Smooth a curve through an anchor point

want to smooth a curve through an anchor point, it has a slight kink in it & it isn't smooth on the templates I've cut out, it's a guitar body curve.
just want to make it smooth without effecting the surrounding shape?

The most basic way of smoothing curves is with the Convert Anchor Point tool (hidden under the Pen in the toolbox).
Click on the point you want to edit and drag. This converts a corner point to a smooth point with equally long handles on each side of the anchor.
The trouble with doing things this way though is that you lose track of where the path was when it was "nearly right".
I solve this by copying the "nearly right" path, pasting in front (Cmd+F) and then making a guide of it (Cmd+5).
After you have done that you can use the Convert Anchor Point tool on the original path.
It's a rather clumsy workaround, but that's just the way Illie is; middle-aged and overweight.

Similar Messages

Convert anchor points to curve affecting adjacent points

I was excited about the "convert anchor point to curve" function in illustrator CS3
However, when i select a corner point and convert it to curve, it only extends the handlers of the selected points, but doesn't affect the exit handler and entry handler of the adjacent anchor points. As a result the curve is just a smooth round transition,not a curve.
For instance, in FH3, if I "convert to curve" to the anchor points of a square , i'd get a circle and viceversa:
If i convert to curve the anchor points of a square in illustrator i get a square with rounded edges.(see example below)
I'd prefer a behaviour similar to Aldus Freehand-It gave me an accurate fast control of curves while drawing-What does other user think?
Uploaded with
plasq's
Skitch!

I was excited about the "convert anchor point to curve" function in illustrator CS3
However, when i select a corner point and convert it to curve, it only extends the handlers of the selected points, but doesn't affect the exit handler and entry handler of the adjacent anchor points. As a result the curve is just a smooth round transition,not a curve.
For instance, in FH3, if I "convert to curve" to the anchor points of a square , i'd get a circle and viceversa:
If i convert to curve the anchor points of a square in illustrator i get a square with rounded edges.(see example below)
I'd prefer a behaviour similar to Aldus Freehand-It gave me an accurate fast control of curves while drawing-What does other user think?
Uploaded with
plasq's
Skitch!

Cs6 , how can i add a anchor point in the curve in the channel Red or Green?

Hi
how can i add an anchor point in the curve in the Channel R / G and B?
in cs5 , with ctrl + click i was able to click on the image and add an anchor point in the curve channel RGB
and with shift +ctrl + click i was able to click on the image and add an anchor poing in the channel Red , 1 in the channel Green and 1 in the channel blue
i know cs6 doesn't have any more ctrl+mouse click , there is the targeted adjustamanent tool
i can do it with ctrl+m and call the curve
but i can't do it with curve adjustament tool
is there a way to add a anchor point in each channel red , green and blue (like the prev photoshop)?
thanks

thanks that's correct! thanks
but it's not 100% correct
to add a multiple points in rgb shift+click doesn't work!
from adobe
Keyboard shortcuts: Curves
You can use these keyboard shortcuts for Curves:
To set a point on the curve for the selected color in each color component channel (but not in the composite channel), Shift+Ctrl-click (Windows) or Shift+Command-click (Mac OS) in the image.
To select multiple points, Shift-click points on the curve. Selected points are filled with black.
To deselect all points on the curve, click in the grid, or press Ctrl‑D (Windows) or Command-D (Mac OS).
To select the next higher point on the curve, press the plus key; to select the next lowest, press the minus key.
To move selected points on the curve, press the arrow keys.
(Curves dialog box) To set a point on the curve for the current channel, Ctrl-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS) in the image.
If you’re instead using the Curves adjustment, simply click in the image with the On-image adjustment tool .

Photoshop CS5 Curves & Anchor Points

In CS3, when using a Curves Adjustment layer, I could Shift Click on an image to place an anchor point on each of the red, green, and blue channels in RGB mode. This process changed in CS4 and CS5.
From experimenting in CS4 and CS5, I can only place an anchor point on a single channel. I want to place a simultaneous anchor point on each layer.
My question is, How do I place a simultaneous anchor point on each channel in a curves adjustment layer?

Using a curves layer, if I use Control Shift on an image, then anchor points are inserted on all channels. This applies to CS3 to CS5.

Cycle through anchor points

I want to have a "up" and "down" graphic that users can click to navigate through anchor points that I place on the page. The up arrow will move through anchor points from the bottom up and the down will do the opposite. Does such functionality exist?
Thanks in advance!

Hi
You can use "Anchors" to achieve this. For example, you can setup two anchors (one on top, second on bottom of page). Now you can link top these anchors using hyperlink menu, like this
Do let me know if you have any question.

How do I edit a single handled anchor point

I find myself with a corner that only has one handle (screen shot below), to which, I want to add a second handle. I could convert it to a smooth curve but this averages things out and moves my existing handle's position.
I want to add the second handle without affecting the path, to do this the new handle would be aligned to the vertical path. I would then be able to edit the second handle as desired, and the whole process would leave the existing curved path untouched.

froodster,
To keep the left segment unchanged, you may:
1) Cut the path by Clicking the Anchor Point with the Scissors Tool;
2) With the straight path (still) selected Click the Anchor Point with the Convert Anchor Point Tool, then ClickDrag it to drag out the new Handle;
3) Select both paths (you may ClickDrag across the Anchor Point with the Direct Selection Tool) and Ctrl/Cmd to Join, ticking Corner (or all will be in vain).

Adjust both handles on anchor point simultaneously locking their relationship

when using pen tool,
CTRL uses last used selection tool, (for me I set it to direct selection)
ALT uses convert anchor point tool,
another option that I`d like to see is when using ALT (convert anchor point tool) when adjusting dragging an anchor handle is to press ALT/CTRL to lock the angle of both handles, ( whether smooth or non smooth anchor handles) to adjust them simultaneously,
why would I want this?
see, sometimes you want to keep that angle just as you created it, but if you move one anchor you lose it and have to now adjust the other, or sometimes you want to nudge one side of the path coming from the anchor down or up a little, but maintain the handles relationship to the handle angle with the path on the other side of the anchor, this would be the quickest way to maintain all of that,

Bugs in Illustrator do occasionally result in both of an anchorPoint's handles being located on the same side of the anchorPoint and "locked" together in such a way that their lenghts can be individually adjusted, but their angles cannot be separated. You may have encountered one of those situations.
Bezier, by the way, is not a verb. It's a mathematician's name. And a straight Bezier curve is still a Bezier curve. It's control points still exist; they either correspond with the start and end points, or they at least occur on the straight segment.
JET

Move direction handles in synch with anchor point?

Hi all
I'm trying to nudge the anchor points on an object randomly (to get an informal look). (I know some Effects do this already.)
Maintaining corner points is no problem - you just set the direction handles to the same coordinates as their anchor.
But I can't nudge a smooth point in the way I want to, which is to move the anchor but maintain the direction handles in exactly the same relation to their anchor as they had before. That is to say, they should remain smooth points.
My script calculates the difference between 'before' and 'after' positions of the anchor, and applies that difference to the direction handles… but in practice the smooth points are converted to corners, because the direction handles don't maintain their relation with the anchor.
Would be grateful if someone can point out the flaw(s!) in my logic.
var docRef = activeDocument;
var objects = activeDocument.selection.length;
var cShift = prompt("Point shift (pt)",5);
// loop through all objects
for(var count=0;count<objects;count++)
currentObj = activeDocument.selection[count];
nudge(currentObj);
// function nudges each object
function nudge(obj)
var objPoints = obj.selectedPathPoints;
var objPointCount = objPoints.length;
for (var i = 0;i<objPointCount;i++){
var thisPoint = objPoints[i];
var va = thisPoint.anchor[0];
var vb = thisPoint.anchor[1];
var la = thisPoint.leftDirection[0];
var lb = thisPoint.leftDirection[1];
var ra = thisPoint.rightDirection[0];
var rb = thisPoint.rightDirection[1];
if(va==la && va==ra && vb==lb && vb==rb)
{ // if corner point, randomize anchor position
va = va +((Math.random()*cShift));
vb = vb +((Math.random()*cShift));
thisPoint.anchor = Array(va,vb);
// set direction handles at same position, maintaining a corner point
thisPoint.leftDirection = Array(va,vb);
thisPoint.rightDirection = Array(va,vb);
else
{ // not a corner point: keep handles in same relative position to their shifted anchor
var va2 = va +((Math.random()*cShift));
var vb2 = vb +((Math.random()*cShift));
thisPoint.anchor = Array(va2,vb2);
// this bit calculates the random shift applied to the anchor
var anchorShifta = va2 - va;
var anchorShiftb = vb2 - vb;
// these lines apply the same shift to the direction handles
thisPoint.leftDirection[0] = la + anchorShifta;
thisPoint.leftDirection[1] = lb + anchorShiftb;
thisPoint.rightDirection[0] = ra + anchorShifta;
thisPoint.rightDirection[1] = rb + anchorShiftb;

The else part modified:
else
{ // not a corner point: keep handles in same relative position to their shifted anchor
    var aShift = Math.random()*cShift;
    var bShift = Math.random()*cShift;
    thisPoint.anchor = [va + aShift, vb + bShift];
    thisPoint.leftDirection = [la + aShift, lb + bShift];
    thisPoint.rightDirection = [ra + aShift, rb + bShift];

Pathfinder Outline breaks up anchor points

OK first off I am relatively new to Illustrator, making the transition over from PS and finding everything extremely different and frustrating. Please bear with me but feel free to correct me if any of my terminology is wrong.
The problem I am having begins with trying to break up a complex series of overlapping shapes into very small, individual segments . Through searching, the only way I could find that does basically what I want, breaking up the complex shapes into the smallest possible segments is the Pathfinder: Outline tool.
The only problem with this is, which I didn't even realize at first until I zoomed in much closer, is that after using the Outline tool and then restroking my paths, is that this tool for some reason BREAKS UP AND SEPARATES a lot of the individual anchor points within the shape. What I mean is, where there was one anchor point previously, Outline breaks it into two points, which is perfect, but it then slightly SHIFTS the points away from each other. I'm not sure why it does this, but it leaves me with a bunch of broken/jagged lines where they should be smooth instead. I want the points broken into two, but why do they get shifted??
You can see the circled area in the attached photo for an example of what I mean. That straight line running on a downward slope is now jaggedly broken into two misaligned pieces because those two anchor points were now shifted. I want them to be broken into two but why can't they just have stayed on top of one another in order to keep all the straight lines intact??

Aside from generic precision issues (you know, math functions rounding values etc.) this could be some snapping or pixel grid issue, especially if your artwork is relatively small. Turning of snaps and that may help, but there wil lalways be some cases where this happens and you can't avoid it completely.
Mylenium

Flash Auto-Adds Anchor Points

Hey, Forum;
I'm trying to set up a basic shape tween of a sheet of paper
moving through the air. I start with a rectangular shape that has a
single curve point on each corner (curved so I can show the arcing
& bending of the sheet). After setting a new keyframe and
moving the sheet to the next position, I find that Flash has added
several acnchor points between the corners of the sheet, requiring
me to go in and delete them. What I'm asking is how to disable this
'Auto Add Anchor Points' feature.
Thanks for any and all help.
Cayce

wozza,
Are you sure you are selecting the path, not the guid?
It may be time to look at the list.
The following is a general list of things you may try when the issue is not in a specific file (you may have tried/done some of them already); 1) and 2) are the easy ones for temporary strangenesses, and 3) and 4) are specifically aimed at possibly corrupt preferences); 5) is a list in itself, and 6) is the last resort.
1) Close down Illy and open again;
2) Restart the computer (you may do that up to 3 times);
3) Close down Illy and press Ctrl+Alt+Shift/Cmd+Option+Shift during startup (easy but irreversible);
4) Move the folder (follow the link with that name) with Illy closed (more tedious but also more thorough and reversible);
5) Look through and try out the relevant among the Other options (follow the link with that name, Item 7) is a list of usual suspects among other applications that may disturb and confuse Illy, Item 15) applies to CC, CS6, and maybe CS5);
Even more seriously, you may:
6) Uninstall, run the Cleaner Tool (if you have CS3/CS4/CS5/CS6/CC), and reinstall.
http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cscleanertool.html

Change Stoke Weight PER Anchor Point

I was wondering if in a future release of Illustrator if it would be possible to be able to have the option to change the weight (or thickness) on an anchor point by anchor point basis. Picture a straight segment (line) made up of two anchor points (drawn with the pen tool).
I would like the ability to click on the first anchor point and change the weight (stroke / thickness) of that anchor point to 1 pt then click on the second anchor point and change it's stoke to 5 pts. I would like the line segment to be 1 pt thin at the beginning and for it to gradually get thicker until it reaches a 5 pt thickness at the second anchor point.
In addition to that I would like to be able to do this with all of the Illustrator drawing tools, for example: Using the square tool, to be able to start the whole square at 1 pt stoke thickness... but then be able to select one of it's corner anchor points and change that one point to 3 pt thickness and have the attached segments get progressively thinner going down to the other 1 pt anchor points.
I hope I've explained that well enough. If you need examples please let me know.
Cindy Colby
[email protected]

Cindy,
That request comes up here all the time. It really isn't workable. You'll soon find that you don't want the thickness settings to be locked to the positions of anchorpoints, because you're not going to want the
thicknesses to be locked to the
shape of the spine path.
So on-object variable thickness control would end up requiring yet another set of handles along the path, just for controlling thickness. I serously question the real-world value of this.
Look, you want to be able to vary the thickness of a stroke. You can already do that with an Art Brush. Example:
1. Rectangle Tool. Draw a square.
2. Rotate Tool. Rotate it 45 degrees.
3. Remove Anchorpoint Tool. Click the left anchorpoint to remove it.
4. Drag the resulting triangle to the Brushes Palette. Define an Artbrush.
Now draw a path of any shape. Apply the Brush. You now have a "stroke" that increases thickness along the path.
But you want it lighter or heavier weight overall. Adjust the stroke weight in the Stroke dialog.
You want it going in the opposite direction. Change the direction of the path, change the direction of the Brush, change the direction of the Brush as it is applied to just that path (doubleClick its listing in the Appearance Palette), or make a pair of Brushes from the beginning (as I often do).
But you said you want the start of the path to be 1 pt, not zero, and then to be 5 pt. at the end. Fine. Instead of a triangle, create your ArtBrush from a trapezoid instead of a triangle.
Now... apply that trapezoid Brush to an ess curve. Works fine. Starts at 1 pt.; increases weigth to 5 pt. at the other end. But now you decide you want it to start at 5 pt., shrink to 1 pt. at the middle of the ess, then increase to 5 pt. toward the end.
Now, you could easily build a Brush that does that, too, but consider this:
So you use one of the methods explained above to make a "reverse" of the trapezoid Brush. You cut the ess path at the middle, where you want the thin to occur, and reverse the direction of one half.
Now you encounter one of the key problems with all these half-baked suggestions for on-object stroke weight adjustment handles: The place where the "thin" changes directions has a kink in it. Do you want that kink? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. How will you control the "smoothness" of the change of direction of the stroke weight curve? Your tidy interface is going to have to get more complicated. It's going to have to include some kind of "direction handles" at each of the weight-change key points.
Now I ask you: What feature in AI already gives you that control? Answer: ArtBrushes.
Now consider the real-world practicality of all this. What do you want to use this for? Drawing calligraphy-like flourishes? You try that with any more than one or two intermediate thickness keys along a given curve, and you'll find the smoothness of the result is quite difficult to control. An ArtBrush thoughtfully-built from a simple geometric primitive is easier to control.
Or do you want to use it to give your cartoon line drawings more of a hand-drawn look that is more convincing than the almost always unsatisfying results of Calligraphic Brushes? Do you really want to adjust handles on each and every path you draw in a cartoon? Try some of my simple geometric ArtBrushes and see if you
really need more than two or three variants to get the look that you want.
The idea sounds great on the surface, but if you give careful thought to the actual implementation, you'll find it isn't as workable as you first think. And for the vast majority of
practical uses, simple ArtBrushes already facilitate it.
Some here have even mocked-up elaborate fake "interfaces" for a separate window in which to tediously describe a "profile" of a varying stroke that would then later be added to paths; all the while failing to realize that is essentially what ArtBrushes
already are--except you don't need a separate dialog to do it; you can do it right there on the artboard, and then update the ArtBrush.
I fully expect that if Adobe spent development time in pursuit of a separate dedicated interface and feature set for this, the end result would be as awkward to actually use as the on-path handles for pathType objects, and as tedious and time-wasteful as all the tweaks and twiddles in LiveTrace.
All that's really needed is a few thoughtful improvements to the already-existing Brushes feature set. How about an "isolation mode" (or edit window) for Brushes, instead of having to drag an existing Brush onto the artboard, edit it, and then drag it back to update it? Then do some work on improving the mitering of Brushes where they encounter corners and sharp bends in the spine path.
The usefulness of other Brushes (particularly Pattern Brushes) would benefit hugely from just a few similarly modest improvements, too.
JET

Anchor point manipulation

I just started of with flash, and while checking the drawing abilities I ran into a snag.
I draw out a certain image with as few anchor points as possible using curves, after it's done I keep running into lots of extra anchor points the program keeps adding between the ones I defined. This makes manipulating the image later a lot more difficult than necessary. Is there an option to set a limit for this or turn it off all together? There must be, but I can't seem to find it. Even if later on for animating it becomes necessary to add more points I'd still like to be able to decide how many, and where should those points be.
I tried searching for this but couldn't find any useful answers.
Another thing I'd like to ask though I probably know the answer already. Is there a way to use transformations on a selected set of anchor points while maintaining connection to the rest? It can be done in illustrator, but not here as far as I can tell.
Thanks in advance.

Try moving the 'top' anchor down a little bit. I have run into a few issues when the anchor was to close to the top of the canvas for example JS not smooth scrolling, it would just jump to the top or it would not do a thing like what you are experiencing.

How can I use existing anchor point as a new one?

Can anyone help?
I'm tracing over a drawing, and I'm trying to use an existing anchor point as an anchor point for another curve. So, from c, I want to click and drag on anchor point b to make a new curve. If I click where b is, then I just delete b. Can I make b my initial anchor point so that I can use it to complete my tooth? When I get to the next teeth Ill have to do the same thing. Has anyone any ideas?

> Each tooth should be a closed path.
Why?
> If I click where b is, then I just delete b.
Ugh, turn off Auto Add/Delete Anchor Point and watch your rage levels instantly decrease. You can then put your final point anywhere you want, including smack dab on top of B.

How to copy/paste anchor text box to its anchor point in text and delete all empty anchors?

hi all
i have a document of few pages but one story. The right column is the main text box and on many places anchored text boxes are placed which appeared on the left column as shown below.
i want text of each anchor-text-box to be cut from its place and paste at its insertion/anchor point and delete all empty anchored boxes.
I am trying since morning but i unable to reach anchor object reference. Any help on how to start with will be helpful.
virender

Ok, let's say you have one main text box (not anchored) and three text boxes that are anchored to text within it. The first one is anchored with text, the second one is unanchored, and the third one is empty (I'm not going to get into inline anchoring vs. custom anchoring since you didn't bring it up in your post).
We cycle through the items on the page:
function main(){
var myDoc = app.activeDocument;
var myPages = myDoc.pages.everyItem().getElements();
for (var i = 0; i < myPages.length; i++){
    var myPage = myPages[i];
    //Checks that the page is valid, and that it is not a master page. If either is true, skips to the next page.
    if (myPage.isValid == false) continue;
    if (myPage.parent instanceof MasterSpread) continue;
    var myItems = myPage.allPageItems;
    for (var j = 0; j < myItems.length; j++){
      //Current item.
      var myItem = myItems[j];
      //If myItem doesn't have a Character parent, it is not anchored.
      //The first and third text frames would fail this test.
      if (!(myItem.parent instanceof Character)) continue;
      //We only care about text frames.
      if (!(myItem instanceof TextFrame)) continue;
      //I think the only way this would happen would be if you had an image or
      //something else unexpected within the frame. I check for it so no content
      //is inadvertently lost.
      else if (myItem.texts.length > 1) continue;
      //If we're still in this iteration of the loop, all qualifications are met.
      //Flatten the text frame.
      //I don't use layers that often so, to me, flatten makes sense. You may want
      //to use a different term if there's a chance for confusion.
      flattenItem(myItem);
function flattenItem(funcItem)
     //Hold onto the anchor character.
    var myParent = funcItem.parent;
     //Duplicate the text from within the frame so that it appears right after the anchor.
     //There may be other methods, but this works for me. I try to avoid copy/paste
     //so as not to deal with any clipboard mishaps. I added a check in case of empties.
     if (funcItem.texts.length > 0){funcItem.texts[0].duplicate(LocationOptions.AFTER, myParent.insertionPoints[0]);}
     //Replace the anchor character itself with a space (or whatever) which also
     //deletes the text frame it was anchoring.
    myParent.contents = " ";
I guess the takeaway might be that you're not looking at the main text frame and then checking to see if anything is anchored to it. You're looking at each text frame and figuring out if it is anchored. That's my approach, anyway.

Gradient Mesh - distorted segments with no anchor points

I often run into very strange behaviour with the Gradient Mesh tool, where a line segment becomes heavily warped (kinked, looped or with a hard angle in it) that has no anchor points or control handles to account for the distorted line segment. I've only seen this happen with the Gradient Mesh tool. In my most recent occurrence of this issue I have what should be a gently curved segment between two flat control points, and instead there's this massive "kink" in it that has a hard angle and nearly a loop that has nothing at all to do with the anchor points. There are no anchor points in-between these two (I started with a rectangle and just started adding and manipiulating points).
Anyone else know what I'm talking about and have a workaround or solution? Or even an explanation of why this occurs might make me less frustrated.
t

Thanks for the response, Mike. I checked the surrounding points as a matter of first-line diagnosis, and nothing explains this distortion.
In the image above you can see a "hump" which is not accounted for by any of the handles. The position of both control handles on each side of the segment would indicate a concave segment. The anterior handle of the circled point surprisingly has no effect whatsoever on the segment it is attached to - it is unclear to me what segment it is then controlling.

Smooth a curve through an anchor point

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for