Distribute object(s) on a path

[Robert Walters]

I can do this easily in various CAD programs, but how can I evenly distribute circles (objects) along a path in Corel X4?

I'm wanting to cut a pipe flange gasket and distribute six bolts holes around a six inch pipe (as example).

I'm more than wiling to RTFM, if you can point me in the right direction/link.

It be easy enough to draw in cad and export to Corel, but I'd prefer to do it all in Corel if possible.

[Andrea Weissenseel]

As far as I know, you can't arrange objects along a path in Corel :( - it's only possible with text. So that could be a workaround, create your own font with that a circle or use a existing font some, have circles as special characters.

If they have to be arranged in a circle, there is another way though. Draw one circle, move the center point of this circle to the middle of your pipe (that will be your rotation point). Go to the "Rotation" flyout and - since my language is set to German, I don't know exactly what the name of the tab is. In the field for degrees, type in 60° and click on apply to duplicate. You need to do that 5 times and you have your holes arranged

Hope this is understandable :D

Andrea

[Mike Null]

Objects can be aranged in a path in Corel. Check tutorials by Alex Galvez on you tube.

[Lee DeRaud]

Also this thread: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=124257.

Although, as Andrea points out, the general "bolt holes in a circle" problem is a lot easier using a copy-and-rotate approach.

[Scott Challoner]

I used to just open AutoCAD and use the polar array but now I do what Andrea does. It's the Transformation tab and you can use it for objects. I'm not on the work computer now, but I think in X5, I can tell it how many copies I want, where I used to have to hit the copy button once for each time I wanted to copy which was a pain.

[Robert Walters]

As far as I know, you can't arrange objects along a path in Corel :( - it's only possible with text. So that could be a workaround, create your own font with that a circle or use a existing font some, have circles as special characters.

If they have to be arranged in a circle, there is another way though. Draw one circle, move the center point of this circle to the middle of your pipe (that will be your rotation point). Go to the "Rotation" flyout and - since my language is set to German, I don't know exactly what the name of the tab is. In the field for degrees, type in 60° and click on apply to duplicate. You need to do that 5 times and you have your holes arranged

Hope this is understandable :D

Andrea


Thank you Andrea,

The Corel HELP file was actually useful in locating the "Rotation" flyout for once =)

[Robert Walters]

Objects can be aranged in a path in Corel. Check tutorials by Alex Galvez on you tube.

Hi Mike,

His videos on YouTube are limited to ten minutes,
but I looked on his website too and only found text-on-a-path:

http://www.coreldrawtips.com/site/fit-text-to-path-in-coreldraw (http://www.youtube.com/alexisgalvez#p/search/1/1ss29yVW96A)

not object-on-a-path.

Have a direct link by chance?

[Robert Walters]

I was just using the flange as an example.

I found this macro, but it looks pretty basic (haven't tried it yet):
http://www.oberonplace.com/products/fitobjects/index.htm

Guess I'm just used to tools in other programs

[Mike Null]

Robert

The feature has been in Corel for a long time but I have not had for it so I can't recall the tutorial I saw.

I use some macros from the Oberon site. They are safe and good.

[Andrea Weissenseel]

Mike, is making objects a spray can object what you mean ?

[Rodne Gold]

Often it's just a lot quicker to do stuff in a CAD package like Acad (or one of the free cad packages available) than Corel... Luckily Corels import and export functions have improved with time so importing the cad output is relatively painless.

[Ruben Salcedo]

Robert,
here (http://macromonster.com/index.php?mod=descr&id_desc=139&keyword=+&tfm_order=DESC&tfm_orderby=Code) is another great macro, the original intention was to place LED's but some people use it for rhinestones placing, it works in X4 and X5 only, I see that you're in luck, also is in sale right know only$19.00, I hope this will help.

Ruben

[Mike Null]

Andrea

I think I may have been mistaken. I had done a couple of clock faces positioning numerals within Corel but I've forgotten how I did it. I'm aware of the artistic media tool but that wasn't what I was referring to.

[Gary Hair]

There is definately nothing native to Corel that does this. I needed to place about 500 holes along several paths and believe me I looked! I ended up using VCarve Pro for my cnc router to do it and it was easy as can be. Pick the path, pick the object to place and tell it how many instances of the object to place on the path, that's it. I exported it to a pdf and imported that into Corel and I was done in about 5 minutes.

Gary

[Robert Walters]

Robert,
here (http://macromonster.com/index.php?mod=descr&id_desc=139&keyword=+&tfm_order=DESC&tfm_orderby=Code) is another great macro, the original intention was to place LED's but some people use it for rhinestones placing, it works in X4 and X5 only, I see that you're in luck, also is in sale right know only$19.00, I hope this will help.

Ruben

Thanks Ruben!

Now, if it can solder the LEDs too... HAWT DAMN :D

[Roy Brewer]

I think I may have been mistaken. Mike,

Instead of being mistaken, I think you just forgot that it is the BLEND function that allows us to fit shapes along a path. This is significantly more versatile than Transform>Rotate. If the following doesn't make sense, I'll throw a YouTube video out.

Notes: My experience is to add one step at a time. Do not check all the functions in the Blend Docker at once, but step through each setting then apply:
1. Duplicate a shape and blend it (20 times in example)
2. Select a path and apply it
3. Check "full path" apply it
4. Check "rotate" apply it (if desired)

If you'll fiddle with this function you'll see it is an awesome design tool.

[Robert Walters]

Mike,

Instead of being mistaken, I think you just forgot that it is the BLEND function that allows us to fit shapes along a path. This is significantly more versatile than Transform>Rotate. If the following doesn't make sense, I'll throw a YouTube video out.

Notes: My experience is to add one step at a time. Do not check all the functions in the Blend Docker at once, but step through each setting then apply:
1. Duplicate a shape and blend it (20 times in example)
2. Select a path and apply it
3. Check "full path" apply it
4. Check "rotate" apply it (if desired)

If you'll fiddle with this function you'll see it is an awesome design tool.

Hi Roy,

I'll take the YouTube video if you wouldn't mind =)

[Andrea Weissenseel]

Roy, you're right this is awesome - thank you.

The only thing I noticed is that, depending on the shape you blend, objects are not only rotated but also deformed (I tried it with starshapes)

Andrea

[Roy Brewer]

I'll take the YouTube video if you wouldn't mind =)Robert,

See if this makes sense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7okFhgHzOaw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7okFhgHzOaw)

[Roy Brewer]

... depending on the shape you blend, objects are not only rotated but also deformed (I tried it with starshapes)...Andrea,

While I couldn't duplicate the distortion you observed, I'm not surprised. The Blend effect seems to have been created for "artsy," or creative projects as opposed to precision projects. The more you work with it you'll say "now why did it do that?" On the other hand, those apparent errors often give us an inspiration for new applications.

[Robert Walters]

Robert,

See if this makes sense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7okFhgHzOaw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7okFhgHzOaw)

Roy,

I've been the IT Industry for many moons. As such, I have seen/dealt with many many various pieces of software, graphics and other wise, both from the development side and end user side.

But what I have never seen is such a straight forward, easily comprehensible, and practical demonstration of a software's feature as I have in your video.

Not only did I learn about the blend tool, but right-click to copy, and the contour effect. Which I've been looking for, but under the name "Offset Tool" as it is called on some of the CAD programs I use.

If you ever get tired of playing with the laser, I think you have a nitch there and could give lynda.com a serious run for the money.

BTW, what screen recording software are you using to create that video?

Thank you very much.

[Mike Null]

Roy

Thanks for bailing me out. You are a master when it comes to Corel.

Actually, I thought of the blend tool but forgot how it worked for objects. I use it for blending colorfills.

[Anthony Welch]

Andrea, I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but I have a
monitor screen that is wider than it is tall and have another dual screen
next to it and it is square. I've noticed that when I rotate an object in CD
it seems to distort it on the rectangle screen and not the square screen.
Output is spot on so, I think it's a distortin of the screen and not the
job in CD.

Just my observation.

Anthony

[Jeanette Brewer]

If you ever get tired of playing with the laser, I think you have a nitch there and could give lynda.com a serious run for the money.


Robert,

Hmmmm....maybe we should check to see if roy.com is available for when daddy (aka Roy Brewer) gets tired of playing with the laser. ;)

[Robert Walters]

Robert,

Hmmmm....maybe we should check to see if roy.com is available for when daddy (aka Roy Brewer) gets tired of playing with the laser. ;)

Looks like

LearnCorelDraw.com

is available, So is

CorelDrawMaster.com

and

Grasshopper-LearnToBeACorelDrawNinjaMasterLikeRoy.com

[Lee DeRaud]

Looks like

LearnCorelDraw.com

is available, So is

CorelDrawMaster.com

and

Grasshopper-LearnToBeACorelDrawNinjaMasterLikeRoy.comI keep thinking I should register allthegoodnamesweretaken.com, just in case. :eek:

[Andrea Weissenseel]

Anthony, I have a wide screen too. But when I arrange the star shapes (using the Corel star shape) along an ellipse the corner stars are distorted, you can see it when you turn them back. I'm still using Corel 11 though. I needed a function to create my own linestyles pretty often and the blend/spray can tool was too much of a hazzle to me, so I additionally purchased Xara and work in combination with that. In Xara you just create a shape and you can assign it as a linestyle which you can use on any shape, with c&p I just insert it into Corel.

Lee, I just took whatintheworldiseverybodytalkingabout.com :D

[David Fairfield]

Had the same question in Adobe Illustrator. I made a brush tool to do it, but blend might have worked. I figure blend would distort the middle pieces a little, like Andrea noticed.

So many features, and yet the software still doesn't have a tool to align on a path. :confused:

Dave

[Jiten Patel]

Had the same question in Adobe Illustrator. I made a brush tool to do it, but blend might have worked. I figure blend would distort the middle pieces a little, like Andrea noticed.

So many features, and yet the software still doesn't have a tool to align on a path. :confused:

Dave

David,

The pattern brush achieves this quite nicely. Just draw a circle or a few with the right distance between them (use the transform tool for this) and then make it into a pattern brush. Draw the shape which you require the circles to be distributed on and then apply the brush. Magic. You can tweak the brush to get exactly what you need and it will change the distribution on the fly.

Once happy with the results, expand so that the cicles become paths.

If not happy with allignment, use the allign tool. It work relative to your art board or to a shape. To make it relavant to a shape, Highlight everything you want alligned, then click again on a the shape you want everything allinged to. The outline should become bolded which means you are on the right track. Then choose your allign (top, left, etc.)

Hope that helps.

[Roy Brewer]

... what screen recording software are you using to create that video?Robert,

In the middle of the night I recalled that I didn't respond to the above. I have used Camtasia Studio for many years and have no idea how it compares to others; it works for me and I look no further.

[Robert Walters]

I was just playing with TEXT-on-a-path in X4, and I noticed that the middle dialog shown here is missing:

http://jacorre.com/design/screenshots/textonpathcdr_step3.gif

I'm not sure what it's name is, but would allow you to select if you wanted text above, below, or on the path (at least in Corel 12).

Has it been replaced by something else???