Trimming and extending lines in Vectornation by Zaweba
The Line trimmer in Vectornation by Zaweba trims a line between crossings or extends it to the next path, a CAD style edit for diagrams and plans.
Anyone who has used a CAD program knows trim and extend. You draw lines roughly, letting them cross or fall short, then trim off the overhangs and extend the short ones to meet their neighbours. Vectornation by Zaweba brings that way of working to vector illustration with the Line trimmer tool, added in version 0.9.20.
It is one of those tools that seems minor until you draw a diagram, a floor plan or a technical illustration, and then you wonder how you managed without it.
Trimming between crossings
The Line trimmer trims a line between crossings. Where lines cross each other, it can remove the piece of a line between two crossing points. Picture a grid of lines where you want an opening in one wall, or a set of crossing strokes where one stretch should disappear. Rather than adding points, cutting and deleting by hand, you trim the unwanted stretch.
Extending to the next path
The same tool extends a line to the next path. When a line stops short of the shape it should meet, extending it carries it on until it reaches that path. This is how you tidy a sketch where lines nearly meet but not quite, which is the usual state of anything drawn quickly.
The menu offers the same through Object, Path, Extend to the next path, which suits the moments when you have a line selected and would rather not switch tools.
Remove points and keep the shape
Alongside these, the same release added Remove points and keep the shape. It reduces the number of points on a path without changing its outline. After a lot of trimming and extending, a path can gather points it no longer needs, and this command clears them out while leaving the drawing as it looks.
Jobs it suits
Floor plans and room layouts are an obvious fit: draw walls as lines, trim to make doorways, extend lines to close corners. Wiring and flow diagrams benefit too, where connecting lines need to stop exactly at the boxes they join. Technical drawings of parts, patterns for sewing or craft, maps with roads that meet at junctions and line art where overlapping strokes need cleaning all suit the trim and extend approach.
It also works well for line art where you want a crisp, engineered look, such as icons built from strokes.
How it fits with the rest
The Line trimmer is about lines meeting lines. For cutting filled shapes apart, use the Free cut or the Path cutter. For merging shapes, use the shape builder. For guide lines that are tangent or perpendicular to curves, the Guide line tool helps you set up the construction before you draw. Smart guides and snapping help you start lines in the right places, which means less trimming later.
Working tips
Draw generously. With trim and extend available, it is faster to draw lines a little long and trim them than to place each end exactly. Work zoomed in at junctions so that you trim the stretch you meant. After a session of trimming, run Remove points and keep the shape on the paths you changed to keep the file tidy.
Check stroke ends after trimming. A trimmed line keeps its stroke style, so a cap or arrowhead may now appear at the new end. Adjust the stroke settings if that is not what you want.
For anyone coming from technical drawing, the Line trimmer makes Vectornation by Zaweba feel familiar, and for illustrators it is a quick way to clean up line work that grew organically.
