Trying to stroke a special pattern

[Ken Rogers]

I am working on a map and I need to lay a pattern along a curved line. The pattern consists of a repeating symbol ] which must rotate to conform with the curve. A picture is worth a thousand words, so please see the attachment below. The red pattern is what I am trying to create. Can I stroke such a pattern?

Ken

[Kraellin]

not sure what program you're using, but it shldnt be that hard. make one original image with the proper curve already there. make this a separate image. then simply cut and paste it in the other. then go back to the pattern image and rotate it x number of degrees. copy and paste this new rotated one into the next area and simply repeat all the way around.

are you handing drawing the original pattern image or does it already exist and have a flat bottom to it? if it is, and you need to put a curve in the first one, i believe you could do this several ways. you could use the skew or warp tool on a raster image, or use a vector image for the pattern and simply shape it with selecting it and moving the selection points....i think. somewhat depends on the program, i guess.

Craig

[Ken Rogers]

Thanks for your ideas, Kraellin.

I will be using PS7. I am creating a map that will have large rings printed all over it. These rings must consist of the red pattern shown above. Because I will be laying down thousands of these little ] symbols, I need a fast method. I was hoping I could somehow lay down a string of these along a curve. I though I could do it by "stroking", but not certain.

Here's an example of what I'm trying to do. See the ring with the ------- pattern? It's these rings that I need to create.

Ken

[Kraellin]

ok, not quite what i thought, but interesting. how bout making one ring with a transparent background. if the ring sizes are all circles this shld work fine. just cut and paste the whole ring. if you need different sizes, just resize the image of the ring and cut and paste again.

but, if you're going to be making a lot of different patterns with the brace symbol, then the only other way i can think of doing it would be with something like paint shop pro's picture tubes. these can be quite good for something like this, though you'd have to make quite a few of them to make a whole ring. but, one advantage of the picture tubes is that once made and stored they can be called up in different sizes.

but even with picture tubes, i guess it's going to be difficult to follow a curved line if it's not a perfect circle each time. so, not real sure. i dont know of a tool that can paint a pattern like that in a curved line. photoshop might have a brush that would work, or maybe you could make a brush like that and import it to ps7....dont know. dont have ps.

it does sound like the perfect task for a computer and graphic editor, though. so, maybe someone else has an idea.

Craig

[Swampy]

Ken, I don't think I would ever try to tackle a detailed map in PhotoShop!! You are brave, my man! I've done many maps in Illustrator where you can generate all kinds of line patterns and vector symbols.

The reason I use Illustrator is that once finished, the map can be reproduced at any size or resolution because it it vector based.

[Ken Rogers]

I'm not making the map from scratch. The owner of the map needs various lines put down, that's all.

[Racc Iria]

Ken,

Try making one bracket into a brush and then turning down the spacing on the brush to get the "dotted line" effect. Then, slowly paint the line. You may have to experiment with some of the other brush settings to get it to rotate around the curves.

Sorry, I'm at work right now and don't have time to do the experiments myself at the moment. I'll try a little later if I get the chance.

--Racc