Distribute object around a circle evenly

[Tim Aucoin]

make ellipse (table)
select ellipse
hit "S" key
hold "SHIFT-OPTION-COMMAND" drag and make outer ellipse.
make chair elipse and make sure it is within outer ellipse.
select the "outer circle" and the "chair ellipse"
hit "R" key "RETURN"
"ROTATE" window will pop up, type in "45" for your rotation value and hit the "COPY" button.
it will make another chair at 45 degrees.
hit "COMMAND-D" 6 times, remove the outer circle and viola, you are done.

less than 30 seconds

Rick... was this Illustrator? EDIT... DUMB QUESTION... sorry! I just noticed the "SHIFT-OPTION-COMMAND"... thus on a Mac, thus not CorelDraw! Thanks Rick... I'll try this after lunch!

 

[Marlene]

draw a circle
draw two small cirlces
place one above large and one below large
center all three to each other
group the two small circles
center the large to the small
copy small
paste and rotate 90, center to large
paste and rotate 45, center to large
paste and rotate -45, center to large

sounds like a lot, but did the whole thing in about a minute

 

[cgsigns_jamie]

Man I love Flexi

 

[Tim Aucoin]

Man I love Flexi

Not to change the subject... and I truly do appreciate all the feedback, but...
Do those of you who use Flexi think it would be worth the investment simply for doing custom decal layouts, or is it somewhat overkill and I should just stick to Illy?

 

[Tim Aucoin]

make ellipse (table)
select ellipse
hit "S" key
hold "SHIFT-OPTION-COMMAND" drag and make outer ellipse.
make chair elipse and make sure it is within outer ellipse.
select the "outer circle" and the "chair ellipse"
hit "R" key "RETURN"
"ROTATE" window will pop up, type in "45" for your rotation value and hit the "COPY" button.
it will make another chair at 45 degrees.
hit "COMMAND-D" 6 times, remove the outer circle and viola, you are done.

less than 30 seconds

Worked like a charm Rick... thanks. Ever find that you learn something new pretty much every day in Illustrator!

 

[cgsigns_jamie]

Not to change the subject... and I truly do appreciate all the feedback, but...
Do those of you who use Flexi think it would be worth the investment simply for doing custom decal layouts, or is it somewhat overkill and I should just stick to Illy?

I've been using Flexi for some time now so I'm a little biased but I would say it's worth the investment. Flexi was specifically designed for sign design and it does it very well. I have Illustrator CS4, Corel X4, and Flexi 8.6 and I use Flexi 90% of the time.

 

[peavey123]

Autocad....

circular array....

done...


that was easy

Oh AutoCAD!...If Illy and Autocad combined that would be the perfect graphics program imho.

 

[thewood]

Man I love Flexi

You beat me to it. I was going to show a screen cap of Flexi's "Step and Repeat" dialog. When I was first starting with Illy, I searched high and low for such a command. Really hard to believe there is no such feature in Illustrator.

 

[Border]

works for corn dogs too....

So...that's kinda like a corn hole.

 

[vid]

Illustrator Option 27A:

Create large circle for table (done).

Create two equal sized circles for chairs --- anywhere on the page and spaced apart.

Select both chair circles > Object > Blend > Make...
then > Object > Blend > Blend Options = Spacing: Specified Steps 7 --- I know, 7 is a goofy number to use, but in this instance, two of the circles will overlap once the layout is finished.
(Leave alone for later use.)

Now, create a larger circle with the centers aligned to the table circle.

With the larger circle selected, choose the scissors tool (C) and "cut" any existing node on the larger circle.

Keep selected and (shift) select the blend of the chair circles.
>Object > Blend > Replace Spline.

(If you want to: > Object > Blend > Expand --- then delete the overlapping chair circle where the node was cut on the larger circle.)

It might be a touch longer to do than Rick's method, but I'd bet I could change the place setting to 9 faster... LOL

I'm not good at mathermarmatictics, so this trick works well for me with odd numbers of items (especially when math starts to make my head hurt...) or, when there are more items than I want to copy-paste-rotate-copy-paste-rotate-copy-paste-rotate...