How to get nicely rounded shapes and lines?!

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hej107us

How to get nicely rounded shapes and lines?!

Postby hej107us » Sat Feb 21, 2009 4:22 pm

I am using concentric circles and masking but it is feels so very kludgy...

How to make nice straight lines flow into and bend curvaceously and then back to straight lines?

I've tried bezier curves but it always looks wrong and out of whack and sloppy.

Something like this - but with straight lines heading into and out of nicely rounded curves -
Image

Thanks so much!

Hans

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prkos
Posts: 1625
Joined: Tue Nov 06, 2007 8:45 am
Location: Croatia

Re: How to get nicely rounded shapes and lines?!

Postby prkos » Sat Feb 21, 2009 10:43 pm

Create circles using ellipse tool while holding Ctrl down to get perfect circles. Then create a rectangle and set it's height to be the same as the "width of the circle". You can do it precisely using the grid while drawing or with snapping. Is this what you asked about?

There is also an easier way if I understood what you're trying to do. Use rectangle tool to draw a rectangle that is wider than it's tall. Then use the handles on the corners to curve them, hold Ctrl to make it even. If you do this all the way to the middle of the rectangle side you will get a half-circle ending on the left and right side of the rectangle. Then duplicate the rectangle and shrink it to get concentric effect.
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Re: How to get nicely rounded shapes and lines?!

Postby Guest » Tue Mar 03, 2009 3:12 am

Thanks, for some of that info - its helpful.

How would I make something like the above picture? The hard part for me to get my head around is the lower half of it.

The upper part is just concentric circles but the bottom half - I just can't figure out how to bend or create such things very well.

Thanks again!

Hans

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Billt Joe
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Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2009 9:21 am

Re: How to get nicely rounded shapes and lines?!

Postby Billt Joe » Tue Mar 03, 2009 11:31 am

you could cut part of the circles by going to path->object to path-> and then use :tool_node: to add nodes around where you want to cut off(select them both) and then near the top with the tool options click the button that is 5 away from the left which says "split path between two non endpoint nodes"

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EarlyBlake
Posts: 302
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:42 pm

Re: How to get nicely rounded shapes and lines?!

Postby EarlyBlake » Tue Mar 03, 2009 4:45 pm

I'm not sure what you are going for so...

If have an arc that you want to continue into a straight line, once the arc is done with the :tool_ellipse: do a convert to path then select the arc with :tool_selector:. Black boxes will appear on the end of the arc. Then select :tool_pen: . Start the straight line on the black box and it will be a continuation of the arc in one path.

If you want to make arc like in the image above use the :tool_ellipse: and the round handle to make an arc. If you want to connect two arcs like in your image. Draw the two arcs. Turn on snap nodes to nodes in Documents properties shift ctrl D >> snap tab. With snap the end nodes will snap to each other then do a combined under paths menu to get one path. If you are talking about the aesthetics of making a sharp angle in inkscape, I usually have to put in 2 or 3 nodes to get a curve that doesn't look kludgey. Followed by a lot of node tweaking. And use a mix of corner and round nodes. It might be different if you are on a drawing tablet. The :tool_pen: in default mode uses Bézier curves which too me aren't always the most attractive curves. If you are on Windows or Linux you could try the new feature Spiro mode on the :tool_pen: in the developers version.


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