no difference in the way the file was put together. It is like placing graphics in InDesign and PageMaker, the placed file has a representation of the file as a place holder but does not reside fully in the file you are working with so that it doesn't bog things down. Powerclipping may manage memory as subfiles.

It seems the way the memory is being managed is very much the same as the symbols palette, except Powerclips do not have any rules, they can take any sort of file, transparency, you name it, even .eps color and duotones, tritones, and package it neatly up. The Symbols palette limits you to vector graphics with no transparency.

[Sark]

Grafixman, Sally.

I've only just got V12, jumping from V9, so Symbols are not something I've really used yet.

The biggest memory factor is the Undo level. In V9 it used to default to 100, which is crazy. Not sure about V12, I think it's 20, but I always work at 10 levels, as this is more than enough for me.

After 10 levels it just writes over existing history and if I work with my res set to 72DPI, I never really have too many problems. Just a matter of changing the res if needed after finishing editing. Of course, the res only effects bitmap effects, drop shadows and lens effects etc.

I guess it depends on what use use Draw for. For me , it is moostly the start for work that will be finished, or put together, in PS, so I haven't had those really big files that cause problems.

Sark

[Grafixman]

I'm still on CD11, as I said before. But browsing at the Corel site for the CD12 features, it seems that Powerclip has been improved so that the contents can also be trimmed to the shape of the containing object. Maybe this would be helpful in cutting out excess materials?
Also, I'm not sure about Sallybode's comment on the symbols being limited to vector graphics with no transparency. From what I have in CD11, almost anything can be saved as a symbol. Even bitmaps. Or powerclipped shapes. Then it's just a matter of dragging it out and reusing it. The instances can be rotated, scaled or skewed independently. Using symbols seems to work faster on my old computer, too, compared to clones or duplicates.