Bezier handles

jregw

Sometimes I need to trace lettering which necessitates using bezier curves. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I find the SU beziers to be clumsy and inaccurate. There doesn't seem to be the handles that one finds in graphics programs. I wish there was something of the sort for use doing the precise control that is needed for typographical work.

mitcorb

Without knowing your particulars and some of this may be elementary to you, let me describe my experience with the Bezier curve in Fredo6's BezierSpline tool set, which also includes Polyline,F-spline, Courbette, Catmull-Clark,and I probably left some out. Anyway, this Bezier requires that you select the start and the end, then you go back near the start to set your control points along the path being mindful that the tool tip will tell you when you are on face. You can then re enter edit mode to adjust those control points for better alignment. Fredo6's tool comes with a user guide and includes right click capabilities to convert from and to 3 flavors of polyline or other curve type. You may just need to insert enough control points for fine detail. However, you probably should scale the item you are tracing up sufficiently to get the compliance you need and when finished, scale back down to the desired size
Check it out in the Plugins Index. Click the red link up there just under the banner ad, see the list by Author. This will take you to the thread where you can download the tool.

I like Inkscape's tool a good bit, though I need more practice. I am not sure about getting that into Sketchup if that's what you are trying to do. I am guessing it would turn into a polyline when it gets in. Certainly, you can move polyline vertices for fine adjustment, simply by invoking the Move tool and clicking on a vertex. Maybe some of this helped?

jregw

Your pointers were very helpful and, because of them I've increased my facility with the bezier curves. Now I'm confident I can get the results I want - thank you.

Inkscape was the model I had in mind when I did the first post, but I didn't consider the fact that it is a vector drawing program and SU isn't and I suppose that makes for a difference in procedure.