Magnify a part of a shape

[jamtart]

Banging my head on this for days. Attempting this in 2007 and 2010. What I have is a very complex illustration done in visio and I want to have only a small portion of it illustrated and enlarged in a sort of magnifier type look. I have tried to fragment but it totally destoys the original drawing. I found a few interesting items here using search but they are not quite what I am looking for. Can anybody put me on the right track please?
Thanks team.

[JuneTheSecond]

How would you like Real Magnifier at
http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=587.0

[jamtart]

I downloaded that earlier today and been using it, not 100% sure yet that it does what I need but will keep trying it. It is very cool though.

[Visio Guy]

June's stuff is always really cool, so I encourage people to try it out.

There's another way to do some magnification, though:

1. Copy the drawing or portion that you want to magnify
2. Edit > Paste Special > Picture (Enchanced Metafile)
3. You can now crop this object using the Crop Tool from the Picture tool bar.

Once an object is cropped, you can resize it as needed. You'll retain vector-drawing fidelity, but you'll lose any Visio smarts. And if the drawing changes, you'll have to repeat the process, but it works!

[jamtart]

THanks Visio Guy, I was just about to dabble in something like that. I appreciate the input.

[wapperdude]

Well, there is a more creative way, but, a little more involved to put into place.  It will requre some code development.  You can take either the Magic Window that I did or Visio Guy's Super Mask, (see  How to Clip or Mask a Circular Region on a Visio Page? http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=494.0) either will allow you to highlight a specific region of the drawing.  Then, with some code, you could zoom in on that region.

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of spare time right now.  But my thought process would be something like this using the Magic Window --
1.)  Magic Window uses a control point to move the window to the desired drawing location.
2.)  Via code, use the control as the center for zooming.
3.)  Allow the user to have selectable amounts of zoom
4.)  Take the zoom amount & control point to dynamically zoom in on the region of interest.
5.)  and there is the problem of how to "trigger"  the zoom event.

That's about as far as I've gotten on this.  Won't be done any time soon unless someone takes the idea and runs with it.

Wapperdude.

[jamtart]

Having issues getting this posted, Hopefully this time. Here is my crude attempt, got the look but sure there are easier ways.

[wapperdude]

Ah!!!  It is an exploded or expanded or detailed view that you want.

How tedious do you want to get?   

You can get your view in Visio alone if you do the following:
1.)  Copy the circle that surrounds the items to be "exploded".  Make about 2 dozen copies of this circle.  Align all of the copies with the original.  These will be used in many, Shape > Operations > Intersect steps.  Many!!!!
2.)  Make a copy of your electrical box.  Ungroup it totally.  Yes.  Break the link to the master.
3.)  Place all of the circles over the desired area.
4.)  Now repeat this step:  select a shape that overlaps the circle, and select one of the circles.  Do the intersect operation.  Only the piece that is within the circle should remain.  On ocassion, you may have to shift the result to the back (cntl shift B).  Do this until all of the shapes have been duly processed.
5.)  All that should remain may be a few circles and the portion of the electrical box within the circles.  Delete the excess circles.
6.)  Now select all of these objects, group, and protect the aspect ratio. 
7.)  This object may be resized to your hearts content.

There may be other ways to do this, but it is the 1st that comes to mind which preserves this as completely Visio.

Wapperdude

[jamtart]

So I started this method that wapperdude explained. Works but this sure could eat up some time. LOL. Thanks for the input.

[jamtart]

So I am thinking that Visio Guy's use of the metafile gives me the level of detail I need then using Super Mask. It would be nice if it were possible to crop the metafile into a circle rather that just a rectangle. That way I would have more options as to where to place the magnifying glass graphic.

[wapperdude]

I did say tedious, right?   

To get a round crop, you may have to invoke a paint program.  Is it possible to save the file with transparent background?  I know this can be done as a png file.

Another idea, zoom in on the area to be exploded, capture that region with some sort of screen capture program, then save as png with transparent background.  That ought to preserve the detail / resolution and maintain a relatively small file.

Wapperdude

[jamtart]

I will give photoshop a crack at this. Other than that I think this works just fine. This will give me another tool to use in illustrations for my students.

[David.P]

Wow, very useful thread. The metafile-cropping idea by Visio Guy is indeed very good for complex objects.

A round "magnifying glass" enlarged view I usuallly do by by punching a round or oval hole in a white rectangle that is large enough to cover up the entire object (or now, the pasted and pre-cropped metafile), and placing this 'see-through cutout' in front of the object.

Before punching (by subtracting the hole from the rectangle) I clone the circle that is going to be the hole in order to give it some line attribute afterwards:



Cheers David.P