Trace

JoeyD473 · January 2009

I am trying to use trace to make a road around the inside of a semi-circle attached to straight lines. However when I use the trace command it only goes through the middle of the entity. ANyway to get it to go to one of the edges?

gregwr · January 2009

Is this the effect you're looking for? BTW I made the lines very thick for clarity.

JoeyD473 · January 2009

yes it is

gregwr · January 2009

I couldnt find a way to do what you were looking for with trace, but I will describe how I did this. It is actually 3 mutlipolies on top of each other. I made them with snaps on for precision because they each had to be made seperatly. Copying and resizing wont work because you wont get an even line that way. They should also be on seperate sheets if you intend to use effects on them. So I started with the grey object, then the blue then the last matches the fill of my background. Just my solution not elegant or using trace I know but it works with preplanning.

pvernon · January 2009

I think for your quick and dirty version I would use LTP "line to poly" instead. Less problems in the long run than multipoly. As for the original question ..... I don't know.

Ralf · January 2009

The command you want to use is "Offset". Draw the first set of your entities (e.g. the grey one). Then set the Drawing properties (line witdh, color, etc) for the second set (the blue one). Then choose Draw > Offset... > Offset one and use it on the grey entities, carefully choosing the distance you need the offset to be away. This would probably be half the line width of the grey entities.

If this is unclear, let me know and I'll give more elaborate instructions.

JoeyD473 · January 2009

Ok, thank you I got it now. Just one more quick question, is there anyway to get the offset to a different sheet and layer than the entity I am offsetting because I set it to a different sheet and layer but it didn't seem to take that and just copied from the original.

Ralf · January 2009

Hmm... the layer should actually be different, if you set the properties to a new layer. Double-check by using KEEP or LIST on the new entity.

The sheet will always be the old entity's sheet. Use "Move to Sheet" to send the offset entity to a new sheet.

JoeyD473 · January 2009

Also, is there any way to get offset (and trace) to work on an entity that was grouped together using the group command. It works if not left ungrouped, but not if grouped

Ralf · January 2009

You can temporarily unlock groups by hitting the Lock/Unlock button in the lower right of the screen. That way you can use Offset on entites in a group without actually ungrouping it. But you can't use Offset on a whole group at once.

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Trace

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