Join Two Pieces/Overlapping Parts of the SAME Shape

[natecombsmedia]

Hey everyone,

I have searched forums and videos to try to be able to undo overlap cancellation on a shape in a simple way. How do you add the nodes/lines of an object to another line somewhere else on the same object?

Essentially, I want to achieve what join and add do for two separate objects, but within a single object since the path erases if there is overlap. The Geometry > Fill Holes method does not fill the right place. I suppose I could just draw a new shape over the gap and use the Add boolean to solve this... I'd still love to know if there is a proper way I am missing somewhere.

Thanks! Here is a picture of the gap in the overlap of a leaf to a second stem I would love to fix.

[walt.farrell]

38 minutes ago, natecombsmedia said:

How do you add the nodes of an object to another line somewhere else on the object?

Any Node can only be part of one line, so if I understand what you want then I don't think you can do that.

[natecombsmedia]

3 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Any Node can only be part of one line, so if I understand what you want then I don't think you can do that.

Yeah, so perhaps the better question is how do you join lines without altering the shape? My workaround I came up with while typing works, but a button/function would be great too!

[thomaso]

I am not sure how you got there and where you want to go but maybe this helps: You can either choose Geometry Merge Curves – or Geometry Add. The results may vary.

For instance after merging two ellipse shapes I can fill the hole in the resulting Curves layer (plural) by switching the Fill Mode (menu Layer)

… whereas choosing Geometry -> Add for the two selected ellipse layers results in a Curve layer (singular).

[v_kyr]

In order to get just one shape for the whole and fill the gap, one can also use some capable vector tracer for doing the job.

• shape_sample.afdesign

[natecombsmedia]

43 minutes ago, thomaso said:

 

This is exactly what I want to do, but on a single shape instead of two, as if you added more points to one end of the oval and made a big circle until you hit the other side of the same oval. I want to connect the ends where the overlap is, but not fill in the middle.

[v_kyr]

7 minutes ago, natecombsmedia said:

This is exactly what I want to do, but on a single shape instead of two ...

That's just one shape/curve, as you can see from the layers panel!

[thomaso]

27 minutes ago, natecombsmedia said:

This is exactly what I want to do,

I want to connect the ends where the overlap is, but not fill in the middle.

This sounds contraditory. You want it exactly like the quoted example … but with a hole? How would the hole be limited/created if not by a curve (as in your current example)?

As Walt mentioned, this is hardly possible. Depending on your current curves it would need to create nodes at T, Y or X junctions of overlapping curves or to merge two corner nodes of two rectangles to one common node. Such is technically not available with the Bézier curve maths.

[natecombsmedia]

21 minutes ago, thomaso said:

This sounds contraditory. You want it exactly like the quoted example … but with a hole? How would the hole be limited/created if not by a curve (as in your current example)?

As Walt mentioned, this is hardly possible. Depending on your current curves it would need to create nodes at T, Y or X junctions of overlapping curves or to merge two corner nodes of two rectangles to one common node. Such is technically not available with the Bézier curve maths.

I meant I want to do exactly what the add geometry command does, but your example added the geometry of two separate shapes. My image above is a single shape joined on the left stem, with freely movable nodes. I wanted to be able to move nodes from the end of the leaf to the line of the right stem and have those two lines join. But, as you can see from the part I circled red, they don't join with any of the available commands and will cancel out, creating negative space if I go past the line I'd like to merge onto.

The hole would come from the triangular space between the left stem, leaf in question, and right stem (which joins with the left stem lower down). When I use fill methods, it fills that whole area in addition to the leaf gap.

However, creating a rectangle and adding it to the dead space fixed my problem pretty easily, so I guess I will do that from now on.

[thomaso]

2 minutes ago, natecombsmedia said:

However, creating a rectangle and adding it to the dead space fixed my problem pretty easily

So you did want to fill the hole? – I must admit I can't follow your text description.

Apart from the fact that you solved it yourself in the meantime: To get what I did you can use the curves in the state of your screenshot, then choose Geometry > Separate curves. This will bring back two (or more) independent objects. Then you can start again to investigate the objects or move their node positions … and also to apple Geometry > Add to achieve one object without the hole. But note: Two nodes of crossing curves will never get merged to one common node and maintain the shape.

[walt.farrell]

10 hours ago, natecombsmedia said:

I wanted to be able to move nodes from the end of the leaf to the line of the right stem and have those two lines join.

But as you now know, you can't do that without having separate Curves, and Adding or Merging them.

[MEB]

Hi @natecombsmedia,
Layer > Geometry> Fill Holes should sort that type of issue when there's a single hole in the object which is not the case here. To sort this out select the Shape Builder Tool and drag a line starting from the leaf and ending on the stem crossing the gap area then press Enter to join them all.