11-10-2008, 11:19 AM
Sorry for not visiting for a while, I haven't needed to draw anything for a while.
I understand what the problem is, but I don't know if there are macro commands that would easily allow this. If it is possible, it might be pretty complicated. I think the first place to start is to use a spline or elipse to create a woodgrain pattern.
Without a macro, I've done it by dividing the edges and a diagonal with the midpoint tool, into the desired amount of grains. Then use the 3 point eliptical arc tool to draw the grains. When you run out of points, you can either use the offset point tool or eyeball more points to draw the elipses from. Any arcs that go outside the box can be split to delete the extraneous sections. You should zoom in to split the arcs more accurately if needed. The split tool doesn't recognize the intersection of a line and an arc.
For long, narrow pieces you can just put a bunch of midpoints on the long edges, and draw a bunch of three point eliptical arcs with endpoints on the long edges and guesstimating the middle point.
To do either of these with splines might be considerably harder because you can't split a spline and delete sections without changing it's shape.
It may be possible to make a macro to make a basic eliptical grain pattern, but I think it would still take some manual work to clean up all the tag ends of the partial arcs.
I understand what the problem is, but I don't know if there are macro commands that would easily allow this. If it is possible, it might be pretty complicated. I think the first place to start is to use a spline or elipse to create a woodgrain pattern.
Without a macro, I've done it by dividing the edges and a diagonal with the midpoint tool, into the desired amount of grains. Then use the 3 point eliptical arc tool to draw the grains. When you run out of points, you can either use the offset point tool or eyeball more points to draw the elipses from. Any arcs that go outside the box can be split to delete the extraneous sections. You should zoom in to split the arcs more accurately if needed. The split tool doesn't recognize the intersection of a line and an arc.
For long, narrow pieces you can just put a bunch of midpoints on the long edges, and draw a bunch of three point eliptical arcs with endpoints on the long edges and guesstimating the middle point.
To do either of these with splines might be considerably harder because you can't split a spline and delete sections without changing it's shape.
It may be possible to make a macro to make a basic eliptical grain pattern, but I think it would still take some manual work to clean up all the tag ends of the partial arcs.