How do I properly make a circle with X inside?

Argitoth · Postby **Argitoth** » Sat Aug 11, 2012 4:46 pm

Ok. First I have a circle. ( )
Now I want to put an "X marks the spot" inside ( X )
Now I want to fill that with white color...
Oh look, only 75% is filled... LAME!
How do I properly draw a Circle X? I want it to be a path all the way, not a grouped object or something.

ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION:

druban wrote:...a path can only have two endpoints or no endpoints...

druban wrote:just look up 'Euler cycle' and 'Euler path' and 'Konigsburg bridge problem' to learn something interesting! (FYI, that's pronounced 'Oy-ler')

Maestral · Postby **Maestral** » Sat Aug 11, 2012 5:12 pm

After creating the circle, use select tool, double-click the circle and control points will show up.
While holding and moving one of those on the right, you will create an arc but depending of mouse position (inside or outside of the circle) you`ll get just an arc or part of "the chart pie".

Postby **brynn** » Sat Aug 11, 2012 8:10 pm

I don't follow you Maestral. Since he says the circle with the X is all one path, he probably is not using the Ellipse tool -- at least not in the end.

I guess there may be a few ways to draw the X with circle around it, with one continuous line. And since I don't know which way you did it, it will be hard to tell you exactly. But somehow you'll need to continue the line from where it ends, and connect back to the beginning point, or as close as you can to the beginning. (Or vice versa.) Actually it looks like you just need to go one more quarter way around the circle. You should be able to close the path, by clicking with Pen/Bezier or Pencil/Freehand tools, in the white square that you see where the path ends. (Either tool must be engaged, to display the tiny white squares.) Then draw around to the white square at the starting place, and click in that square. That should close the path, and you should see the color immediately fill it completly

If that doesn't work, then maybe it's me who doesn't understand the question

(I don't know if by "lame" you mean that you expect that Inkscape should fill it completely? But in this case, it's more of an SVG issue, than an Inkscape issue. In this case, the path needs to be closed, to be completely filled. Nearly closed may cause it to look filled, at a glance, but it won't be completely filled until the path is closed. (In this case.) To my understanding, this is required by SVG rather than Inkscape.

)

I hope this helps

Maestral · Postby **Maestral** » Sat Aug 11, 2012 9:28 pm

@brynn
If it`s all one path, circle and the cross, when filled from dialog or bottom palette - all should be in the same color.
What I can see from the example, it looks to me like two V shapes inside the circle, according to the gray fill.
How ever, there`s too many "If"s in OP question (if it is a question after all,).
My suggestion was to create 4 quarters of the circle, to align them as desired and filling would be quite simple after that.

Correct me if I`m wrong, but when you fill one quarter of the circle you have to end up with two shapes (at least)?
So, what could make you be so strict about the number of the shapes? Perhaps some old habits from other sw?

Argitoth · Postby **Argitoth** » Sun Aug 12, 2012 2:21 am

omg... guys... guys... it's so simple... I just answered my own question. Here's how I did it.

:tool_ellipse:

Draw a circle

Convert to path (shift + ctrl + c)

:tool_pencil:

Make sure the circle is selected (dotted selection square is indicating that the circle is still selected)

Hold shift while drawing two lines inside the circle, ANYWHERE!!! JUST DRAW TWO LINES!

:tool_node:

OPTIONAL: Now re-position lines and snap them to the circle nodes. You could even make an X inside a circle that doesn't even touch the actual circle.

Maestral · Postby **Maestral** » Sun Aug 12, 2012 3:07 am

\o/
Where`s the part about the fill, grouping.. etc? ,)) Glad to hear that you made it on your own.

Off topic:

what do you use for screen capturing? I don`t know about the one with .gif export

Argitoth · Postby **Argitoth** » Sun Aug 12, 2012 3:17 am

Maestral wrote:Where`s the part about the fill, grouping.. etc?

huh? I don't want to group anything. Grouping is not required because it's 100% consolidated path. I want it to be filled 100%, and it is. I just want a circle and an X. That's what I did!

Postby **brynn** » Sun Aug 12, 2012 4:26 pm

When you said

Argtitoth wrote: I want it to be a path all the way, not a grouped object or something.

I thought you meant that you wanted to draw this object with a single path. You could start with Ellipse tool, but you'd have to convert to paths, and break and join and all that, to get a single path. I thought you meant that you did NOT want a circle with 2 straight paths all grouped together, which appears to be how you solved the problem after all! And that makes me wonder what you were doing in the first place!

Maestrel, oh, I see what you're thinking, now. I took the white in the illustration, to be the fill that didn't fill completely, while you took the gray as the fill.

I have no idea what the original question was, at this point. :lol:

Maestral · Postby **Maestral** » Sun Aug 12, 2012 9:30 pm

Same here, since it looks like we interrupted Argitoth`s inner monologue ,)
Neither of us landed on OP`s point nor I got the answer. I`m pretty much sure I`ll restrain my self from further posting in topics containing "I want.." "I need..." and similar ,)

Argitoth · Postby **Argitoth** » Sun Aug 12, 2012 10:25 pm

How do you break apart an ellipse so that you can start editing it?

Maestral · Postby **Maestral** » Sun Aug 12, 2012 11:50 pm

Postby **brynn** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 12:17 am

Oh my!

Before I get into trouble by answering without all the needed info -- is there anything else we need to know?

Is the ellipse still a shape, or has it been converted to a path? Does it need to remain a shape or path? Why do you need to break it apart? Do you specifically need precise arcs or angles? What is the nature of the edits that you want to perform?

Argitoth · Postby **Argitoth** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:19 am

Here's another attempt trying to make a circle in an X and then join the paths...

Am I correct in assuming the "most correct" way to do this is how I did it in the first video? Or is there a more "correct" way where the path is continuous? See, no matter what I do, the paths are still able to be pulled apart. Normally, when one path moves, the ones connected to it move as well. This is not the case because they are not actually joined. They are separated paths.

Argitoth · Postby **Argitoth** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 9:25 am

I did it yet a third way. I took two lines, turned stroke into path, took a circle, turned into path. I then selected the circle and one line and did "difference path." Selected the other line and did the same thing.

(EDIT: Actually if you make the lines go clear past the circle (so it's like a BIG X on top of a small circle) there will be less nodes created when you hit the "difference" button. When the lines are just up against the circle, useless extra nodes are created.)

Here's another version where you create a SMALL X. After you make the lines, use the SCALE tool and reduce the size of the lines. Using the scale tool is VERY IMPORTANT!!!: Because when you use the scale tool, it scales toward the center, not off to one side. VERY HELPFUL!!!

Postby **druban** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 10:39 am

Maestral wrote:... it looks like we interrupted Argitoth`s inner monologue...)

Lol, Maestral, i don't think he noticed, not even when Moses showed up for a cameo. OP is very focused!

Off topic:

I do wish he had answered your question about the screencap method though, I don't know any thing that puts that neat timeclock in the bottom.

Argitoth · Postby **Argitoth** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 11:35 am

Omg... I can't easily see a little "OP: blablabla" in grey... I totally missed that, sorry!

I made the previous gif animations with Licecap: http://www.cockos.com/licecap/

Postby **brynn** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 7:40 pm

Argitoth wrote:Here's another attempt trying to make a circle in an X and then join the paths...

So now you're back to wanting a single path? Geez! Let me catch up to the several new messages since I last posted. If I have anything more to say, I'll post again

Btw, it's hard to watch your animations, because when I come to your message with the animation, it's somewhere in the middle, and there's no way to start it from the beginning. I don't have time to wait for it to play to the end (which I don't even know how long they are at this point) to see it from the beginning.

Postby **druban** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:04 pm

brynn wrote:Btw, it's hard to watch your animations, because when I come to your message with the animation, it's somewhere in the middle, and there's no way to start it from the beginning.

Hit reload page and the animation will start over. You browser should not take you back to the top of the page.

Argitoth wrote:Or is there a more "correct" way where the path is continuous? See, no matter what I do, the paths are still able to be pulled apart. Normally, when one path moves, the ones connected to it move as well. This is not the case because they are not actually joined. They are separated paths.

You could try path menu>combine.
But you could also recite to yourself, "I accept that a path can only have two endpoints or no endpoints, open or closed, so it has always been, so it shall ever be," over and over. Try it!

Postby **brynn** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:15 pm

Ok, caught up. You're never going to find a way to have this all connected into a single path, except by having some parts overlapped. I'll try to make an illustration in a minute. But the reason it won't work, is because a node can have either 1 path emanating from it, or 2. 1 or 2, no more and no less. For example, where one end of one line segment of the X touches the circle, 3 different segments theoretically would meet there. But you can't do that with Inkscape, and have only one node at the place where they meet.

Here's what I had in mind, and what I thought you were asking. Follow the numbers for the order of node placement.

I thought you had already placed nodes 1 through 8, and that you just needed to place node 9 back at the starting place, to have the fill completely inside the circle.

Oh, btw, do I understand that you've now figured out how to break the ellipse apart? May I please suggest that when you have questions, you first try and find the answer yourself, before posting a message asking how to do something?

I hope you've learned through this little ill-fated topic, that there are many ways to make a circle with an X. No one way is any more proper than the other. It's just whatever will work in your current image's circumstances, and your own preferences. There are some fairly uncommon situations where there might be only 1 or 2 ways to do a certain task. But with Inkscape, there are often at least a few ways. Learning what works best in which situations, and according to your preferences, is how your own skills are developed

Happy Inkscaping!

Postby **brynn** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:20 pm

Oh sorry druban. You posted while I was drawing my illustration and composing my message. I tried reloading the page, but it does not restart the animation.

Argitoth · Postby **Argitoth** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 12:10 am

TO RELOAD ANIMATION

right-click on animation, copy image url, paste in new browser window, enter. refresh for restart.

Thanks for answering my question. The first post has been edited to reflect this.

Ailurus · Postby **Ailurus** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 2:16 am

Wow, this became quite the topic

. I didn't answer the question because I'm almost sure it's impossible to create that figure as a single path without overlapping edges (would love to see a mathematical proof for this, though). Topologically spoken, it is same as a box with an X inside. Most optimal way to draw this as a "single path" would still have one overlapping edge.

Anyway, wrong interpretation, and the question seems to be solved. Thanks for the idea of referring to the provided solution in the OT, I'll keep that in mind.

flamingolady · Postby **flamingolady** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 5:42 am

Interesting or should I say amusing topic, lol.
I love the animations, too bad they don't have a start and pause/stop button, I just don't have the patience to copy, paste just to see them from the start, saw enough to get the idea.
Of course I would have used yet another method ot create this, (each pie section would have a 'V' path with an arc to form the pie, but that's just water under the bridge, or between Moses's parted waters!
Just wondering, don't think I ever saw where the OP said what he wanted to do with the end result. Argitoth - are you trying to fill each piece of the pie with a different color? Because that would really dictate whether or not to have a continuous path or not. After all the posts, I sure hope we get to see the end result.

Postby **druban** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 10:32 am

Ailurus wrote:I'm almost sure it's impossible to create that figure as a single path without overlapping edges (would love to see a mathematical proof for this, though). Topologically spoken, it is same as a box with an X inside.

Leonhard Euler, swiss mathematical genius, pioneered work in the field of connectivity and networks. Essentially, you cannot trace a path and return to your origin if any intersections have an odd number of intersections connected to them. In this example, the circumferential nodes are connected to one node on each side and to the center node as well, giving them an odd degree, thereby it follows that no path can be found that does not retrace itself. His explanations are much more elegant than any thing i could attempt here, so just look up 'Euler cycle' and 'Euler path' and 'Konigsburg bridge problem' to learn something interesting! (FYI, that's pronounced 'Oy-ler')

Argitoth · Postby **Argitoth** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 11:34 am

Here's the result. I will be using the "consoldiated, not actually connected paths" method. It creates the least path points so it should be most efficient resource-wise. (See first animation)

Yeah.. I made animations too long, should have only filmed exactly what was needed to be seen and explained the rest.

My next task?

Simplify my dial design:

Too many circles. :lol:

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