We’ll finish this gear in Chapter 15 when we apply the extrusion to it. While we acknowledge that this required a little tango with the Blend tool, using Trim was many times easier than creating the shape manually.

Melting Objects Together

The third member of the Shaping Triumvirate, Weld, produces the most radical results. It finds the areas where objects overlap and eliminates everything in that space. It has the power to reduce multiple objects to lifeless blobs that have nodes and paths only along the periphery, not in the interior. With Weld, like Intersect, it often doesn’t matter which object you select as the source and the target. The target object’s only role, once again, is to determine the outline and fill color of the resulting shape.

Figure 11.5 shows the reign of terror that Weld imposes on unsuspecting objects, as the star and oval have become permanently and mercilessly fused. Weld hunted down and eliminated every node and path that was in the interior, leaving only the outline around the periphery.

Weld’s default is to not leave any original objects.

If Trim is the most useful of the three, Weld is not far behind. By eliminating their interiors, Weld simplifies objects, and that can be invaluable in numerous situations. Here are just a few.

FIGURE 11.5  Weld is to electronic art as the blow torch is to a construction site.

Creating Silhouettes

If all you want is the form of an image but not the detail, Weld is your ticket. In Figure 11.6 you see how an image of famous pitcher Dennis Eckersley can be converted into a generic silhouette of an anonymous pitcher.

If you want to see an equally dramatic example of Weld in action, Figure 11.7 shows the original picture (left) of the bunny rabbit that we used as our cookie cutter (right) earlier in the chapter. It took us but a moment to separate the egg from the bunny and then nuke the poor bunny into welded oblivion.

This starts to sound a bit morbid, and we confess that the cool thing about Weld is how destructive you can be and how quickly you can destroy things. All you have to do is ungroup the objects, select them, and issue the Weld command. Like a tornado ravaging the countryside, everything is simply gone. There’s just nothing left to all of the detail that, moments ago, defined the image. It’s just gone.

FIGURE 11.6  Weld maintains an object’s form while eliminating the detail.

FIGURE 11.7  Another example of the destructive force of Weld

Outlining Script Text

Turning to less violent pursuits, if you have occasion to create an outline around a string of fancy text, you might be frustrated to discover that many script typefaces don’t truly connect their characters—understandable, given that they must be able to appear integrated with any other character in that face. This goes unnoticed with black text, but becomes terribly annoying with text that has an outline color different from its fill.

Figure 11.8 illustrates this dilemma. Looking at the line of BrushScript text at the top, you would never suspect any problem. However, the middle image shows what happens when you fill the interior a different color than the outline—the magnified part exposes overlapping subpaths. The bottom image has been welded. (You can weld a compound image, such as text, to itself by selecting it initially and then choosing it again for the target object.) Notice how the overlaps are now clean.

FIGURE 11.8  Many script faces need to be welded before they can be properly outlined.

The sacrifice is that the text is no longer text, so as with all other radical changes to text strings, edit it for content first.

Preparing for Sign Making

Printing your work on a laser printer is one thing; printing on a large sign-making device is quite another. If you print one object on top of another to your laser printer, you don’t really care that both objects print, because one completely covers the other. On the other hand, when a vinyl cutter begins rendering an image, it will cut every location where it encounters a line. It can’t go back and hide or uncut. So in the case of the script typeface, the cutter would render it quite poorly unless you modified the text first.

Weld has proven to be a great gift to DRAW users who send their work to vinyl cutters. Previously they had to manually remove all unwanted lines in the interior of an object. Now Weld does that automatically.

The Advanced Options

The Shaping docker is a friendly way to use Intersect, Trim, and Weld. It’s also a bit tedious, having to click numerous times in different places. DRAW added the friendlier controls a few years ago (they were in a roll-up then), and advanced users got upset. “DRAW is becoming so friendly it’s driving me nuts!” shouted one patron of our annual CorelWORLD User Conference during a wish-list session. “I want controls that let me get in and out quickly.”

The answer is on the property bar that appears whenever more than one object is selected. On the right side, just left of Align, you’ll see three icons, one for each member of the Triumvirate. These are one-stop shops, applying the respective effect to the selected objects according to the following rules:

•  The objects selected first are the source(s) and the one selected last becomes the target.

•  Intersect creates the intersecting object and leaves all other objects on the page.

•  Trim slices up the target and leaves all other objects on the page.

•  Weld melts all objects together, without leaving any original objects.

Advanced users will likely prefer these quick-attack icons. All you have to remember is the order in which you select objects, and then one click does the job. If these default settings leave unwanted objects on the page, just select them and delete them.

Step by Step: Turning Many Shapes into One

This is one of our favorite exercises for learning about shaping overlapping objects—the creation of a simple key. You’ll see how very simple shapes can team up to create a plausible graphic.

1.  Let’s start with two simple rectangles. Create them as shown below. Select them both and press C to ensure that the top rectangle is centered above the lower one.

2.  Select the top rectangle and switch to the Shape tool.

3.  Choose any node and move it. You will see instantly how the Shape tool behaves when applied to a rectangle: all four corners become rounded.

4.  Repeat step 3 for the longer, thinner rectangle.

Watch how easy it is to weld with the property bar.

5.  Select both rectangles.

6.  Click the Weld icon on the property bar (the left-most of the three).

The jagged part of the key is a perfect opportunity to use Trim. The first step is to create the trimming tool. Here goes:

1.  Switch to the Bézier tool and create a shape similar to the one shown below. It is important that your jagged shape be a closed object, so make sure that your very last click is right on top of your first click.

This shape becomes your trimming tool.

2.  Move the trimming tool into position over the key.

3.  Select the trimming tool first and the rest of the key second.

4.  Click Trim (the middle icon of the group of three on the property bar).

5.  Select the trimming tool and delete it to see the result.

You’re done.

Three different objects teamed up to create this key: two rectangles and the trimming tool. But now, after Weld and Trim got involved, the key is just one object. Weld fused the two rectangles, and Trim created the jagged edge.