Corel drawing tip needed

[Nigel Morgan]

Hi All,

I all ways do my drawing in my CAD program and import into Corel, for the simple reason I can not fathom how to create a radius between to lines, a fillet so to speak. If I draw a line, then another line at an angle, can I go back and create a rad at the intersection in Corel.

Cheers

Nigel

[George M. Perzel]

Hi Nigel;
Fairly simple to do. Under the pen tool flyout is a "3 point curve" tool. With this tool selected, click on fillet start point on one line, drag to point on other line, and bend curve to radius you want.
George

[David Friedman]

Creating an arc tangent to 2 lines can be estimated well with the 3-point arc but has a few flaws in the process. First of all, the arc most likely will not be tangent to one or both lines. Secondly, the size of the radius is difficult to control. Lastly, the radius is likely to change from one end of the arc to the other.

For more accuracy (a misnomer in Corel) you can use the Contour tool to create a contour for each line. Use the size of the arc radius for the contour offset. Then create the arc somewhere and move it to the intersection of the two contours. Break the contours (because they are grouped automatically) and delete the contours. Be careful not to delete the original lines.

Finally, trim. This is where the accuracy of Corel becomes a problem. The arc will be very close to perfect, but mathematically, it is not likely to be close enough for an easy trim.

There are many ways to do this process. Another example (without using the contour tool) is to copy each line on top of itself (select a line, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V) and then rotate the line 90 degrees. Put the circle at the intersection of the two lines. Do this twice for each line. Then create a line through the intersections of the circles and the 90 degree lines. This will give you the offset lines without grouping or contouring. The rest of the process is the same.

Good luck with that.

Dave

[Richard Rumancik]

Nigel, I feel your pain. I have a CAD background so when I started using CorelDraw I couldn't figure out how anyone could draw without very basic tools (like filleting two lines.) Another complaint - when you add "radii" to corners of rectangles in CorelDraw it uses an "interesting" method to add roundness - but it's not a radius. (For this problem I found a free add-on to CorelDraw that makes true radiused rectangles.)

In my case, I draw in AutoCad and dxf into CorelDraw. It can be a real hassle if you make a mistake or need to edit later and don't have the tools in CorelDraw to do it.

I see that X3 has a radius tool - but I don't have X3 so can't test it. Does it only work on closed objects? I don't know . . . can an X3 user comment here?

You might be able to find a third party add on. I just found CurveWorks and downloaded it for fun. It looks promising but I don't know if it is "smooth" enough. It does give you a nice toolbar within CorelDraw. It will radius two arbitrary lines that joint at a point. If they don't join CurveWorks has a tool to extend them to join.

I have had 10 minutes experience with the program so I am not "recommending" it but maybe you can search for add-ons and find something you like.

CurveWorks is around $50. Why couldn't these tools be included in CorelDraw?

[Mike Null]

May I suggest you have a look at the add-ins from this site.
http://www.oberonplace.com/vba/drawmacros/index.htm