Trace Command Issues With Fractal Entities

Wyvern

When preparing my recent subterranean map of Temple Hill Undercroft for the Community Atlas, a couple of oddities cropped-up when using the Trace command, something I've found occasionally before too.

Thanks to the complexity of the fractal cave lines in the drawing, a lot of the subsequent redrawing/copying of those required was done using the Trace command. When using a fractal drawing tool for this, progress was often astonishingly slow and hard to control. Consequently, I created a fresh drawing tool for the wall-lines using a straight-line option, not a fractal one. That sped things up to a degree, though maybe not so much as you might hope.

The other oddity was that despite having carefully selected the fractal line/polygon to trace in the direction the new-drawn feature was to go, the Trace command then traced right around the entire chosen object in the wrong direction, only at the third or fourth complete redraw settling on the actual segment required. Redraws were often very slow (10-20 seconds plus), commonly blanked the entire CC3+ window while doing so, and made attempting to control the end point impossible, unless this was done immediately after choosing the first point and clicking appropriately. Again, this made precise control extremely difficult. I had the impression that without clicking for an end point, the redraws could have continued indefinitely; certainly far longer than I was prepared to wait.

I've not done a great deal of drawing larger polygons/longer lines using fractal tools, so I'm not sure if this is a common occurrence, and yes, fractal polys/lines can always be simplified. However, if they need simplifying at all, surely that suggests the tools have been created to generate too strong a fractal edge in the first place?

Maybe this is all something that can be improved upon in CC4. It does seem these are elements that definitely need addressing in some manner, at least.

Loopysue

I never use fractal tracing tools. Straight line ones are faster and follow the fractal original just as well because a fractal line is just a straight line with a few displaced nodes it.

EDIT: I've learned there is no actual speed difference between a fractal drawing tool and a straight line drawing tool when tracing. They behave the same. So personal perception also plays a part in this.

Wyvern

I think what surprised me was that even for what were meant to be really short areas traced, the fractal drawing tools were no faster, and still insisted on tracing round the entire shape the wrong way before settling. Even the straight drawing tools I'd created weren't any better in this "wrong way" tracing regard. It's almost as if the command is somehow failing to recognise where the item to be traced has been clicked on in relation to its entire shape.

I did wonder if this might have something to do with both the size and how the polygon/line had been drawn originally (much like "Text along a curve" recognises the first and last points of the drawn line it's to go along), although remembering that when you might be returning to it days later as a human is, shall we say at best, unhelpful!

Loopysue

Speed depends a lot on how many nodes you have in the object you are tracing (and also in the map as a whole). Maybe use SIMPLIFY first?

It would be nice to have better tracing tools, but for now we have what we have.