help with spiral

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crowsrawesome
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Apr 07, 2009 11:20 am

help with spiral

Postby crowsrawesome » Tue Apr 07, 2009 11:39 am

Hiya, I'm learning to use inkscape.

I went on this video and wanted to try on making like one using Inkscape.

But it ends up like this, there's a line crossing the spiral.
Image

Any pointers how to make the spiral without that line? Or how to fix that up?
Thanks.

User avatar
prkos
Posts: 1625
Joined: Tue Nov 06, 2007 8:45 am
Location: Croatia

Re: help with spiral

Postby prkos » Tue Apr 07, 2009 8:29 pm

Seems like you joined the wrong end nodes, one from the spiral center and one from the end. I didn't get the line while following the steps although workflow in Inkscape is a bit different. Here's how I did it:

  • draw a spiral, adjust its shape to your liking, remove fill, add stroke
  • duplicate the spiral Ctrl + d
  • hold Ctrl and Shift while dragging one of the corner handles to resize the second spiral (Ctrl will keep its ratio and Shift will keep it centered)
  • make sure you have these two snapping preferences set under Document properties: What snaps - nodes, Snap to objects - snap to nodes (in the development builds there is a snapping toolbar that makes this even more easier and there are onscreen tips)
  • zoom in on the spirals center, grab one of the spirals and move it so their centers (end nodes) snap together
  • select both spirals and combine them into one object Ctrl + k (in Illustrator this step isn't needed)
  • now you can join end nodes using Node tool, select the two center end nodes that are snapped together and use Join selected end nodes button from the toolbar
  • select the outer end nodes and use Join selected endnodes with a new segment
  • make that segment into a straight line if necessary (also a button on the toolbar)
  • now you have a closed shape and you can set the fill :)
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crowsrawesome
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Apr 07, 2009 11:20 am

Re: help with spiral

Postby crowsrawesome » Thu Apr 09, 2009 8:39 pm

Thanks prkos, its working great.


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