Great tip, Joe.
Still bothered about how to get the field placement right for the orchard (see previous page) and how to the add a hedge around it like Roy has done. Sorry to be so dense and needing help. i am hopeless at programming, but would love to have a draw tool for both vector and raster versions.
Orchard 1 and the two simple hedge fills were developed to try and mimic the older Mappa Harnica symbols. I tried just adding an outline of the appropriate width and color to have it wipe out the area fill. So I developed these two simple hedges that ended up giving a nice appearance with their broken shape.
It's hard to strike a balance in a procedural generator between making it easy to use and having enough degrees of freedom to be useful. There are some more degrees of freedom that could be useful for Symbols in Area (e.g. grid offset would go a long way to solving Quenten's orchard edges issue, rotated and aligned grids would be fun, and world-aligned grids could allow for some interesting results), but every degree of freedom requires more elements on the GUI and that GUI is pretty busy as it is. Breaking the GUI apart into property pages makes the whole thing even more bewildering. Some useful but esoteric options (like "use bounding box" to require all corners of a symbol's bounding box to be inside the entity instead of just the insertion point) would be absolutely impenetrable for most people without a good deal of explanation and aren't there for that reason. Fortunately, the CC3+ system can hide the setup when you're using the tools, but there's still the issue of too many options for people when creating the tools in the first place.
The GUI for Symbols in Area broadly breaks down into what is to be placed, where is it going to be placed (the pattern), how big is it, and what direction is it facing. Within those options, there are some additional features regarding how those base elements are modified by the controlling geometry as well as some "random" adjustments to keep things from looking identical from run to run. Symbols Along is quite similar because Symbols Along is the one-dimensional generator and Symbols in Area is the two-dimensional version.
A question for you Joe, or anyone who may know. I made the simple hedge symbols because I couldn’t get an outline of the correct thickness drawn around my fills without the fill being obliterated if I did it within the outline portion of the drawing tool, same place where the fill is located. Or, if I tried to do it as a macro the fill filled the outline and not the polygon. Any ideas how to get the outline added as a simple hedge without disrupting the fill?
Is it possible to write a macro for a drawing tool that allows the user to select, say: basic, ditched (Surrounded by a ditch) or hedged (surrounded by a hedge)? I am thinking this may be better than having a separate drawing tool for each option. What do you all think?
That should be possible, but a choice generally require the use of the command line, which most people who aren't me tend to want to avoid. But you should be able to do this by just asking the user for a number [GN] (with an appropriate explanatory text and a list of choices), and then branch the macro [IFZ/IFP/IFN] depending on the choice.
Generally, I would probably say having different drawing tools presents the choices in a clearer manner though.
Comments
Still bothered about how to get the field placement right for the orchard (see previous page) and how to the add a hedge around it like Roy has done. Sorry to be so dense and needing help. i am hopeless at programming, but would love to have a draw tool for both vector and raster versions.
ESCLOAD @System/Fillers/HL_Hedge2.esc
SELSAVE
SELBYP
ESCM
SELREST
ESCLOAD @System/Fillers/HL_Hedge3.esc
SELSAVE
SELBYP
ESCM
ERA
SELREST
These are the drawing tools for hedge 2, the actual hedge, and hedge 3, the trees randomly placed in the hedgerow.
Orchard 1 and then the two simple hedges 4 and 5
The GUI for Symbols in Area broadly breaks down into what is to be placed, where is it going to be placed (the pattern), how big is it, and what direction is it facing. Within those options, there are some additional features regarding how those base elements are modified by the controlling geometry as well as some "random" adjustments to keep things from looking identical from run to run. Symbols Along is quite similar because Symbols Along is the one-dimensional generator and Symbols in Area is the two-dimensional version.
Generally, I would probably say having different drawing tools presents the choices in a clearer manner though.