Drawing a curve

At one time attachments were allowed.

As to longevity, you beat me by six years, though I was apprentising as a
Civil Engineer since 67. (It helps when your father owns a large Engineering
firm ;-) )

John... Visio MVP

"WapperDude" wrote in message
...
I don't think attachments come thru on this site. If there's interest,
perhaps the OP will request an email addy to fetch the attachment.

OK. You have me beat, I'm just an EE, but I bet I have you beat on
longetivity!!! Still going, since 1970.



"John... Visio MVP" wrote:

"WapperDude" wrote in message
...
Rhetorical questions don't normally get answers, but, Paul, inspite of
few
responses, you do help -- you help me, and usually I'm not the initial
post.
I'm trying to figure out why I didn't think of doing Chris' elipse
trick--after all, who's the engineer by trade?

Wapperdude

That would be me? (Civil and electronic)

One other trick that Chris posted on his blog was the use of EvalCell.
You
can create a shapesheet that uses EvalCell. If you need to change the
function, it is a matter of changing the formula in one cell.

There was no reply to the suggestion of using the new Educational shapes,
but since the OP mentioned Visio 2003 and may have felt that he could not
use those shapes. So, I have converted one of the Visio 2007 drawings to
a
Visio 2002 stencil (that is the same as Visio 2003) and have attached it.

John... Visio MVP

One of my biggest frustrations with freeform curves/splines is the inability
to convert corners to control points (and vise versa), and the screwy
behavior that seems to occur when trying to add or remove either a corner or
a control point.

If I draw a first freeform curve, then a second attached to the end of the
first, a corner exists in the middle... but if I want to change that to a
control point (or a spline point), it seems I'm hosed because I'm always
going to be stuck with a corner "cusp" where I want a smoot curve with a
control point that I can manipulate. The only way I can do generally what I
want is to draw my entire shape as a single freeform curve, but even then, I
can't convert the control points to corners, where needed. And drawing a
complex shape made of many curves is impractical to do.

Example: create a freeform curve with two endpoints and many control points.
With the pencil tool selected, do a control click on the curve. You've now
just created a corner. Now, select only the corner and hit delete... ugh,
what a mess... you can't get rid of the corner and you've just ruined your
curve.

Perhaps I am missing some key trick, but I've found working with freeform
curves/splines in most CAD packages to be infinitely easier... and unless
there is a solution to this, it seems to be a significant limitation in Visio
that I thought would have been addressed before now.

"WapperDude" wrote:

I'm assuming you're going to do this free-hand, and not by an equation. The
principles are fairly basic, using either the line, curve, pencil tool or
combinations of the two.

The easiest thing to do is a straight line with the line tool. Draw an st
line. Now select the pencil tool. You'll notice there is a control point
showing in the middle of the line. Grab and drag the control point with the
pencil. Viola! A curve. More specifically, an arc of a circle.

Now, just use the pencil. You can draw a straight line or a curved line.
For both, there will be control points to move about.

Basically, that's it.

Here are some helpful links:
Drawing arcs:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/vi...100650421033#1

Draw a closed shape:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/vi...CH101568861033

Creating new shapes:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...ffice.10).aspx.

Training: Introduction to shapes (video presentation):
http://office.microsoft.com/training...RC101324601033

HTH
Wapperdude


Do the same with the curve tool. Draw a simple arc. Switch to the pencil.
Now click the control point. Two more control handles should appear. These
control the curvature. You can move them about, in and out, and the curve
will change with them. The main control point can be dragged about too.

"Dave" wrote:

I am trying to draw a curve, specifically a curve similar to what would
result from the graph of x cubed or tan x. I am using Vision 2003.

I cannot find adequate help on this topic. I search for how to use the
pencil and freeform tools but there is nothing relevant.

Does anyone know of a tutorial on how to use these tools?

Or perhaps more sepcifically, how to add a control point (not connetction
point) to the line I create with the pencil or freeform tool?

Thanks wrapperdude

I can draw a line with the pencil tool and it appears I can add control
points by holding down CTRL and clicking on the object while it is selected.

This gives me some basic functionality but its difficult to get it to move
exactly the way I want.

I guess I will just have to practice to develop the technique.

Thanks again

Paul:

Your response was helpful.

And appreciated.

This project just took a backseat to some other demands.

Thanks again
Dave