Drawing rough shapes that tidy themselves in Vectornation
Sketch a rough line, box, ellipse or polygon and the Shape sketcher in Vectornation by Zaweba cleans it up, merges shapes on a scribble or deletes one.
Drawing a rectangle is easy with a rectangle tool. But switching between the rectangle, ellipse and polygon tools over and over breaks your flow, especially when you are sketching out a layout or an idea. The Shape sketcher in Vectornation by Zaweba lets you draw roughly with one tool and have the result cleaned up into the shape you meant.
It feels a little like drawing on paper, with the computer tidying up after you.
What it recognises
Draw a rough stroke and the tool works out what you were aiming at. It recognises a line, a rectangle (including one turned at an angle), an ellipse or a circle, a triangle, a quadrilateral and a regular polygon. A wobbly loop becomes a clean circle. A rough box becomes a crisp rectangle. A shaky three cornered shape becomes a proper triangle.
Rectangles, polygons and equilateral triangles become live shapes. That means they keep their shape settings, so you can still change things like corner rounding or the number of sides later, rather than having a fixed outline.
Merging and deleting with a scribble
The Shape sketcher also edits. Scribble across overlapping shapes and they merge into one. Scribble inside a single shape and it is deleted. These gestures are quick once you are used to them: draw a few shapes that overlap, scribble across them, and you have one combined outline.
That makes it good for building up simple forms. A cloud from a few circles, a house from a rectangle and a triangle, a speech bubble from an ellipse and a small triangle. Sketch the parts, scribble them together, and move on.
Where it fits
The Shape sketcher is at its best early in a job, when you are blocking out a layout, a diagram, an icon or a logo idea. You can work quickly without choosing tools and without worrying about exact sizes. Once the idea is in place, you can switch to the Pointer and the Transform panel to set exact dimensions and positions.
It is also friendly for anyone drawing with a pen tablet, because the motion is so close to sketching.
For shapes outside its list, such as hearts, clouds or cogs, Vectornation has a set of 17 extra shapes, and for complex outlines the pen, Flow curve and pencil tools are the right choice. The Shape sketcher is about speed with simple geometry.
Getting the shape you want
Draw with some confidence. A stroke that is too hesitant or too small may be read as a different shape from the one you meant. Close loops properly when you mean a closed shape. For a rectangle, make the corners reasonably clear; for an ellipse, keep the line rounded all the way.
If the tool picks the wrong shape, undo and draw again rather than trying to edit the result. It is usually quicker.
Watch the scribble gestures
Because scribbling inside a shape deletes it, take care when you are drawing near existing shapes. A rough line that wanders inside another shape could be read as a delete. Undo is there if it happens. Likewise, a scribble across shapes merges everything it crosses, so check that it has not caught a shape you wanted to keep separate.
A quick routine
Sketch the rough composition with the Shape sketcher. Merge the parts that belong together. Then select each piece, set its exact size and position in the Transform panel, round its corners if needed and apply colour. In a few minutes you go from an idea to clean geometry in Vectornation by Zaweba, without ever reaching for a ruler.
