Editing Edges Of Shapes

seasdes · 17 Apr 2015, 05:06

I am seeking help with the editing of edges of shapes. Sometimes when I add a node I get an edge that does not have a Stroke as shown in the attachment.

Is there a way to toggle the display of some edges of a shape so that they do or do not display.

Regards

20150417_145407.pdf

pbacot · 17 Apr 2015, 06:51

That looks like fill on an unclosed polygon. There's no edge there unless you draw it in. You can completely hide those visible edges if that is what you are asking but you can't "toggle on" an edge that is not there. Perhaps "edge" is the wrong word as that is used in SketchUp. Drawing in LayOut you are drawing lines or sides of a polygon.

seasdes · 17 Apr 2015, 07:09

@pbacot said:

That looks like fill on an unclosed polygon. There's no edge there unless you draw it in. You can completely hide those visible edges if that is what you are asking but you can't "toggle on" an edge that is not there. Perhaps "edge" is the wrong word as that is used in SketchUp. Drawing in LayOut you are drawing lines or sides of a polygon.

Thanks so much for your reply. How do you close a polygon ( by moving a node?)

Dave R · 17 Apr 2015, 09:24

Peter is correct. You're missing an edge. You can close the shape by drawing a line to connect the endpoints if you want to keep the shape of the fill.Or you can double click on the shape to get into edit mode and drag one end node over to the other.

seasdes · 17 Apr 2015, 11:46

Thanks for that Dave. Now, what would be good is being able to hide selectd edges of polygons as opposed to it happening unintentionally.

Dave R · 17 Apr 2015, 12:00

Actually it can be done. I do it from time to time when I want to create a mask but want to show some edges. Use the knife blade tool to cut the edge(s) at the nodes. Then you can select that one edges and change its settings in Shape Styles.

seasdes · 17 Apr 2015, 12:08

@dave r said:

Actually it can be done. I do it from time to time when I want to create a mask but want to show some edges. Use the knife blade tool to cut the edge(s) at the nodes. Then you can select that one edges and change its settings in Shape Styles.

Thanks Dave . That will be a time saver.

pbacot · 17 Apr 2015, 16:21

That's good Dave. I have been creating a duplicate of a mask for a ground surface (masking unwanted view of underground or background objects in an elevation). One object is solid white without lines showing and the other is just lines that define the ground surface.

I am not sure if cutting the shape won't remove fill where I want it, but I'll look at that.I think two cuts will work in many cases.

Dave R · 17 Apr 2015, 16:29

I've used that to create break lines that I keep in a scrapbook. The center area of the break line has a white fill but to get the fill, I joined the two zig-zag lines (technical term) with straight lines.

Richard · 23 Apr 2015, 01:11

Be mindful using Dave's slicing workaround, filled polygons will fail to fill! Option:

Select shape
Copy (ctrl+C)
Slice existing polygon
Delete unwanted edges
Paste (ctrl+v) the copied polygon
Toggle off stroke
Push to back
Select fill and lines
Make group.

Sounds like a lot but it's a 5 second job. Just make sure for this type of stuff you have populated your toolbars with all these function buttons so you dont have to dig.

Dave R · 23 Apr 2015, 01:14

Richard, I've never had any problem with shapes failing to fill.

But your method works, too. To each his own.

Richard · 23 Apr 2015, 01:38

@dave r said:

Richard, I've never had any problem with shapes failing to fill.

But your method works, too. To each his own.

David, if your shape is rectangular and only one side to be remove there is no issue. However if you draw a rectangle and assume you wanted opposing edges to be deleted (so slice on all corners) the fill will fail.