Creating complex graphic objects

[James Hurley]

>
> Message: 8
> Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 14:52:04 +0100
> From: David Bovill <david at vaudevillecourt.tv>
> Subject: Creating complex graphic objects
> To: How to use Revolution <use-revolution at lists.runrev.com>
> Message-ID:
> 	<c1c5836b0904020652u7308dd7ie2f64073c08aa30 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> I've a couple of shapes that I need to create for an app that lend
> themselves to the use of the graphic control - because I want them at
> various sizes and also because they use "markers" on a graphic  
> shape. The
> problems is the complexity of tweaking the points by hand. I know of
> experiments importing geometry from apps like Illustrator - but was
> wandering if anyone has any examples / a library of shapes or  
> techniques to
> make this easier?
>
> For instance the shapes I need are "stars" - that I can dynamically  
> colour.
> By roughly drawing a star and then:
>
> set the editmode of the selectedobject to "polygon"
>
> I can tweak the shape manually which helps a lot.
>
>  But when it comes to more complex structures it would be good to  
> draw them
> in illustrator and import the geometry.
>
> For instance - I also want to create circles with variable numbers  
> of evenly
> spaced marker points(iIdeally the arcs would have arrows on them to  
> indicate
> a clockwise flow). It would be "nice" not to have to create these  
> as images
> at different scales and import them from an external app - but  
> AFAIK its not
> really practical at the moment. Any suggestions?
>
>

David,

You may want to consider Turtle Graphics. (See http:// 
www.jamesphurley.com/runrev.html)

Here, for example is the script for drawing a circle with evenly  
space arrows along the perimeter:

on mouseUp
    put 90 into tNumPoints
    startTurtle

    repeat with i = 1 to tNumPoints
       forward 10
       left 360/tNumPoints
       if i mod 10 is 0 then
          drawArrow 10,15
       end if
    end repeat

    choose the browse tool
end mouseUp

on drawArrow tLength,tAngle
    right tAngle
    back tLength
    forward tLength
    left 2*tAngle
    back tLength
    forward tLength
    right tAngle
end drawArrow

You can create either an image or a vector graphic. Stars would be  
easy as well.

JIm Hurley