How to intersect strokes?

[MapmakerFL webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

Hi, everyone -- I'm creating a map (using Freehand MX) and have set up a double stroke to look like a road (white in the middle, black edges). Used 6pt stroke in black with 4pt white on top. Looks fine. But how do I intersect the various roads so that the white portion is continuous where the various roads meet? There must be a way, so I hope you can help.

Thanks so much!

L Dailey

[Bill]

One way would be to apply the strokes to a *group* of road paths instead
of to the individual paths themselves. Group them, then apply your
strokes, and you will see the Black stroke on all the paths, then the
white thinner stroke on top of those.

--
Bill
FHMX/Win98/Athlon2100+/512M

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:51:49 +0000 (UTC), MapmakerFL
<webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote:

> Hi, everyone -- I'm creating a map (using Freehand MX) and have set up a
> double stroke to look like a road (white in the middle, black edges).
> Used 6pt stroke in black with 4pt white on top. Looks fine. But how do I
> intersect the various roads so that the white portion is continuous
> where the various roads meet? There must be a way, so I hope you can
> help.
>
> Thanks so much!
>
> L Dailey
>
>
>

[Martin Gamache]

You may have to move segments to different layers depending on how many
levels of intersections you have or how complicated the junctions are.

mg


"MapmakerFL" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:bq0itk$nnk$1@forums.macromedia.com...

> Hi, everyone -- I'm creating a map (using Freehand MX) and have set up a

double stroke to look like a road (white in the middle, black edges). Used
6pt stroke in black with 4pt white on top. Looks fine. But how do I
intersect the various roads so that the white portion is continuous where
the various roads meet? There must be a way, so I hope you can help.

>
> Thanks so much!
>
> L Dailey
>
>

[curtcarto webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

The only way to have "intersections" appear right everywhere is to put the white-center-line on one layer, and the black-edges-line on a _layer_ that is below the white one.

Neither FH's nor AI's "grouped" line styles accomplish the same thing for _every_ line. Sure, they will do it for single lines that overlap itself. They won't work for multiple lines.

The trick, as it were, is to create the line/road where you want it, then just use the clone command, and then immediately send the clone copy to the layer below, then style it. Works like a charm.

[Bobby Henderson]

"MapmakerFL" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com>
wrote in message news:bq0itk$nnk$1@forums.macromedia.com...

> Hi, everyone -- I'm creating a map (using Freehand MX) and have set up a

double stroke to look like a road (white in the middle, black edges). Used
6pt stroke in black with 4pt white on top. Looks fine. But how do I
intersect the various roads so that the white portion is continuous where
the various roads meet? There must be a way, so I hope you can help.

To do it in Freehand you simply have to lay stroked open paths on top of
each other and get the stacking order right.

Rival application CorelDRAW has a nifty feature called "Create Object from
Outline" that works really well for map type graphics. It takes the outline
stroke applied to an open path (or any closed path object as well) and
creates an editable vector path of its perimeter. One the stroked paths are
converted you can weld together the new objects and then create stroking
effects on them --of course you can't go overboard with that stuff since
there is a 64K data limit on CDR vector objects; a path with 4000+ control
points might not get created.

At any rate, FH should consider copying that feature.

Bobby Henderson

[MapmakerFL webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

[Bill]

On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 13:17:27 +0000 (UTC), curtcarto
<webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote:

> The only way to have "intersections" appear right everywhere is to put
> the white-center-line on one layer, and the black-edges-line on a
> _layer_ that is below the white one.
>
> Neither FH's nor AI's "grouped" line styles accomplish the same thing
> for _every_ line. Sure, they will do it for single lines that overlap
> itself. They won't work for multiple lines.

Why wouldn't you just add the two strokes to a group of lines? That
technique seems to work well enough. Multiple paths do indeed intersect
properly, not just single overlapping paths. The only limitation on this
process is the idiotic 25 object limit for accurate group attributes. If
any of your groups have more than 25 objects (including sub-groups) you'll
get a nasty autotrace of your group instead of the original vectors. You
can sidestep this issue by keeping each subgroup at 25 objects or less.


--
Bill
FHMX/Win98/Athlon2100+/512M

[MapmakerFL webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

Thank you to everyone for their assistance on this question -- particularly to Curt Carto, whose suggestion worked very well. (And my apologies for the partial and blank posts to this thread -- I'm new to this newsgroup, and am not proficient in using this particular group's post/reply features.)

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

L Dailey

[curtcarto webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

Grouping might work for small insets or the occasional locator map, like for a brochure showing a place of meeting or something. But when you get to commercial/custom cartography where a single map has thousands of lines, trying to group them becomes counter-productive.

Moreover, editing a group adds speedbumps to workflow; ex. using a modifier key to sub-select a point, or worse an entire line. It is so much easier just to drag-select the point/s you want to edit. And what happens when one group overlaps another group? It's just best to use individual objects on unique layers to make sure you know what's going on.

Also, if you want to tweak the look of the map at the end of content/data creation, I believe a process like the following is easier: a. lock all layers, b. unlock say the inner line's layer, c. select all, d.apply/edit style, e. unlock all layers and continue... over trying to navigate down the object inspector to get at one of the effects in the sub-group elements. And this especially now that the ` (reverse single qoute) doesn't seem to let me go back up the nested object inspector. (mac os x., MXa)

Please don't get me wrong. The nested object thingy is great...just not for road linework on production cartography. (imho)

..c

[Odysseus]

Bobby Henderson wrote:

>
> Rival application CorelDRAW has a nifty feature called "Create Object from
> Outline" that works really well for map type graphics. It takes the outline
> stroke applied to an open path (or any closed path object as well) and
> creates an editable vector path of its perimeter. One the stroked paths are
> converted you can weld together the new objects and then create stroking
> effects on them --of course you can't go overboard with that stuff since
> there is a 64K data limit on CDR vector objects; a path with 4000+ control
> points might not get created.
>
> At any rate, FH should consider copying that feature.
>

How is the Corel feature superior to FH's Expand Stroke? From reading
the Corel newsgroups I have a vague recollection of a reported bug in
"Create Object from Outline", something to do with incorrect path
directions or extra points being added. But at any rate I can't
recall ever having had any problems with Expand Stroke in FH8.

--
Odysseus

[Danny Whitehead]

Bill wrote:

> The only limitation on this process is the idiotic 25 object limit
> for accurate group attributes.

Ahh... thanks - that answers part of the post I just made in the 'wishes
for next version' thread. How did you determine the 25 figure? Have MM
acknowledged this severe limitation?


--


Danny

[Bill]

On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 14:10:57 +0000, Danny Whitehead
<danny@dontsendspamtobqprint.co.uk> wrote:

> Bill wrote:

> > The only limitation on this process is the idiotic 25 object limit
> > for accurate group attributes.

>
> Ahh... thanks - that answers part of the post I just made in the 'wishes
> for next version' thread. How did you determine the 25 figure?

I found the number by trial and error.

> Have MM acknowledged this severe limitation?

Not to my knowledge. Ian Kelleigh has documented the limitation on his
excellent site at [url]www.freehandsource.com[/url].

Here is a link to the page describing the behavior.
[url]http://tinyurl.com/xqs1[/url]


--
Bill
FHMX/Win98/Athlon2100+/512M