how can i stop getting too many nodes when contouring?

[Nigel Fraser]

It’s a problem with all versions of Corel as far as I know Paul. It is also a pain in the butt as there is no patch or real cure.
There are two ways of helping the situation though….
1) Give your original shape an outline using the pen tool of double the thickness you want the contour. Then use “Arange”, “Convert outline to object” – then you will need to “break apart” the object created and manually delete the “insides” of the shape that you don’t want. This method can work OK most of the time but beware it can also have some slightly odd results and you need to keep an eye on it !!

2) Create the contour as normal, then break the contour group apart. Select all the nodes on the contour “convert to curve” and “smooth” type nodes (you need to do this because you will find the nodes are normally joined by tiny straight lines). Then use the “auto reduce” slider on the node edit tool bar set to 2 or max 3. This works fine if you dont mind the contour altering in shape slightly which it tends to do as the nodes are reduced.

Hope that helps you a bit !!

Nigel

[Rodney Gold]

Click the node edit tool , then click on “select all nodes” (a box with lots of little dots and 2 arrows next to a greyed out box with a slider), you will see the slider box next to the select all nodes button become active (turns white from the greyed out one) and type in any no between 20 and 50
You will reduce all nodes a lot but might change the shape of the curve , you can either modify the number to keep the shape more like the original or just change it with the node edit tool.
Its best to copy the original curve and paste it in the same place (select it , Crtl C and then Ctrl V) and then do a node reduction to see how it differs from the original.

[Nigel Fraser]

Interesting that you say numbers from 20-50 Rodney, I just tried that because I have only ever used 2/3 settings. Certainly on my version 10 a setting of 2 seems to give the most faithfull shape to the original although there seems to be very little difference between 4,5,6….and 40,50,60 etc !! Looks like a little better “resolution” on the slider scale would be a good idea Corel 😕
I also did check that you can do the above reduction without converting the “straight line” type nodes to “smooth curves” as it seems to do this for you for some strange reason…. so I consider myself corrected on that one 😉

Nigel

[Paul Rollason]

Thanks guys

I will go off and play with your suggestions and let you know
how I get on.

Thanks again 😆

[Chris Wool]

nice tip on the object outline
thanks nigel

[Alan Drury]

Have you tried cutting it anyway, if the contour was put on the shape actual size, the contour may cut ok. I think some cutters have some sort of smoothing built in.
Alan

[Paul Rollason]

I have tried cutting it anyway and this works ok if the design is made
up of mainly straight lines.
However if there are a lot of curves my old pnc5000 makes a bit of a
meal of it.

Paul

[Paul Rollason]

Thanks to Nigel and Rodney for some fantastic solutions to this
annoying problem.

It’s amazing that you can use a piece of software every day
and still not know what half of it does.

I went to an evening class once on CorelDraw and the teacher told us it
was impossible to fit text to the inside bottom of a circular path.

Well I proved him wrong, I never bothered going back

Thanks again for all your help guys and now I’m off to play with
my new found knowlege.

[Chris Wool]

I have found that it is the quality of the font or shape a lot of TTf fonts are to say the best dodgy and when you try to outline them get even more dodgey i have sometimes found the named font by another foundry and that has outlined considerbly better with less nodes to boot.
some times break the word apart and tidy the nodes this can make a hell of a difference.

chris

[Paul Rollason]

Hi guys

I have just tried your suggestion this morning in anger so to speak
on a logo I hade to vectorise and I did it in about a third of the time. 😀
and I no longer look like this 😮 from staring at the screen so long.

Membership to UKSB will pay for itself in no time at this rate.

Thanks Nigel and Rodney

[Robert Lambie]

good to hear you got your problems sorted mate. 😀

i noticed your picture is showing a red cross.. send me your picture to uksigngroup@hotmail.com and ill load it for you mate.