Illustrator :: Simplifying Straight Line Paths?
May 21, 2012
Using Illustrator CS4
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I've imported a map from a DWG prepared in Archicad (vector based architecture software)
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This map shows roads and buildings (they are paths in illustrator) and as you would imagine the roads are curved but rather than being drawn with curves they are composed of many many straight line paths and as I'm meaning to have a model laser cut from the Illustrator file I need to join these paths into longer paths so the laser cutting doesn't take forever.
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As far as I can see it's fairly simple to simplify the number of anchor points on a curved path using the Object>Path>Simplify tool but simplifying multiple straight line paths that only have the slightest deviation in angle seems harder, or at least I can't work it out.
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I have attached an image, The areas highlighted in green are examples of areas where there are too many paths and just one or two paths would be fine. It would be fine to either convert the paths to curved paths or just simply reduce the number of straight line paths that compose the curves.
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May 24, 2013
When modifying a pre-existing shape by dragging an anchor point, the paths refuse to stay straight/right-angled (see image below, red lines). Even when I line it up beautifully and cannot see any hicks in the line, they become crooked the moment I let go of the anchor point. Certainly the shift key won't work. Is it something I need to change in my settings? 'Snap to point' doesn't do anything either, obviously. Smart guides are on too.
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Apr 1, 2011
Is there a way to make a object with straight lines to change the straight line to be undulated like a curly.
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Jun 15, 2012
I am trying to draw a straight line using the line tool, but when I hold down the shift button to draw a straight horizontal line it draws it a an angle. vertical line will go straights, but not the horizontal. I also noticed that the cursor now has an has a horizontal arrow with a vertical line at the end of it in the bottom right corner of the cursor when the line tool or shape tool is used. I went into prefrences and checked the constrain angle but it is set at 0 so I am not sure what to do or what happened. It was working fine and then all of a sudden this happened. Is there a button I may have hit that would cause this? how do I get it to draw straight lines again? I just noticed it wont draw 45 degree angles either. it sticks to angles a few degrees above and below horizontal.
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Jun 16, 2012
I'm using CS4 on a mac.
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Here's what I want: a filled rectangle in which the top and bottom line segments are straight, and the two side line segments are zigzag. I can't seem to find a good way to do that.
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First thing I tried: Make a rectangle, then Effect > Distort & Transform > Zig Zag. That turns all segments of the rectangle zig zag, and I want the top and bottom to be straight.
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Next: Draw four separate lines and join them to make a shape that I can fill. I can do that, right? Anyway, the problem: I draw a zigzag line, and a straight line and right angles. I select the endpoints with the pen tool (right?) to join them. When they join, either they both become straight or they both become zigzag. Which is not what I want either. Here's a picture of what I'm trying to do.
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The other thing I noticed is that the Zig Zag effect doesn't give me additional anchor points (at least from what I can see), and doesn't give me anchor points where I want them. See in the above picture, where I have the left-hand line segment selected, the path is still straight so the anchor points don't line up with the zigzag line that is visible to me. Which means when I try to join the segments, they make funny shapes at the corner. Which is also annoying. This thread seemed to indicate that Zig Zag should give me additional anchor points at each corner: [URL]. Why don't I get that? Is it a CS4/CS5 issue?
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Aug 12, 2012
I made a silhouette of buildings and I"m wanting to connect the bottom open endpoints into one straight line. The reason I'm doing this is because I want to add a fill to the silhouette as a whole instead of doing them one by one.
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I tried joining paths but it can only be two open endpoints at a time. I have many open endpoints.
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The pen tool only joins two open endpoints. If I try to continue to try to add another endpoint to the same line, the pen tool becomes a "minus anchor point" tool and messes up the shape of the buildings.
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Of course, I thought of just making each building separate and grouping them together. However, if I do that, a issue occurs because I have certain buildings that are "in front" of each other (not in the sense of layers, but the image as a whole). I purposely made the sihlouette look like some buildlings are in front of each other and some are behind each other.
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Aug 4, 2012
If I use the eraser tool to remove parts of a straight horizontal line, the resulting lines are not 180°.
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Apr 25, 2012
I'm wondering if I get hold on of say an image of a car, could I have this converted to black and white and then delete parts of it so that it can be cut out on a vinyl cutter?
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When converting it, I would like most of the image deleted but to keep the rough outlines and some shading etc so the image looks great and can be cut out on a cutter.
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Mar 23, 2013
Being new to AI, I find that as I draw paths, sometimes I would like to view them without all the anchors and handles, etc. So far, I've been doing this by clicking the 'deselect' option. Is there a faster way to do this, some sort of shortcut perhaps?
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Jun 27, 2012
I draw a curved line and would like it to remain as a curved line even after saving the file. However everytime after saving, and opening the file again, the curve breaks into many line segments, which is not what I want! I want the curved line that I draw to remain as a curved line even after saving and opening. How do I do that? I am using autocad2010.
I use the ARC command to draw a couple of lines, they look okay here. But after I saved it, and re-open it again, what previously appeared as curved lines changed in their appearance to polyline segments.
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May 19, 2012
I am working with vector art that has lines that either look like they were cut off and not finished out or extend to the edge of the page so they are straight when they should actually be curved.
Is there any way to take a straight line or part of an image and curve it with ease or will I have to redraw or alter each line?
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Jan 22, 2012
How can I draw a straight line without that protractor shaped dotted line following my cursor making it lag and also not snap correctly to the next line? Also, I have noticed that I can't set my user interface to auto cad classic settings. There seems to be no option for it in workspace settings.
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Oct 12, 2012
I've just recently caught up to 2.8 (From 2.4 something or other believe it or not ) and amongst a couple of things I have to say I don't like is the fact that previously when setting a path, if I wanted it to be either perfectly horizontal or vertical I could see by the steps in the path preview line whether it was or not.
With the new version, initially at least, that's no longer the case. As I tend to work with straight lines a lot of the time it's proving to be a bit of a pain. Is there any way to set the path preview line to show the steps again to indicate a straight line.
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Aug 1, 2012
I want to erase the watermark and x mark from a istock image for comping purposes. What is the easiest/fastest way to do this? Clone Stamp/patch tool? If stamp tool, how do you get the tool to delete the x line in a straight line. Mine always copys pixels next to it.
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Feb 23, 2014
I want to join two paths to create a shape that I can fill but at the same time retain one of the original paths (the red one in the image below). I can copy the path I want to retain but surely there is a more elegant solution. See below for for an illustration:
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Dec 4, 2012
Cannot lock other paths/unlock all paths in symbols?
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Jul 16, 2009
how you make a straight line in Photoshop?
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Jul 2, 2006
How do I draw a perfectly straight line...?
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Apr 29, 2009
Is it possible to use the eraser (or perhaps another tool) to erase in a straight line (rather than freehand)? I have an image that I need to make a series of erasures...take away straight line segments of the image. I keep finding how to "erase a straight line" on the internet but they are only discussing how to erase or clear a straight line just drawn...not what I am after. If there is a way (I was hoping I could use the eraser tool and press the shift key or something)
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Oct 15, 2004
How do you draw a straight line?
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Jan 23, 2003
If i wanted to draw a straight line with a color, much in the way you would traditionally with the edge of a rule, with the paintbrush or pencil tool, how would i do this? The pen tool creates paths. i do not want this. i just want to draw or paint a straight line.
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Jun 9, 2006
That is it, a simple, basic, black, straight line.
I can not find this feature anywhere.
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Nov 20, 2013
Is it possible to add more than 4 nodes onto a straight line? I find that with what I'm doing, the lines can sometimes be too angular in areas.
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Apr 22, 2012
I decided to draw a long box, 2 pixels wide and fill it with the desired color. That was all fair and well until I tried reducing my image and then the nice looking spider web line that I drew turned into a horrible black and white block line that looks crap.
So, I decided to try and get rid of it, and here I am 45 minutes later still trying to get rid of it. I don't what layer it is on, there are many layers, whenever i find the layer it is and delete it it then turns up in another layer in a different color. I've tried copying and pasting over layers, it just keeps coming back, I don't know what is going on anymore, it wont go away....
How to draw a simple freaking straight line in GIMP by clicking on a point and then clicking on another point?
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Jul 17, 2013
How do I draw a straight line in GIMP? I'm guessing all those tutorials are aimed at windows users. But I use Debian. Also tried ctrl, alt etc.
I have to wonder what kind of reasoning went into deciding not to have a line tool. It seems so simple to implement compared to all that advanced stuff. The only decent way to make a line currently that I can see is to make a square by filling a selection, shrinking, deleting, then delete all the sides of the square that i don't want. But this is so inefficient to do every time I need a line.
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Jul 26, 2012
I am still using CS2, and I am having to break up my desired curved lines by repeatedly using the SHIFT key while clicking the next point along my desired curved line. I would like to know if there is a plug-in that would let me pick the starting point as normal, hold down the shift key while I move the mouse to the ending point, and then,after I click and get the straight line with the brush of my choice, I need a way to BEND that line in the pristine shape of a circular or elliptical arc. I need some way to indicate how much arc angle is needed (from a teeny bit to a semicircle), and also how much to skew it towards either of the end points.
The way I am doing this now is
a) create a new layer and draw the straight line, then, delete everything else on this layer but the line, then show the main layer and edit the 2nd layer with warp, and then, finally, use warp to bend and skew the straight line - after all that, I flatten the image back to one layer. The problem with this method is that warp doesn't hold the edges of my formerly straight line (with crisp edges) true, but introduces indentations and juttings which I then have to go and "fix up" by hand.
b) copy the image to MSPaint, and use the bezier cure to draw the curved line I want, and then, copy it back into CS2.
If there is a way to bend my straight lines drawn with my selected brush, and it would keep the edges crisp and smooth, then I sure would like to learn how. The problem with using "paths" and stroking the path is that I cannot see how it will look while drawing the path and, even after I stroke it, that ugly path line with its anchor and control points muddles the picture and I wind up having to delete it and go back. I need to be able to see the FINAL result of bending my curved line while I am adjusting it with no artifacts to interfere with my close examination of the result.
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Dec 7, 2012
I've been using PSP 7 for many years and over the last year or so I can't seem to get a straight line to show up using the Draw Tool (I think the kids may have messed with a setting).
In the Tool Options I select Single Line, a width of 4, solid line and anti-alias. Create as vector and close path are left unchecked.
The problem is that whether I use my left or right mouse button to drag the line, the line does not show up, it just disappears (I'm using colors different from the background, of course).
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Sep 3, 2007
I want to bend a line in photoshop. I create a path with the line tool, but then what? If I add an anchor point, it creates a new line that closes the shape.. I can position that line over the bend line, but i can be done more simple I recon..
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Nov 11, 2013
Is it possible to create a straight line by using coordinates instead of left clicking on a specific point(my hands are just to shaky when using a mouse to get the exact coordinate) then holding shift and then taking forever trying to get that perfect end point pixel location.
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May 22, 2013
How can I align objects which are in a curve to a straight line? I thought I already knew the answer to this but when I tried I could not get it done.
I have about 1000 objects that I need aligning in this way (see attached image).
align.jpg
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Mar 21, 2013
Why does my angular dimension have a straight dimension line instead of curved?
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