PowerCADD Forum

This is one of the techniques I use to make complex polygons to give an organic feel to presentation drawings in PowerCADD, such as the leaf elements in the Tree tools.

The first thing do do is decide on the characteristics for the edge you want. Here are three options. Create a few different objects of each: Next copy and scale them. Shown here are two copies of each set scaled 60%: For good measure I repeat the last step. This ensures some variety in the facet size of the ultimate object: Next, make another few copes of each type. In this example I made four and rotated each 90°, although it's ultimately not necessary to rotate them, because the Jiggle tool will take care of that. Next step is to use the Jiggle tool. For this example I used these settings: This will give you results something like this: Next, draw a rectangle around them to serve as a container. It's best if this box is not overlapped by any objects (you'll see why in a minute). Now draw a line from an area where there is a lot of overlapping, extending past the bounding box (the line serves to restrict the fill and force it to surround the scattered elements). Use the WildTools Flood Tool to fill the empty space in the bounding box. (If the tool falls out it's because there is a tangency issue. If that happens, just reJiggle and Flood again.) Now select the flood object and use the Reshape command... ..to delete the points at the corners, and the two points where the line passed across the bounding box. This will turn the flood object 'inside out'... If you don't like the object you get, reJiggle the base objects and repeat the process. Make several of these and set them aside, when you are satisfied with these resources, you can use the clip and combine tools, scale them, etc. to create an object that fits the function you have in mind. (below is a single polygon object) Applying some transparency and overlapping these objects provides another layer of visual richness for very low overhead. The only time consuming part of the process is waiting for the flood tool to trace the shape, which can be lengthy if you have a zillion things for it to navigate. It's easier to combine three or four smaller flood polygons than to try to create one monumental one in a single pass.

I hope this is helpful to someone. If you use this method, please post your results..