I am working on an illustration that requires 8 overlapping "links" be evenly arranged around a circle. The links are fat lines that have been curved to fit the circumference of the circle. But then each link is tilted by 5°, which is what makes this difficult. I fiddled around for an hour or so trying to get the spacing even. Then I hit on an idea.
I put one link on the top of the circle, tilted it 5°, and then moved it manually until one end was about as far inside the circle and the other end was outside. Them I drew a radius line from the center of the circle out to the link and make them into a group. Now the radius line shows me exactly how to orient the other links.
I made a copy of the link+radius group and rotated it by 45°. I then moved it to that the inner end of the radius line was at the center of the circle. Perfect fit!!! Then I just had to repeat that for the other 6 links and I have the equally spaced diagram that is attached.
I thought I would offer this technique to the group as a small "thank you" for all the help I have received over the years. I hope someone can make use of it.
FYI....you can automate this
See attached
- in free mode, you can skew things at will
- in iso mode, it will do the math based on width
- yes there are a few bugs around layer / move to front behaviors
So
- make say 8 of these
- align over top of each other
- use shape properties to define behavior (start / stop angles, thickness, etc)
At least this can show you how to automate if you want
Thanks for that. If I were to do a lot of this, I'm sure that would be valuable. But with my skill level, I think it would take me longer to figure out than to do it manually. :'(
Cheers
;D ;D ;D
Don't know if this qualifies as "simple" :o. But it does qualify as "fun" ::) and versatile. See this: http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=566.msg2396#msg2396 (http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=566.msg2396#msg2396)
It will place objects in circular or partial arc arrays. Below is attached example file with your specific task...with embellishments, of course. Macro is included in the file.
Have fun.