Natural/Outdoor Shapes/Objects/etc...

[cliff50]

markem, i found that to get a crisp natural line "as if drawn by a pencil on paper" it can be achieved in Visio. when an artist strokes a pencil on paper ithe line will taper in thickness ( on close inspection) the line tool in visio will not taper its mark on the page .. however .. If you create a 2D  shape with the line tool and then adust the shape nurbs you will obtain a very versatile artist like pencil stroke on paper. also you may usea shaded fill to provide even more realism.

To random generate shapes  via macros  by using VBA code .. I have done some auto schematic drawing codes .. suffice to say the mechanisms need to know page locations etc .. I not sure if you want to create an entire scene from macros  or use stencils placed on a page .. eg.. to draw a mountain range.. would you want to automate a sequence of stencilled mountains via macros or scribe a random amplitude wave above a flat lined horizon via macros.

[markem]

That sounds like one of the things that I tried.  (I realize this is two years later but I was in the hospital most of last year fighting gangrene and other infections.  Better now!)

I came across a topic on the Microsoft website.  It describes how to create a fill patter where you make a triangular shape in the fill pattern worksheet and then, when it is applied to a lline, it increases the size of the line.  This is what I was looking for.  However, the ball point pen is the best thing to use to create the original line.  Then convert the line over to a regular bezier curve line and then apply the pattern.  This will make the line grow over it's length.  The neat thing is - the fill pattern can be modified to use curves so you can increase, decrease, and then re-increase the width of the line.  This makes it look as if there was a lake or small pond on the river which is really neat.  Finally, the fill pattern work area can be increased in size so you have a really long work area.  Since only the pattern itself is kept - this makes it so you can have quite a bit of variety on the slowy expanding river.  :-)