I’m editing a social network map which is in a circular layout. Some of the connecting lines curve between nodes within the circle (good), some curve outside the circle (bad).

I want the latter to curve inside, but the anchor points need to stay fixed where they are. Is it possible to reflect the curve of the path and leave the anchor points unmoved?

Not sure I undertsand.
You mean the line curves the wrong way?
click on the node or anchor points, whatever you call them, and you should see little handles pull them to get the line to curve the way you want.
My experience is just drawing bike transfers, so I may have it completely wrong;-)

Are all those individual lines seperate paths? If so… good luck with that. You may be here for a while 😯

Can you not just put a layer mask on it, to exclude everyhitng outside the circle?

John – if you want to email me with a bit more detail of what you’re trying to do, I’ll see if its doable. Email in profile

Depends on what software you’re using. In illustrator you could use the reflect tool but the problem is that you’ll need to do each line one at a time and like Binners said it’s gonna take a while.

Off the top of my head I can’t think of any way to automate the process because your point of origin for each curve is different. But I’d be interested to hear of a solution if anyone cracks it.

[edit]
If maintaining the exact curve isn’t critical then you could use the pathscribe tool which comes as part of the vector scribe plugin. You’d still need to treat each curve individually and you’d be matching the curve by eye but it would be half as many mouse clicks and a fair bit less fiddly than the reflect tool although less accurate.

delete them, no-one will ever know.

I’d just select the cicle you want it within and make it into a layer mask. Simples

integerspin – Member
Not sure I undertsand.
You mean the line curves the wrong way?

Yes.

click on the node or anchor points, whatever you call them, and you should see little handles pull them to get the line to curve the way you want.

I understand how to do it using the handles, but there are hundreds of lines. I was hoping there is some sort of ‘transform each’ kind of way of doing it.

binners – Member
Are all those individual lines seperate paths? If so… good luck with that. You may be here for a while

Can you not just put a layer mask on it, to exclude everyhitng outside the circle?

Yes individual lines. I’m tempted to mask it, but that would exclude the lines outside the circle (right?), and this is an academic project, i can’t just go excluding stuff…well, not now there is this evidence online!

muppetWrangler – Member
Depends on what software you’re using. In illustrator you could use the reflect tool but the problem is that you’ll need to do each line one at a time and like Binners said it’s gonna take a while.

Off the top of my head I can’t think of any way to automate the process because your point of origin for each curve is different. But I’d be interested to hear of a solution if anyone cracks it.

[edit]
If maintaining the exact curve isn’t critical then you could use the pathscribe tool which comes as part of the vector scribe plugin. You’d still need to treat each curve individually and you’d be matching the curve by eye but it would be half as many mouse clicks and a fair bit less fiddly than the reflect tool although less accurate.

Thanks, i’ll look that up.

Christ on a bike! Good luck with that, I’ve spent enough time with Illustrator over the years to start feeling a case of the horrors just looking at that! I’ve been out of the loop (ha!) long enough to not really know if there’s a quick way to do this, but I rather think not; just clicking on a single curve node incorrectly can cause the adjustment ‘handles’ to snap into a different alignment, messing it up.
Tricky, very tricky, I think.
Very best of luck, I really hope there’s some sort of quick work-around.

Layer mask or a very very long night. That’s a LOT of paths!

I know what I’d be doing 😉

make the circle bigger.

or layer mask.

who the hell did that originally?

I hope they were paid well?

It’s an output from another program. The whole thing has 21000 nodes and 55000 lines connecting them. One of the output options is curve lines or straight lines (which all fit inside it). I think i’m going to have to go for the latter!

😯

I think i’m going to have to go for the latter!

Can’t you draw a picture of a spider instead!

Does the image have any purpose other than to look pretty/impressive? I can’t imagine anyone being able to draw useful conclusions from it by inspection, with that many tiny lines… in which case I’d also go for cropping out the ones that will be a pain to fix, because no-one will ever notice 🙂

That’s a good point. But it depends how big i print it.

I suppose it’s not an option for you or someone else to edit the program/script that creates the drawing from the data so it does it how you want in the first place?

the obvious next question:

what size are you thinking of printing it?

To be honest with you, unless its going on a billboard, or the side of a building …. layer mask it