CorelDRAW X3—Star Gazing

Copyright © 2006 by Davis Multimedia, Int'l. All Rights Reserved.
As Printed in November 2006, Volume 32, No. 5 of The Engravers Journal
Figure 1: Create an overlapping circle and rectangle and select them. Figure 2: Create a boundary out of your selected shapes using EFFECTS|CREATE BOUNDARY. Figure 3: Here’s the shape (boundary) that was created after the original shapes were deleted.
     In our continuing review of CorelDRAW X3 we’ll look at a couple of new tools that have been added in the X3 version. In last month’s article I introduced you to the Crop Tool and the Bevel Tool. Both of these tools have been added to CorelDRAW X3. Both tools make certain tasks in CorelDRAW a lot easier.
     This month we’re going to look at the new Star and Complex Star Tools. Over the years creating a simple star usually meant importing clip art or using a symbol. Now you can select this tool and create a star symbol very quickly. Also, the Complex Star Tool allows you to create more complex looking stars and, with a little help from the Shape Tool, you can really change the shape of the star. So get out your computers and let’s get started.
Figure 4: The Contour command treats each element as a distinct object and you end up with two circles and two rectangles and a tiny little moon shape. Figure 5: Here the Boundary command was used on two objects and a second set of objects was created “on top of” the first set. Figure 6: A boundary was created around this scanned image and because it’s a raster image it’s configured as a square.
The Star Tool
     One of the artwork designs that we seem to use a lot in award layouts is a star. In CorelDRAW X3 you can easily create a star using the “Star Tool” in the flyout in the Toolbox bar. All you need to do is select the Star Tool and then click on the page and then use the tool to draw the star. So let’s go through how to create a star using CorelDRAW X3.
     Figure 1 shows the Star Tool that’s located in the Toolbox on the left side of your workspace. Typically the Star Tool is “hidden” so you need to activate the flyout to get to the Star Tool. Figure 1 shows the flyout activated. To do this, click on the small black triangle located at the bottom of the icon that’s seen on the Toolbox. Hold the mouse down and the flyout will open.
     Once the Star Tool is activated, your cursor will turn from a black triangle to a small star (Fig. 2). Now click and drag your mouse. By default the program creates a five-pointed star (Fig. 2). For many of your jobs this five-sided star will be adequate. But what if you need a star with more or fewer points? CorelDRAW allows you to quickly change the number of points in the star. Once the star is selected with the Pick Tool, the Property bar will give you two new commands for the Star Tool. One allows you to choose the number of points that you want in the star. Figure 3 shows you the Property bar. You’ll notice in Figure 3 that there are five points.
     Just for fun, let’s change the number of points to nine. You’ll notice that to change the number of points all you need to do is type in whatever number of points you want or simply click on the up or down arrow. Figure 4 shows the star with nine points.

Figure 7: When the file is bigger than the image, the Boundary command creates a vector boundary at the edge of the file.

 

Figure 8: Place this raster logo (left) and a vector logo (right) together, but not touching.

 

 Figure 9: To create a custom cut plastic name badge with your laser, you’ll want to cut out the logo along the boundaries of the rectangle and the raster image.
     The other command available allows you to manipulate the sharpness of your star. The sharpness command is located to the right of the “number of points” input box. Figure 5 shows the star with a sharpness of 70. The number of points is still five as it was in the default setup. However, if you compare the star with the one in Figure 3 you’ll notice that each point of the star has a smaller included angle and sharper (pointier) points. If you want to fill the star just left click on the color that you want from the color palette (Fig. 6). You’ll notice that I filled the star with the color red. To quickly change the outline color, simply right click on a color in the color palette. In Figure 6 I have right clicked on “Ice Blue.” The status bar at the bottom of the page indicates the color.
     Another problem that you’ll encounter with a star, or for that matter other vector shapes, is if you want to “fatten” the outline. Let’s say that you want to make the outline of your star four points thick. This is easy to do using the Outline Pen Dialog Tool located in the Outline Tool Toolbox. (Fig. 7). The Outline Pen command is in the red box.
     Once you’ve clicked on the Outline Pen command, a command window like the one in Figure 8 appears on the screen. To change the pen width of your outline all you need to do is click on the Width box and enter four. The line width will be in points as shown in the box next to the width box which indicates the unit of measure. You can change the measurement to inches by just clicking on the down arrow in the “points” input window.
     Figure 9 shows that the pen width is now wider. However, if you look a little closer you’ll notice that the points of the star are not really pointed (see red box). This is a problem that many users don’t like. This is especially true when you bring in a logo from your engraving machine which is in a line format and you want to laser engrave it. You can’t leave the logo in the thin line format or the laser machine will vector cut it. Therefore you need to make the line thicker (you also need to make it thicker so that you can get a wide enough line so you can see it when you engrave it). The problem is that when you thicken the outline the transition points from node to node will be truncated (Fig. 9).
 
Figure 10: The Boundary command was created around the raster image (circle) and the vector image (square).   Figure 11: Here you see the corner treatment options using the Fillet/Scallop/Chamfer options.   Figure 12: The red and blue boxes highlight the small squares that appear when the nodes are selected.
     If you laser engraved or sublimated this star your customer would probably return it. However, there’s an easy way to fix this. Reopen the Outline Pen dialog box (Fig. 8). Now enter 15 in the Miter Limit box. This value is measured in degrees. What is the Miter Limit? Here’s Corel’s definition, “A value that determines when two lines that meet at a sharp angle switch from a pointed (mitered) joint to a squared-off (beveled) joint.” Thus, if the angled degrees of the two corners falls below 15° then the corners will stay pointed. Corel goes on to note, “When an object contains lines that meet at a sharp angle, you can set the miter limit to determine their corner shape. Corners with angles above the miter limit are pointed (mitered); corners with angles below the miter limit are beveled (squared off).”
     For example, if the angle is 35° and you enter 35° or smaller, the line will stay pointed. If you enter a number that’s greater than 35° the corner will be mitered. Thus, in this example you can enter 15° degrees and as long as it’s below 35°, the corner will remain pointed (Fig. 10).
     Figure 11 shows you two of the corners of the star that are pointed as opposed to the others that are “chopped” off. It’s important to understand this command as many users will increase the line width but fail to realize that the quality of their drawing has been degraded.

    
Figure 13: The Shape tool is located in the toolbox on the left side of your workspace. Figure 14: With the Shape tool activated you get a red dotted line around the vector and the node will become a solid blue.

Figure 15: To activate the Fillet/Scallop/Chamfer docker go to WINDOW|DOCKERS|Fillet/Scallop/Chamfer.
The Complex Star Tool
     To make things a little more confusing, CorelDRAW also offers a second Star Tool. This tool is the Complex Star Tool and can be found in the same flyout as the Star Tool. Figure 12 shows the Complex Star Tool icon located in the flyout of the Toolbox.
     When you select the Complex Star Tool your cursor will change to a complex star (Fig. 13). Now hold down your left button mouse and drag to draw the shape. To keep the object constrained hold down the Ctrl key as you drag your mouse. Figure 13 shows the default image that comes out as you drag your mouse.
     As with the Star Tool, this feature gives you the ability to adjust the number of points or sides in this star or the sharpness using the Pick Tool in the options on the Property toolbar. Figure 14 shows the two commands that are available. The left hand input window will increase or decrease the number of sides or points on the original star. The input window on the right controls the sharpness of the star.
Figure 16: The corner now has a fillet. Figure 17: The bottom two nodes now have rounded corners. Figure 18: The engraving process begins in the upper left corner by the blue node.
     If you increase the number of points to 12 the star changes (Fig. 15). If you change the points back to nine and increase the sharpness to three, which is the highest number, you create a totally different shape (Fig. 16). As you can see, adjusting the number of points or the sharpness can drastically change the look of the image.
     If you decide to fill the stars, the fills are complex just like the stars themselves (Fig. 17).
     Another change that you can make to the Complex Star is to “shape” it using the Shape Tool. To do this you need to activate the Shape Tool by selecting it from the Toolbox. Figure 18 shows the Shape Tool and the flyout that it is part of.
     Now with the Shape Tool selected, click on the Complex Star. Figure 19 shows you the star after it has been selected with the Shape Tool. You’ll notice that there are a number of blue nodes. All of these nodes are related. If you move one of the nodes the other nodes will move in a corresponding way (this is because the star is a combined image).
Figure 19: Engraving machines automatically move in a clockwise direction. Figure 20: To reverse the engraving direction select the “Reverse Curve” command and the engraver will engrave counterclockwise. Figure 21: The Tab key moves the cursor in the direction of the engraving order.
     Figure 19 shows what happens when I move the selected node (the solid blue node) inwards. The points of the star become closer.
     Figure 20 shows a new design. This design was created by moving the nodes outward. I filled the star so you can see the finished design more clearly.
     Another modification that you can make is adding more points; I’m going to increase the number of points to 60 by changing the left input box in Figure 14.
     Figure 21 shows a star with 60 points and the angle setting at two. You’ve created a star that almost looks like a circle.
     Here’s another option, let’s activate the Shape Tool again and drag the nodes inwards. Figure 22 shows that imaged filled. As you can see you start to get a nice 2" “seal.”
     Okay, instead of dragging the nodes inward, drag them out and rotate the drag around from 90° to 200° degrees. Figure 23 shows the finished product. You now get a 2" seal that looks a little different than the previous example.

Figure 22: To change the Radius, enter .25" and click the “apply” button in the Fillet/Scallop/Chamfer docker.		   Figure 23: You can turn off this warning box by clicking on the check box in the lower left corner.
     Working with the Star Tool and Complex Star Tool allows you to quickly come up with some easy and unique designs. A lot of what you create is through trial and error. A nice feature CorelDRAW gives you is a real time look as you add or delete points or sharpness to the image. Filling the image is easy. Because the image is combined in the Complex Star Tool you get a white area as per Figure 23. Creating stars is easy in CorelDRAW X3. Try this command and the next time you need to come up with a star, or a variation of the star, you’ll find you can quickly create it.
     Well, there you have it; we’ve taken up a whole article just star gazing. It seems there’s a lot more to X3 than we may give it credit for. You can only learn all of this if you keep on practicing.

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