Dragging to Resize Problem

[Chris F]

Visio 2010 Professional

If I produce a drawing (presently doing a model boat) from straight lines and arcs etc., group it and then try increasing the size of the whole drawing/object then the curves go crazy! That is they cover the page in massive arcs.

I've tried gluing, combining etc. but can't get the drawing to act as an entity to allow me to reduce/increase it by dragging on the corner handles.

I can alter the overall size for e.g. printing by altering the scale, but sometimes I want to alter the size of things when working within the drawing.

Thanks, Chris

[vojo]

simple/crude answer:   Copy paste as PNG or JPEG....then can resize

Longer answer:  Basically arcs are defined by reference points
                        (for example, elliptical arcs "hidden" reference points are based on shape width and height)
                        So as the shape grows...formulas in those cells (multiplication like formulas) grow faster
                        This makes curviness grow out of wack.

Typically, what I do is that I created arc shapes that have the reference points under shape properties so
that they can be adjusted independent of the size of the shape (or stay same curviness as shape grows or shrinks)
(I do it under the properties because, IMHO, better precision vs control handles - can do it that way but
up to user's eye to get them to look the same or half or twice of each other).

Probably want them

[Chris F]

vojo - thanks for the explanation, I'll have a look at that.

Do you have to do it for every arc I draw or can I set it globally? The boat for example has lots of arcs!

I was hoping, as can be achieved with the PNG or JPEG method, that I could lock the shape somehow and resize it at will without the crazy curves!

[wapperdude]

Yep.  Resizing curves is a problem.  I think you can use the page scale setting to "effectively" alter the shape size ...along with everything else on the page.

Here's a VisioGuy topic on this issue:  http://www.visguy.com/2008/04/28/understanding-arc-resize-problems-in-visio/

Wapperdude

[Chris F]

Thanks, that's really useful and I now understand what the issue is and how to resolve it.

Just wanted to check that I wasn't missing anything obvious.

As said, I can alter the scale for printing the whole thing but of course it alters the controller dimension that I use as well. No big deal, but I have to print it out, measure it, then calculate what scale I need to set to get it to print at the size I want.

[vojo]

arcs will auto scale

I believe the manifolds auto scale

the pie/wedge is a work in progress (currently would need to scale by minor/major axis and depth values).
I ended up spending a lot of time working thru geometry translations and hide/show geometries to get this to
the point of universal iso pie/wedge

So yes...perhaps complete solution is not ready for prime time....but could group at a larger level and
put some shapesheet intelligent to have even the pie scale...really depends on how automated you want to make it
for example
- assume the nominal width and height is 2mm
- assume your outer group is called sheet.100...the actual pie/manifold etc is sheet.99
- sheet.100!user.scale = sheet.100!width/2mm
- sheet.99!minor axis = sheet.99!prop.minor * sheet.100!user.scale
- etc
-etc

BTW, this approach works for auto scaling font or linewidth or or or

All this just depends on whether you want to do some shapesheet work to make a shape for other uses.

[Chris F]

Thanks vojo

Whilst I'm quite experienced with Visio - been drawing building plans with it for some years, I've never gone beyond the actual drawing stage, and as such what you are suggesting is beyond my knowledge and skill level.

I had the odd problem with arcs etc. when doing building plans but it's really only now that I'm using Visio for model boat drawings that I'm experiencing real problems due to the large number of curves involved.

But the number of drawings is never going to be that large so I shall pursue the 1D/2D solution for resizing elements of the drawing and just change the scale when I want to print the whole thing out.

Thanks again for your responses.

[JuneTheSecond]

I did not read carefully your problem. so I am not quite sure.
But I thought the Visio Guy's document that I was just reading might be any help for your problem.
http://www.visguy.com/2008/04/28/understanding-arc-resize-problems-in-visio/