Asymmetric Lines & Curves

[IceRafter]

This might be a question that belongs under programming, but does anyone know of a solution that that enables Visio to draw asymmetric (bumpy) curves like these cold front weather map depictions?   

Recall seeing it rudely done in AutoCAD years ago, distributing a shape or text element along a curve, then rotating to align with tangent of curve at point of insertion.

it's a messy trick, and probably the best solution is to just forget about it!   But on the other hand, how else are we supposed to draw weather maps (and there's other applications) with Visio?

Might be a question for the Visio Guy himself!

[Yacine]

Hallo Brando,
If you are after the front lines, they are easy to implement with line patterns.

For the isobars I have no other solution than tweaking manually the points of the spline.
You cannot view this attachment.

[Nikolay]

Below is an example with custom line patterns



Here is the set of weather lines
https://johnvisiomvp.ca/2021/02/02/visio-weather-line-patterns/

[Yacine]

Good find

[IceRafter]

Thanks Nikolay,

So I downloaded your example and it looks pretty good, except there's only one custom line type called BUMPY.  Checked the link you provided to the Visio MVP guy, but I don't see any download links in his WordPress article. 

Was able to create my own line type using your example  via Drawing Explorer, seems pretty wonky and I'm still completely unclear on how to make custom line types generally available in all drawings.  Have a master stencil always loaded containing my VBA code, suppose I can try putting them  in there and see what happens.

if that's not the way to go, can you point me in the right direction?

thanks

[Nikolay]

Yes, that is just a file I made yesterday as an example before discovering the linked article
I was under impression that there must be some file attached to that article, with those lines (it's not mine)

Found it. You can download stuff from the "Download" section on the site:
https://johnvisiomvp.ca/downloads/

Weather lines:
https://johnvisiomvp.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/weather.zip

[IceRafter]

Thanks Yacine & Nikolay,

I played with the isobars and found it pretty simple to create types for warm and cold fronts. My question now is, what is the best way to make custom line types generally available to all drawings?

Looks like I can just drag them onto the 'Favorites' stencil, but now I'm having trouble getting that 'Favorites' stencil to auto-load with every drawing.

Seemed like Favorites was auto-loading for awhile, but now has stopped, or am I mistaken? What is the expected behavior? Should I fire a macro from a drawing-load event? Seems like placement in the Visio Startup directory is useless for autoloading stencils.

What I DO have working is an auto-loaded macro-enabled stencil _AUTOEXEC.vssm where I keep all my code, achieved by via window shortcut to the stencii, used start Visio every time.

However this stencil stands alone, not in a 'drawing space', so putting the line types there wouldn't make them available to to new drawings. also the shapes menu pick 'My Shapes'  contains only  the menu item ' Organize My Shapes'  and none of the custom stencils stored in 'My Shapes', is THAT expected behavior?

Sorry for the newbie questions, hopefully I am missing something simple!