If you have Window>Tollbars>Status open you can use the line tool like a
measuring device. It gives you distance, angle, ect.
You wouldn't happen to know anything about printing imported PNGs in FH at a
high quality, would you?
Does anyone know of a way to measure curves in freehand? I've found a BPT-Pro plugin for Illustrator, but nothing for Freehand. I'm not after complex measurements, just the simple curve length between a bezier line with two points. I've tried support, forum & google searches, nothing. Have I missed something?...
Does anyone know of a way to measure curves in freehand? I've found a BPT-Pro
plugin for Illustrator, but nothing for Freehand. I'm not after complex
measurements, just the simple curve length between a bezier line with two
points. I've tried support, forum & google searches, nothing. Have I missed
something?
If you have Window>Tollbars>Status open you can use the line tool like a
measuring device. It gives you distance, angle, ect.
You wouldn't happen to know anything about printing imported PNGs in FH at a
high quality, would you?
>If you have Window>Tollbars>Status open you can use the line tool like a
measuring device. It gives you distance, angle, ect.
Hi Beally,
Do you mean Info or Status? (I couldn't find the latter). Anyway, I was
talking about a bezier line (with the pen tool) rather than the line tool. Or
drawing an elipse and then cutting it to create a curve. Either way, I can't
see any way to measure the curve. Info will give the angle and distance of the
handles for a point, but won't even give you the length of a straight line
(width/height yes, length no), let alone a simple curve.
[q]You wouldn't happen to know anything about printing imported PNGs in FH at
a high quality, would you?[/q]
'fraid not.
1. Open the Info toolbar.
2. Turn on snap-to-point.
3. With line tool, drag a new line from one end of your arc to the other.
Don't lift the mouse. You will see the length of the line in the Info bar in
the 'dist:' field.
If you're on a Mac, you will find Michael Slomski's Angle Xtra useful. Find
it at Ian Kelleigh's site:
[url]http://www.freehandsource.com/[/url]
[url]http://www.freehandsource.com/_frames/_news/_spotlight/_ms_xtras/msxtras_01[/url].
html
Judy Arndt
mintyh wrote:
> measuring device. It gives you distance, angle, ect.>> If you have Window>Tollbars>Status open you can use the line tool like a
> Hi Beally,
> Do you mean Info or Status? (I couldn't find the latter). Anyway, I was
> talking about a bezier line (with the pen tool) rather than the line tool. Or
> drawing an elipse and then cutting it to create a curve. Either way, I can't
> see any way to measure the curve. Info will give the angle and distance of the
> handles for a point, but won't even give you the length of a straight line
> (width/height yes, length no), let alone a simple curve.
>
> [q]You wouldn't happen to know anything about printing imported PNGs in FH at
> a high quality, would you?[/q]
> 'fraid not.
>
>
You want to measure the length of a curved line between two points, not just
the straight line distance between the endpoints, right? FreeHand doesn't have
a readout of that information anywhere that I've found.
The only solution I've found only works if you just need an estimate of the
lines' length - in the object palatte, make your path a dashed line, using the
first (largest) dash length. This dash is 1" solid followed by 1" space. In
instances where I need to estimate a curved line length, I count the dashes and
the spaces and this is my line length in inches. I estimate what's left over at
the end.
As I said, this is an estimate and I wouldn't build buildings based on this
method of measurement.
Oh yeah, and the last dash option seems to be based on 1/2 inch measurements:
One dash and the following space = 1/2 inch. That helps you calculate down to a
1/2 inch. Try a few of the dash options on a straight path and see if they
measure up to anything useful for you.
All of this is of course moot if you want to measure the length of a complex
path - it'd be damn near impossible counting up all the dashes, and even then,
I'd worry about small inaccuracies adding up over the length of the line.
[q]Originally posted by: ballookey
You want to measure the length of a curved line between two points, not just
the straight line distance between the endpoints, right? FreeHand doesn't have
a readout of that information anywhere that I've found. [/q]
Ballookey, you are right on the money. I don't understand why it doesn't- it's
got to draw the line and do the maths, so surely it wouldn't be hard to let the
end user know the length of that line!
I appreciate your workaround, which is pretty neat. That might have to do for
now, although I've also got to convert inches to cms for my Australian brain :-P
Thanks for your help!
Hi Judy,
Thanks for your reply, but as Ballookey noted, I was after the length of the
curve, not the distance between 2 points. More investigation reveals this
appears to be called using a Flex-Rule, and that it's a major gripe from users
of Freehand. It also appears that recent Macr spec changes have made it
unlikely that Illustrator plugins will be converted to FH ones. Sigh.
I'd hardly call this a major gripe. FHMX isn't a CAD program. I've
personally needed such a feature only once when drawing a sewing pattern for
personal use. Why do you need such a measurement?
Picking up on that dashed stroke idea, in FHMX you could apply several
dashed strokes to a single path, one to indicate units, one for tens, one
for hundreds. Make a style of the multi-stroked path and use it as a
'measuring tape'.
Judy
mintyh wrote:
> Hi Judy,
>
> Thanks for your reply, but as Ballookey noted, I was after the length of the
> curve, not the distance between 2 points. More investigation reveals this
> appears to be called using a Flex-Rule, and that it's a major gripe from users
> of Freehand. It also appears that recent Macr spec changes have made it
> unlikely that Illustrator plugins will be converted to FH ones. Sigh.
>
I know alot of cartographers who could use this feature on a regular basis.
In general having better indication of object dimensions, and angles without
workarounds would be a welcome addition to FH. This has been requested by
others in the past, so dont hold your breath.
mg
"Judy Arndt" <jarndtshawbiz.ca> wrote in message
news:BC60D6FB.117C3%jarndtshawbiz.ca...for>
> I'd hardly call this a major gripe. FHMX isn't a CAD program. I've
> personally needed such a feature only once when drawing a sewing patternthe> personal use. Why do you need such a measurement?
>
> Picking up on that dashed stroke idea, in FHMX you could apply several
> dashed strokes to a single path, one to indicate units, one for tens, one
> for hundreds. Make a style of the multi-stroked path and use it as a
> 'measuring tape'.
>
> Judy
>
> mintyh wrote:
>> > Hi Judy,
> >
> > Thanks for your reply, but as Ballookey noted, I was after the length ofthis> > curve, not the distance between 2 points. More investigation revealsusers> > appears to be called using a Flex-Rule, and that it's a major gripe from>> > of Freehand. It also appears that recent Macr spec changes have made it
> > unlikely that Illustrator plugins will be converted to FH ones. Sigh.
> >
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