4. Shape Creation

Single Shape

A shape comprised of a single contour can be made with any of the following tools. A single contour in comprised of two or more points, and can be open or closed.

Open and Closed Shapes

The Pen tool creates open or closed shapes. A open shape is completed by pressing the cursor over any tool in the toolbox, including the same pen tool. A shape is closed by moving the cursor over the end point of the active shape, which is indicated when the cursor turns to a cross-hair(+), and then dragging for a smooth corner or clicking for a sharp corner.

Continuing and Connecting

A completed open shape can be continued, (made active again), or connected to the shape in progress, by moving the cursor over either of the completed shape's end points, which is indicated when the cursor turns to a cross-hair(+). The completed shape is then resumed or connected to another shape by either dragging for a smooth corner or clicking for a sharp corner.

Snapping to existing points

While in the Pen tool, the cursor's nearness to an existing reference (point, edge or grid, depending on the preference state, but excluding endpoints), is indicated by the cursor switching to an X while in range of the point. When a point is created while the cursor indicates such coincidence, the new point is set to the exact same value as the existing point. This response to an endpoint, (indicated by the crosshair, +), is overridden by the continue and connect behavior described above. To snap a point to an endpoint without merging it, the CONTROL key must be held down during point creation to snap instead of connect.

Adjusting Points in Progress

Prior points of a shape in progress can be repositioned while the shape remains in progress, by first pressing and holding the ALT key, then pressing the cursor inside an existing point, and dragging it to a new location. When the ALT key is released, any subsequent cursor presses will again append new points to the shape.

Direction point constraints

Normally, when a direction point is dragged away from its associated anchor point, the opposing direction point is assigned an equal length and slope, and opposite angle. Points created this way are assigned a constraint that, unless switched off, maintains a straight line between direction points in any subsequent manipulation, resulting in rounded or smooth corners. This constraint can be overridden, so that new direction points can be discontinuous, by holding down both the ALT key, and the CONTROL key while dragging. Points created in this way remain without constraint, unless switched on, and are allowed to form sharp corners.

Angle Constraints

A constraint that restricts any new point to the nearest 45° from its preceding point can be applied by pressing and holding the SHIFT key before pressing or dragging the cursor for a the new point. Releasing the SHIFT key removes any constraints on subsequent points.

Pen Dialog

Options provided by the pen dialog allow the choice between dragging the direction point after clicking to set an anchor point, or clicking and dragging the anchor point with implicit generation of direction points relative to the distance from the previous anchor point.

Creates a brush stroke over the path of the drag, with width and/or transparency values based on it's pressure and speed.

A brush stroke implicitly creates a series of anchor points that conform to the path of the brush. The resulting brush points can be manipulated in the same way as explicitly created anchor and direction points.

Brush Dialog

Options provided by the Brush Dialog allow control over the influence of speed and pressure over the width of the brush and transparency of the color. Values can be set to vary, based on speed and/or pressure, within a minimum and maximum percentage of the width and transparency in effect during the stroke

Drags to create a circle or arbitrary ellipse extending to the borders of the dragged area.

Symmetry Constraint

A constraint that restricts the dragged area to a square, resulting in the creation of a circle of a given radius, can be applied by pressing and holding the SHIFT key before pressing or dragging the cursor for an ellipse.

Ellipse Dialog

The Ellipse Dialog allows the creation of an ellipse or circle with a numerically specified origin, width and height.

Drags to create a multi-sided shape extending to the borders of the dragged area.

Symmetry Constraint

A constraint that restricts the dragged area to a square, resulting in the creation of an equal sided polygon of a given edge length, can be applied by pressing and holding the SHIFT key before pressing or dragging the cursor for a polygon

Polygon Dialog

Options provided by the Polygon Dialog allow the numerical specification of the origin, width, height, number of sides, percentage of inset, and optional corner radius of a symmetrical polygon.

Product Shapes

Product shapes are created by converting one or more source shapes into new shapes, or extracting new shapes from one or more source shapes.

The two end points of one single or two different shapes can be selected with the point select tool, then joined into a single contour with the Join option. When the two endpoints are from a single open shape, a single closed contour is formed as a result. When the two endpoints are from different shapes, the two shapes are joined to form a single shape. The direction, (point order), of the resulting shape is set to that of the topmost of the two shapes. When the distance between the two points is greater than the size of the vertex box, a new curve segment is added to connect them. When the two points are within the tolerance of the vertex box size, then both points are set equal to the topmost point.

Two open contours before Joining	The single contour resulting from the Join

The text that flows through a shape at the time of its selection can all be converted to its underlying paths, using the Convert to paths option. When text inside a given shape is converted to paths, the converted text is deleted from any story it may have been a part of, and the story flow assigned to the parent shape is removed.

Composite Shapes

Composite shapes result from the assignment of relationships between two or more contours. To produce a composite shape, two or more existing contours can be assigned one or more of the available relationships. All composite shapes are produced by selecting two or more existing shapes, and applying one of the several options from the Object pulldown menu, using the Make process. Selected composite shapes can be restored into independent shapes again by applying the Release process of the same option.,

The available options on the Object pulldown menu

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The simplest instance of a composite shape is the compound shape. A compound shape allows shapes that are filled to have areas or holes subtracted from them by one or more additional filled shapes. The areas where the shapes overlap then appear to be cutout or transparent. In areas where multiple overlaps occur, the even-odd rule applies, where an odd number of overlaps appears transparent, while an even number appears filled. The fill color of all contours of a compound shape is that of the base or back most contour of the group. A valid compound shape can only be created when all selections have a painted (non-null), fill component. A compound shape is created by selecting all the desired shapes, and applying the Object->Compound Shape->Make option. Compound shapes can be released by applying the Object->Compound Shape->Release.

Three shapes, before and after compounding

This example displays how the bottom shape color is applied to the merged shapes.

Shade Guides® supply a unique feature, pioneered by Mediascape, that allows arbitrarily curved, multicolor, multi-transparency, and resolution-independent shading to be applied to any filled shape. A Shade Guide is comprised of a single, filled destination contour, with two or more open unfilled guide contours whose paint attributes are blended together between their consecutive, open edges. The resulting blend is then applied to the destination contour. Any paint attributes of the destination's fill are also applied. To eliminate the influence from the destination's fill color, it can be set to white, which serves as a neutral color. A shade guide is created by selecting all the desired shapes, and applying the Object->Shade Guide->Make option. Shade guides can be released by applying the Object->Shade Guide->Release option.

A valid Shade Guide can only be created when the selections consist of one filled contour, and two or more unfilled contours. Anchor points on any of the Shade Guides or their destination can be adjusted for real-time control of the color dispersion. A compound shape (see above), can also be used as a Shade Guide destination.

A compound shape before and after becoming part of a Shade Guide

This example demonstrates how either single or compound shapes can have Shade Guides applied. Here the 3 ellipses, which are now united in a compound shape, serve as the destination shape. The destination shape must have a fill color, and the shade guides must have a stroke color and no fill color. Since the neutral fill color for the destination shape is white, the shape is shown selected in order to be visible on a white background for this example.

When a Shade Guide is applied, only the united set of shapes can be selected. It is therefore currently necessary to release the members of the Shade Guide in order to change individual attributes, such as the destination's fill color or any of the guide's stroke colors. Individual contours must be selected to apply any changes that are not anchor point based. It is however possible to change colors at individual anchor points.

The Mask/Lens option allows both the ability to create a mask for one or more target shapes, and/or the ability to assign one or more DynaLenses to the target shape or shapes. A mask and/or lens is created when one or more shapes are selected and the Object->Mask/Lens->Make option is applied. When this option is applied, the topmost shape then serves as either a mask or a lens or both. When the topmost shape serves as a mask, only the regions of the assigned shapes within the mask boundary are visible. When the topmost shape servers as a lens, a raster or vector function can be applied to the area within the lens shape. The topmost shape can serve as both a lens and a mask, causing the areas of the target shapes outside of the mask/lens to be invisible, and the areas of the target shapes inside the mask/lens to be filtered by one or more filters.

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The Paint palette shows mask and filter options when the first selection is a mask/lens.	Mask applied to selected shapes.
	Multiple lenses applied to selected shapes, with mask disabled

[Inactive as of this writing]

When one or more shapes without story elements is selected in association with one or more shapes having a story element, the shapes that do not have a story are converted to serve as run-arounds, or shapes that repel text, to the shapes having stories which they intersect.

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