Measuring curves - Macromedia Freehand

[mintyh]

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?

[abeall]

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?

[mintyh]

>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.

[Judy Arndt]

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:

>> 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.
>
>

[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.

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.

[ballookey]

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.

[mintyh]

[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!

[mintyh]

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.

[Judy Arndt]

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.
>

[Martin Gamache]

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...

>
> 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.
> >

>