CorelDraw X3 help

[Chip Peterson]

If I have a vector drawing that was made with many discontinuous line segments, how can I get them into a better order?

As an Example: A car outline where each one of the lines was drawn as a seperate line segment and they do not necessarially go sequentially. My laser cuts line#1 first, then line #4, then line #17, etc. Eventually they all get cut, but it's not the most efficient way to do it.

I hope this makes sense. I know that my vector cutting can be made faster.

Thanks in advance.

[Bill Jermyn]

I get that all the time from customers who send me dxf files.

Here's how I do it, it may not be the best way. Choose all the segments that should be one curve. Go to arrange/combine. Then select the shape tool. Drag-select a pair (usually, it could be more) and click on 'join 2 nodes' in the toolbar on the top. It's a funny looking icon to the right of the 'delete node' icon. Continue until it stops saying in the status bar on the bottom 'on xx subpaths'. I usually delete some nodes while I'm at it, if it doesn't change the object.

Hope this makes sense.

[Mike Null]

Chip

It might be worth a try to convert it to a tiff then trace it.

[Tony Severenuk (Corel)]

If I have a vector drawing that was made with many discontinuous line segments, how can I get them into a better order?

If you have a bunch of line segments that should be a continueous path...try selecting all the line segments and use Arrange>Close path> closest nodes with curvy lines.

FWIW, in X4 there was a small change that some of you folks might like....when editing with the shape tool the start node and the end node of a path are now made of arrowheads to show where it starts and where it ends.

For those that are using X4 I would be interested to hear if this change is helpful for you.
T.

[Rodne Gold]

The best way to work around this is to lock the original and perhaps change line colour and then use it as an underlay for redrawing , will be quicker than dickering around and you get a proper corel closed object with far less nodes and other nasties. We sometimes import it into acad and convert the discrete lines to a joined polyline , sometimes works sometimes doesnt.

[Darren Null]

I dunno if this the right place for this, but when I'm tracing stuff by hand, I always convert it to a bitmap and then give it some brightness...this leaves you with a ghost image to trace, and you can see what you're drawing on top.

Works for me, anyway.

[Roy Brewer]

....when editing with the shape tool the start node and the end node of a path are now made of arrowheads to show where it starts and where it ends.

For those that are using X4 I would be interested to hear if this change is helpful for you.
T.

Tony,
My take on this is that it is not a "must have" feature but that it is a nice touch. We don't often need it. But when we do...
Especially when importing MAC files (I'm far from understanding this), there is often a problem of combining shapes inside other shapes. These do not fill as anticipated; seeing the direction of the internal shape confirms this to be the problem.

[Mark Winlund]

Tony,
My take on this is that it is not a "must have" feature but that it is a nice touch. We don't often need it. But when we do...
Especially when importing MAC files (I'm far from understanding this), there is often a problem of combining shapes inside other shapes. These do not fill as anticipated; seeing the direction of the internal shape confirms this to be the problem.

Roy, the same problem occurs in Corel sometimes. Sometimes changing the direction of the line works, sometimes not. When fills don't work right, it's the first thing I try.

Flexisign Pro has a "connect the lines" button in their node editing tools.... I have found this to be the "option of last resort", so to speak. It doesn't always create closed shapes, but it save a lot of time in the final clean up.

Mark