Wall Ends

Walls: Ends

Related Information

Walls

Geometry

Technical Palette

These parameters provide control of the shape of the ends of a Wall (or Ribbon) graphic. Fine control of each of the 4 corners is explicitly provided with these parameters.

Each Wall End is drawn as two independent segments, an outside and an inside portion. These ends are defined relative to a path drawn from the start to the end and back to the start of the wall path - in a clockwise fashion. When oriented from the start of a path - facing toward the end of the path, the Start Left is the first corner drawn which is defined as the Start-Outside corner.

This palette tab view is accessed from the Tools Main menu, Walls menu selection. Click the Ends tab to access these parameters.

There are 6 possible shapes for a wall corner: Relief, Open, Extend, Miter, Round, and Butt. An independent shape may be defined for each of the 4 corners of a wall graphic using the 4 popup menus found on this palette tab view. If a wall graphic is not joined to another wall graphic, these parameters will specify the shape of the ends.

An appropriate join or mating of two wall ends is accomplished with a pair of complimentary (different) end settings. For example, if two walls are joined at an acute angle - the two inside corners will be drawn with "Relief" setting. In this example the possible settings for the other half of the joined ends would be Extend, Miter, and Round. Open and Butt have no meaning for a joined wall.

When joined to another wall path, Relief and Extend form a dynamic shape defined by the intersections of corresponding wall outline paths. When not mated the corresponding portion of the wall is "relieved" or "extended" one half of the wall thickness. When two joined walls are re-positioned, these wall edge intersection points are re-computed to define a proper join for the wall ends. This applies when auto-join, which is found on the Geometry tab, is enabled.

The Current and Default buttons provide support for quickly defining or using an existing wall graphic as a definition for the drawing parameters for newly drawn wall graphics.

Specifying the exact form of each of these parameters is normally performed automatically when one wall mates with another. The settings may also be applied interactively on the drawing with the light blue resizing handles visible on Wall graphics when selected.

Walls have a defined distinct Start and End. This convention is used for identification and correlation of the parameters on this panel with respect to the wall graphic shape. When selected the start of the wall path is clued visually with a triangle shaped brown resize handle. The triangle handle is drawn at the defined Start of the path and points away from the Start.

If an Arrow is applied to the end of a wall graphic, these parameters are overridden and do not apply. All of these popup menus are disabled for the end(s) with the arrow shape. The use of an arrow on an end will prevent Auto-Join.