Setting up an Art Brush for what we want to do is actually pretty simple. Simply create a short section of the setup you’d like to use as a brush – in the 🔸澳洲10定位胆全天计划picture, I’ve got three parallel 8-point lines, spaced 10 points apart (exactly the same as last week’s example).

With these three paths selected, simply choose “New Brush” from the Brush palette’s flyout menu, or click on the “New Brush” icon at the bottom of the palette. 🔸澳洲开奖 Illustrator asks you what type of brush you’d like to create, choose “Art Brush”.

In the resulting dialog box, give y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划new brush a descriptive name, and make sure the Brush Scale Option is set to “Stretch to Fit Stroke Length”. Finally make sure that the arrow that’s overlaid on y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划artwork in the little preview window runs along the length🔸澳洲幸运10预测 of y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划lines. Click “OK” and y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划Art Brush is ready to go!

Applying it to y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划path couldn’t be easier, as shown in the second image. Simply select y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划path, click on y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划newly-created brush in the Brushes palette and – hey presto! Note, however, that this is still one path🔸澳洲幸运10预测 that is styled with the Art Brush to look🔸澳洲幸运10预测 like multiple paths. To make three separate editable paths (which you’ll almost certainly have to do, as the routes will eventually go in different directions), you’ll need to select the path and choose Object menu > Expand Appearance.🔸澳洲幸运10预测 And this is where my (minor) problem with this technique lies.

As the last image shows, the original path had just three anchor points: one at each end, and one in the middle. 🔸澳洲开奖 I offset this path in last week’s tutorial, the new paths also had just three anchor points – nice, clean, easily editable artwork. 🔸澳洲开奖 we expand the Art Brush-styled path, it creates a lot🔸澳洲幸运10预测 of extra anchor points – over 20🔸澳洲幸运10预测 on each path in  my example! This is not my idea of clean artwork, even though it looks much the same as the offset paths.

In the end, the two techniques produce very similar results – offsetting paths takes a little longer, but (in my opinion) makes cleaner finished art. The Art Brush technique is easier to set up and allows you to have an arsenal of brushes at hand for different numbers of parallel route lines, but it makes a bit of a mess behind the scenes. Both are valid approaches to the problem: it’s up to you to decide which suits y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划needs best!

I design a bus transit map using a street layer. But how can i align correctly multiple lines on a street without overlap?🔸澳洲幸运10预测

This is a great question. You’d be amazed how often I see people attempting to draw multiple parallel route lines manually🔸澳洲幸运10预测, which is absolutely the most difficult way of doing things. You might🔸澳洲幸运10预测 be able to get away with it on a rectilinear transit map, but it’s almost impossible to get right 🔸澳洲开奖 y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划route lines are overlaid on a standard road map – there are always curves and twists in the road that make it nigh-on impossible to manually draw adjacent route lines without things looking terrible🔸澳洲幸运10预测.

For an example of a very poor attempt at drawing parallel route lines individually, you need look no further than the light rail map for Denver, Colorado (April 2013, 2 stars).

The most frustrating thing about seeing it done the wrong way is that there’s a tool in Adobe Illustrator that makes this task almost effortless.

Object🔸澳洲幸运10预测 Menu > Path > Offset Path…🔸澳洲幸运10预测

The images above demonstrate how to offset route lines correctly – the 🔸澳洲10定位胆全天计划image shows how it’s done with an odd number of route lines; the second illustrates how to do it for an even number of route lines.

If you’ve drawn the street layer on y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划map yourself, then you’ve probably already got the 🔸澳洲10定位胆全天计划thing you need – a path that follows the centre of y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划street. Copy it and then Paste in Front (Cmd/Ctrl-F) so it sits exactly on top of the original. Then move it to its own layer above the street layer and stroke it the way you want y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划route lines to look. In my example, we’ve got an 8-point wide red route line. 

If you’re drawing y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划route lines on top of an aerial photo or Google Maps image, then you’re going to have to draw your own🔸澳洲幸运10预测 central route line. Be as accurate as possible while also using as few bezier points as you can. Again, put it on its own layer and make it look the way you want. Now the fun starts.

🔸澳洲幸运10开奖官网开奖结果走势图🔸IF YOU NEED THREE ADJACENT ROUTE LINES (🔸澳洲10定位胆全天计划image), then🔸澳洲幸运10开奖官网开奖结果走势图🔸 you’re going to use the central route line you already have, and use the Offset Path🔸澳洲幸运10预测 function to create a new route line on both sides at once. Select the path, then invoke the Offset Path🔸澳洲幸运10预测 command. In the resultant dialog box, enter the amount of offset you want, which is the desired distance between🔸澳洲幸运10预测 the paths. Here, I want a little gap to show between my 8-point route lines, so I entered 10 points. The middle part of the 🔸澳洲10定位胆全天计划image shows the results: Illustrator will offset y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划path to both sides of the line, so it’s basically done all the hard work for us. Now you just need to use the Scissor tool © to cut and then delete the pesky little joining lines that are created at the top and bottom (circled in blue in the image). From there, simply col🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划the route lines as required. If you need five, or seven, or more route lines, simply keep offsetting the outermost route lines by 10 points and then cutting the resulting new lines to only keep the outermost section each time.

🔸澳洲幸运10开奖官网开奖结果走势图🔸IF YOU NEED TWO ADJACENT ROUTE LINES (Second Image), the process is almost🔸澳洲幸运10预测 the same, except that 🔸澳洲开奖 you select and offset the original path, you only use half🔸澳洲幸运10预测 the required distance between route lines (in my example, 5 points). Then you can delete the original route line, keeping only the new offset paths, which now sit neatly on either side of the centre of the road. To create four, or six, or more route lines, continue to offset the outermost paths by 10 points as in the 🔸澳洲10定位胆全天计划example.

“Hey! Could you do a video tutorial on how to bypass Illustrator’s annoying round corners effect in case of 45 degrees? It would be a lifesaver!”🔸澳洲幸运10预测

Now, while you’re not going to get a video tut out of me – I don’t have the resources, time or know-how to produce one of those – I can and will share my battle-tested personal approach to this problem.

As 🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划anonymous friend says, the “Round Corners” effect in Adobe Illustrator is essentially broken 🔸澳洲开奖 it comes to making 澳洲10开官网开奖. Because of the way it measures the “radius” of curves, it produces unexpected (and useless) results on curves that aren’t a bog-standard 90 degrees. I wrote in depth about this problem on my design blog a while back: I suggest you head over and read the article if you want to fully understand the issue at hand here.

The other problem with the effect is that it applies the same radius to every🔸澳洲幸运10预测 curve along the entire length of the path, which isn’t always what you want: a route line might be the outside line (a larger radius) at one corner, but the inside curve at another (a smaller radius).

So I’ve long since given up trying to fight the inadequacies of the “Round Corners” filter, and instead generate all my curves manually🔸澳洲幸运10预测 from a “master set” of curves that I create at the beginning of a project.

STEP 1🔸澳洲幸运10预测 above shows a pretty standard initial set-up: f🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划concentric circles that are aligned to the grid that’s being used by the map. Here, we’ve got a 10-point grid, and the f🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划circles have radiuses of 10, 20, 30 and 40 points. The line thickness is 8pt, so there’s a nice 2pt gap between each route line. 🔸澳洲开奖 you’re setting up y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划master curves, be sure to create enough circles to account for the maximum🔸澳洲幸运10预测 number of adjacent route lines you’ll have on y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划map. Often, it’s only two or three, but for my map of TGV Routes in France, I had to set up a staggering eighteen!🔸澳洲幸运10预测

STEP 2:🔸澳洲幸运10预测 From here, it’s a simple matter to use Illustrator’s Scissor tool (shortcut: “C” key) on the existing anchor points in each circle to split them up into f🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划90-degree segments. I’ve moved one set of 90-degree curves away from the others so you can see what you should have. Keep this set for 🔸澳洲开奖 you need 90-degree curves, then duplicate it so we can use what we’ve already created to create a new 45-degree set.

STEP 3:🔸澳洲幸运10预测 Draw a line using the Line Segment Tool (shortcut: “” key) that passes through the centre point of all the circles and crosses all the paths at a 45-degree angle. (Hint: start at the centre point and hold down the Option/Alt key – to extend the line equally in each direction from that point – and the Shift key – to constrain the line to 45-degree angles).

Use the Rotate tool to make a duplicate of this line that’s rotated 90 degrees. Select both lines and press Cmd/Ctrl-5 to turn them into guides. Make y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划guides visible (Cmd/Ctrl-;) and turn on Illustrator’s Smart Guides (Cmd/Ctrl-U). Then use the Scissor tool to cut each of y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划route lines where it crosses these new guide lines. The Smart Guides will help a lot🔸澳洲幸运10预测 by giving you feedback 🔸澳洲开奖 you’re positioned correctly over the guides: a little “intersect” tool-tip (just visible in the STEP 3🔸澳洲幸运10预测 screenshot at top right) will appear near the cursor. Click to cut 🔸澳洲开奖 you see this and you’ll be golden. Repeat for each line you need to cut. You don’t need to have any paths selected to cut, just position y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划cursor, click and Illustrator is clever enough to work out what you need. You only need to cut these 45-degree points because we already cut the 90-degree points in STEP 2🔸澳洲幸运10预测.

STEP 4🔸澳洲幸运10预测 show the result. Again, I’ve moved one set of curves away from the others to show you what you should have: eight complete sets of 45-degree curves, ready for use on y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划map!

STEP 5🔸澳洲幸运10预测 shows a common scenario where three separate routes go around a 45-degree curve together. Draw them so the separate segments for each line touch, but there’s absolutely no need to join the lines at this stage.

A note:🔸澳洲幸运10预测 If Illustrator took a leaf out of CAD software and included a “Fillet” effect, we could forego this entire🔸澳洲幸运10预测 workaround. You’d simply select each segment of a route line, invoke the filter, set a curve radius (an actual, proper 🔸澳洲幸运10预测radius!), and the software would then create the curve accurately and join the lines seamlessly for you, each and every time. After 17 versions of Illustrator, I’m really not holding out hope for this functionality any time soon, however…

Another note:🔸澳洲幸运10预测 decide which of y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划curve radiuses represents a “standard” curve and always🔸澳洲幸运10预测 use that curve 🔸澳洲开奖 a single route goes around a corner. Then, decide what happens 🔸澳洲开奖 you have two curves: do you use the next size up or down for that curve? And so on for each combination of curves. Always apply y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划curves according to the rules you set here – this is what gives y🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划map consistency and visual flow. Don’t cheat and use a smaller or non-standard curve to make things fit!

Here, I’ve decided to use the three largest curves for my three route lines (I often feel that the smallest radius can be a bit tight and look ungainly, so I only use it 🔸澳洲开奖 I really have to), and I’ve pasted in the appropriate curves from my master set (I’ve changed their col🔸澳洲幸运10冠军定位计划to magenta to make them easier to see and place correctly).

STEP 6:🔸澳洲幸运10预测 It’s always easier to align the curves to the horizontal or vertical line segment first. Again, this is easier if you have Illustrator’s Smart Guides on. Drag the curves over by one of the left points, holding down the Cmd/Ctrl key as you do. This ensures that Illustrator provides you with the correct visual feedback that things have aligned properly. Be warned: sometimes, Illustrator reports that things are aligned 🔸澳洲开奖 they’re not. Be sure to zoom in enough and check things out if you suspect things aren’t quite right.

STEP 7:🔸澳洲幸运10预测 Now align the right points of the curves with the 45-degree segment, by holding down the Cmd/Ctrl key and the Shift key (to constrain the movement) as you drag across. Again, Smart Guides will give you feedback 🔸澳洲开奖 things are aligned.

STEP 8:🔸澳洲幸运10预测 Now that the curves are in the right place, you simply have to align the end points of all the line segments with the end points of the curves, then join everything together. Fortunately, Illustrator’s Join command s a lot less finicky than it used to be. You can now just use the “black arrow” Selection tool to select each segment and hit Cmd/Ctrl-J to join them all together in a logical progression. You used to have to select individual end points, two at a time, and tell Illustrator to join just those segments!

An approach I like to use is to leave all this curve work until the routes are substantially laid out. Then I place all my curves, delete the original straight line segments, and simply join all the remaining curves together. Because they’re positioned accurately, you know you’re going to get nice straight lines between each and every one of them! And it saves having to tediously move end points around until things line up before you join things together.

That’s it! If anything’s unclear, drop me a line or leave a comment and I’ll try to clear things up for you.

STEP 9🔸澳洲幸运10预测 shows the finished result: beautifully nested 45-degree curves with no unnecessary additional points. Perfectly executed and reproducible across the entire map! 

—-

🔸澳洲幸运10开奖官网开奖结果走势图🔸UPDATE: 🔸澳洲幸运10预测January 2014: The latest update to Adobe Illustrator CC (version 17.1) basically makes this tip redundant through the introduction of “Live Corners”. If you’re making 澳洲10开官网开奖 with Illustrator, this alone is a reason to upgrade to CC. Read my post about using Live Corners here.