Entering a line offset by an angle from another line

[BostonKevin]

Hi!

Could someone tell me how to create a line that is offset by 1 degree from
another line with which it shares an endpoint? I would like to create 360
such lines, all of which share one end point which would be the center of a
circle.

There has to be a way to specify an offset angle like this but could not
find any indication in the online help. I need this to create a few special
text effects.

Thanks!
Kevin

 

[WapperDude]

I wrote a macro a while back that will place all of the lines for you. Just
draw your 1st line, probably ought to be vertical, and run the macro. It
will tell you what to do. You can down load it from Visio Guy's forum:
"Circle up the wagons, the arc is here!",
http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=566.0. Make sure you scroll to the
end to grap the latest version.

Otherwise, to do it manually, go to menu bar > View > Size and posiiton
window. Draw your lines. Select the one you want to rotate, and enter the
degrees of rotation in the Angle box of the S&P window.

HTH
Wapperdude

 

[WapperDude]

Oh, forgot to add: to make the ends touch at the center, specify the radius
as 1/2 the length of the line. Or, you can say radius = 0, and just do 180
elements.

 

[Pedro]

Oh, forgot to add: to make the ends touch at the center, specify the
radius
as 1/2 the length of the line. Or, you can say radius = 0, and just do
180
elements.

Just a query about dimensions in Chris Roth's (excellent!) PolarArray macro:

It asks for radius in inches, and calculates and produces the array
accordingly, centred in US Letter 8.5" x 11" paper size.

I have Visio 2007 set up for metric units (mm) and paper (A4), but the macro
still works in inches. (If I group the array, the Size & Position box shows
it to be the correct mm equivalent). However I can't see anything in the
macro to make it Imperial inches rather than metric millimetres.

I would have thought the macro would "pick up" the drawing page units, and
in my case work in metric millimetres.

What am I missing???

Thanks

Pedro

 

[WapperDude]

It's been awhile since I've gone thru Chris' Polar Array, but, as it was the
basis of the ArcArray macro I wrote, my recollection is that his macro, as
well as mine, have the units hard coded. I orginally wrote the ArcArray for
personal needs, and then added interface and error checking to make it more
robust for general consumption. Both macros are offered as is and without
charge.

But no, you're not missing anything.

Wapperdude

 

[Pedro]

It's been awhile since I've gone thru Chris' Polar Array, but, as it was
the
basis of the ArcArray macro I wrote, my recollection is that his macro, as
well as mine, have the units hard coded. I orginally wrote the ArcArray
for
personal needs, and then added interface and error checking to make it
more
robust for general consumption. Both macros are offered as is and without
charge.

But no, you're not missing anything.

Wapperdude

Ok, thanks. I suppose by "hard coded" you mean in the VB setup?

No matter. I can just convert the "real" millimetre radius required to
those funny archaic inch thingies ...... we love Americans because they're
so ..... quaint and old-fashioned.

<grin>

The macros are great. Thanks to Chris and your good self.

Pedro

 

[BostonKevin]

Thanks for the responses, Pedro and Wapperdude!

I will test this macro ASAP and let you know the result!

Since you seem to know of so many things, I wonder if you might know of a
macro that would create text at certain intervals on each of those lines -
rays - drawn from the center of the circle. I am trying to create the
illusion of 24 curved text blocks around a circle. In Visio, you can
associate text with a line, as you know, but putting the text between two
specific points on the line is not easy. By putting text, for example, in a
line segment from 5 to 7 inches on a 20 inch ray drawn from the center, and
then repeating this on the next ten rays drawn from the same center, you can
create the illusion of a curved text block i.e. of a text block that is
aligned on a curve.

I can do all this manually, of course, but if someone has a macro or some
workarounds that would be great.

Thanks agains guys!

 

[WapperDude]

Acutally, Chris, aka, Visio Guy, has a circular text generator. You might
want to go to this post, http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=296.0,
which contains links to his text generator macros. He includes very nice
write ups.

Wapperdude

 

[BostonKevin]

Oh, forgot to add: to make the ends touch at the center, specify the radius
as 1/2 the length of the line. Or, you can say radius = 0, and just do 180
elements.

 

[BostonKevin]

WapperDude and Pedro,

I tried the ArcArray macro and you can use it to draw rays from the center
of a circle to exterior of it, at increments of 1 degree (or whatever angle).
Thanks!

I hate to pick nits, but is there a value I can set so that only the rays
appear and not the other lines that radiate from the line that bisects the
arc? And I am not sure exactly what values to enter. When I specify a
beginning angle of 270 and an ending a angle of 90, for example, after
choosing arc, the macro draws the rays in a 30 degree arc from 255 degrees to
285 degrees. This occurred after I had specified a radius of 10 and after
selecting a line 22 inches long that had been drawn through the center of the
circle.

Thanks again for your help!

 

[WapperDude]

Hey BK--

Which version did you down load? The latest is ArcArrayMk2.txt, which has
the rainbow color option. A bit of background on the macro. The original
purpose was to place a shape, e.g., a chairs, in a semi-circular arc, evenly
spaced, with a specified radius. A seating arrangement. This arc can be a
full circle to something nearly flat (very large radius, but very small
angular range). There are some built-in "assistants" to help with this. So,
lets say I want a very round arc, consisting of 1/2" squares, perhaps 7. I
might say radius of 2, start angle 0 deg, end angle 180 deg. Or, let's say a
really flat arc: 7 shapes, 80" radius, start=85 deg, stop= 95deg. Typically,
the start angle is < end angle. This is especially true for arcs > than 180
degrees. Otherwise, the increments are negative. A radius of zero isn't
allowed, but you can use a really small number. The radius of the arc is
from the center of the "circle" to the PinX & PinY of the shape.

So, for a vertical line, 2" long, a radius of 1" will cause all of the
"inner" points to coincide at the center of a circle. However, with a radius
of 1e-6, all of the line centers will overlap at the center of a circle,
producing a circle 1/2 as large. For a start angle of 270deg and a stop
angle of 90deg, and 7 elements, will produce lines spaced at -30deg. At
least that's true of the new version. But, if the radius was 4", results in
a semi-circle, consisting of 7 line segments, spaced 30deg, spanning from
90deg (12 o'clock) to 270deg (6 o'clock). But, all the macro does is place
whatever shape you select, into either an arc or full circle array. BTW, do
NOT choose color for a single line, that options makes lines invisible.

HTH
Wapperdude