Castle Wall/Tower Crenelations
GThiel
Surveyor
I've been trying to use the "CA46-Mapping-Guide-Castle-Walls" pdf to create crenelations on a tower. I can get everything to work, building the two circles using the DBLC command and creating the crenelations using the "CREN command." But when I try to get the segments to be filled, as described on page 4, item 4 of the pdf, nothing happens. Below is a screen shot of a test showing on the left the two circles created using the DBLC command and on the right showing what happens to it after the CREN command. Any Suggestions? Thank you in advance Jerry
Comments
A full double line circle - cannot get this to fill
A full double line circle with a door added - fills correctly
A full double line rectangle - fills the entire shape twice. The inner rectangle and outer rectangle both fill completely.
A full double line rectangle with a door - fills correctly
Now this gets more interesting...
A full double line circle @1' with crenellations @1' - cannot get this to fill correctly
A small full double line circle @1' with crenellations @2' - fills correctly
A large full double line circle @1' with crenellations @2' - cannot get this to fill correctly
Honestly... i think this is broken.
I haven't even read that part of the Tome, but generally speaking if you draw any kind of poly with a line width greater than 0 it automatically becomes just an outline.
Since I haven't even read that section of the Tome, though, I may be making a completely ridiculous suggestion
In the first case, you have two independent circles, which basically are two independent lines not touching each other. Each of them can be filled, but since they are completely independent, you cannot simply fill the area between them. CC3+ operates on entities, not areas bounded by entities. Using line to path on these circles won't do anything, since they don't touch.
Case two with the door, you break the circle and add connecting lines. You'll notice that you can now trace one continuous lines (several lines, but the next always starts where the previous ends) around the entire shape. In this case, line to path can conenct the individual lines into one shape, and fill it. Instead of dealing with thwo shapes as we did above, we now have one-
The two cases with the rectangle is the same as with the circles. The only difference is that the rectangles are actually built from four lines, so they get joined and filled, while the circle was only one line and didn't react to line to path. So, we end up with both rectangles filled, overlapping each other (Same can easily be done with the circles by using change properties on them)
And for the last case, adding that door actually joind the rectangles into one continuous shape instead of two disjoint ones, thus making everything work as it should.
I guess this is really a case of the method described doesn't work with the simplest possible base case, but it does work with everything else. For the basic case (circle or rectangles without breaks), follow the instructions, but use multipoly on them as the final step, this will allow the inner one to become a hole in the outer one. Multipoly is also a good tool for the crenelations.
In your wisdom, should crenelations work?
It seem's very hit and miss with about 90% miss.
The CA46 Castle Walls was not intented to create walls with no openings. I however fully understand the need to create such shapes now as I did it myself more than once...
Your pdf is a very good description of the process to use. Use the double circle tool an multipoly both circles to create the low part of the walls. Change to upper sheet, create the same circles and use crenelation, then multipoly all the crenelation parts in one go.
Multipoly is a solution for any closed shape with a hole in it...
For more about using CA46, if you have the time to do so, please check these articles and for more on multipolys, check this .
What do you mean by miss? Could you please post a file with a miss?
What the Annual does is useful, just the Guide needed to be a good bit clearer about the limitations, and indeed the whole construction process, I think.
As me toned above I tried to follow the tutorial provided but didn't want to put in as many windows. The result was only half of what I had made filled while the other half deleted a few lines from the walls.
More information is required IMO on how to make best use of this addon. I love what it is trying to achieve but what good is the crenelation tool of yo can't fill it? If I had not read Jim's learnings I would have given up on that command completely.
I really just want to understand the process of getting from shapes on the screen to filled shaped on the screen reliably but so far I'm only successful when I create very specific shapes. Which is cool, I get what Monsen has said above. But the tutorial goes into the creation of shapes that I cannot get to fill.
I've looked at the link you recommended for the Chapel, and it looks interesting, but it appears to be written for CC3 not CC3+ and the steps called for in the first part do not act the same way in CC3+ as your tutorial. Is there an update?