Changing shapes

[bowen192]

Can you change a shape type?

 

For instance if I've created a circle, could I then change this to a square, thus keeping the same dimensions?

 

If not I think this would be a good idea.

[gdenby]

Hi, bowen192,

 

It would be handy, but not as important as getting a blend or mesh warp tool.  

 

Myself, I'm satisfied w. being able to change polygons to circles via the roundness parameter, or via snapping, draw an irregular shape, like a call out, to match the bounds of another shape. There are snapping settings that will aid to place a new ellipse center in a recatnagle, and quickly draw our from there.

[Ben]

We currently don't offer any way to change shape types, other than going from a Circle to a pie/donut (as those shapes are easily relatable).

 

Other shapes, not so. Some shapes are projected into the original bounds, and others are based on a circle projected into the original bounds.  Changing between the two shape types will  not necessarily result in a shape with the same geometry extents.  So, it's more predictable to drag out a new shape.

 

[R C-R]

58 minutes ago, Ben said:

We currently don't offer any way to change shape types, other than going from a Circle to a pie/donut (as those shapes are easily relatable).

 

Other shapes, not so ...

But many of the shapes are relatable to a circle (or more generally to an ellipse), right? Consider the attached AD file, with this layer structure:

Each shape has the same bounding box dimensions, fits into the same circle, & has the same default center point. It is in no way a priority feature for me, but it would be cool if we could freely convert among them; or at least from a circle/ellipse to any of the others, in the same way we can now from circles/ellipses to pies/donuts. The Context toolbar could be simplified with a single "Convert" item with a popup menu of convertible shapes, so it would not be too wide to fit on smaller screens.

relatable shape types.afdesign

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, Ben said:

We currently don't offer any way to change shape types, other than going from a Circle to a pie/donut (as those shapes are easily relatable).

 

Other shapes, not so. Some shapes are projected into the original bounds, and others are based on a circle projected into the original bounds.  Changing between the two shape types will  not necessarily result in a shape with the same geometry extents.  So, it's more predictable to drag out a new shape.

In DrawPlus there is a dropdown list on the Context toolbar, allowing the user to switch from any QuickShape to any other QuickShape. The base box retains its original dimensions, and it doesn't matter if the bounding box changes: after all, even a simple star has a different bounding box if you change the number of points from 5 to 6.

 

[R C-R]

6 minutes ago, Alfred said:

after all, even a simple star has a different bounding box if you change the number of points from 5 to 6.

??? That does not happen in either AD or AP for me -- the size, shape, & default center of the bounding box remains the same for all of the shapes shown in my screenshot when the points, teeth, inner radii, or other adjustable parameters are changed.

[Alfred]

3 hours ago, R C-R said:

??? That does not happen in either AD or AP for me -- the size, shape, & default center of the bounding box remains the same for all of the shapes shown in my screenshot when the points, teeth, inner radii, or other adjustable parameters are changed.

I suspect I wasn't clear enough about the distinction I made in my previous post:

4 hours ago, Alfred said:

The base box retains its original dimensions, and it doesn't matter if the bounding box changes

I wouldn't have been aware of the difference if it hadn't been for one of Ben's posts on the subject. When you drag out a shape while holding down the Shift key, you always get a square base box but you don't always get a square bounding box. The default Star shape has 5 points, with the top one touching the base box, and there are small gaps at the sides and a large gap at the bottom; when you make a copy of the shape and change the number of points to 6, the top and bottom points will both touch the base box but the gaps at the sides will get larger. If you select either shape and press the period key on your keyboard, you will see the bounding box, which is tight to the shape on all four sides.

[gdenby]

 

Didn't know there was both a base and bounding box. Had assumed the base box was the bounding box, which would explain why it would be difficult to replace shapes that fit in the same base box, when the bounding box is different. Where to position/scale the the substitute shape?

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, gdenby said:

Didn't know there was both a base and bounding box.

Neither did I ... & possibly neither did the documentation team. I may have missed it, but nowhere in the help topics can I find mention of either one, except in the Snapping topic, where (apparently) "bounding box" is used in the generic 'selection box' sense for either kind. "Selection box" does appear in a few topics like for the Move tool but no distinction is made about which type of box that might be. I also can't find any mention of pressing the period key to toggle between them, but that might also be something I missed.

 

The Ui is also a bit vague about this, at least in the main toolbar "Arrange" options, where the six 'align' options give us alignment choices that include "Selection Bounds," avoiding the word "box" completely.

 

20 minutes ago, gdenby said:

Had assumed the base box was the bounding box, which would explain why it would be difficult to replace shapes that fit in the same base box, when the bounding box is different.

For all the shapes in my screenshot (plus the polygon, which I neglected to include), I think it should be easy enough if the size & default center of the base box is always used as the reference. From Alfred's comments, I gather that is how it works in DrawPlus.

 

I admit I have not thought this through completely, but I think if there was a 'convert' feature, that is how I would like it to work, using base box references rather than bounding box ones.

[Bri-Toon]

2 hours ago, Alfred said:

I wouldn't have been aware of the difference if it hadn't been for one of Ben's posts on the subject. When you drag out a shape while holding down the Shift key, you always get a square base box but you don't always get a square bounding box. The default Star shape has 5 points, with the top one touching the base box, and there are small gaps at the sides and a large gap at the bottom; when you make a copy of the shape and change the number of points to 6, the top and bottom points will both touch the base box but the gaps at the sides will get larger. If you select either shape and press the period key on your keyboard, you will see the bounding box, which is tight to the shape on all four sides.

 

It looks like a lot of us were unaware of this, but it makes sense. While I did notice the gap space in the bottom and sides of the star preset, I originally didn't understand why. There are also other shapes like the crescent shape that has gap space by default because it can be manipulated further into a circle to fill up the entire bounding box. So it appears that the gap space is a placeholder for the maximum size of any shape manipulation.