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date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 06:01:02 -0700,
group: microsoft.public.visio.createshapes
back
Re: Create new shape using the border of a group
You want to use Union, but since the borders of the counties are
overlapping, you probably get weird results, instead of a nice outline of
the unioned counties. It seems that there are small discrepencies between
shared borders on geography shapes, or perhaps there are math round-off
errors that seem to confuse the Union operation for complex situations.
There are some tricks that might help:
- Draw rectangles that overlap as many of the inner lines as possible.
Include these rectangles when you do the Union operation. This will help you
to lose all those nagging "internal borders"
- Get the pencil tool and drag some of the vertices of the inner borders so
that they overlap. Do it fast and messy. Anything to make those county
borders less similar and more overlapping. You will get better results when
you Union.
This is still a lot of work, but you might get the results you need.
--
Hope this helps,
Chris Roth
Visio MVP
"adb" wrote in message
news:1E133714-644D-429F-953A-BC096AE042EB@microsoft.com...
> Is there anyway to create an entirely new shape from a group of many
> shapes.
> The new shape would be a single shape and would be the border of the group
> of
> shapes. For example, I have the counties of Texas aligned each as their
> own
> shape, then I group a big portion of the counties into a group, but I then
> want to make that group a single shape, preferably getting rid of all the
> county lines in the middle of the shape.
>
> The other problem is that I have tried to use Combine, Join, and Union,
> but
> they always result in shapes that are too complex and thus don't work. I
> have no way to redeuce the number of shapes in the group to make it less
> complex. I'm using Visio 2000
>
> Any ideas?
date: Mon, 1 Aug 2005 11:08:23 +0200
author: Chris Roth [ Visio MVP ]
Re: Create new shape using the border of a group
Thanks for the suggestions. I gave them a try but unfortunately they didn't
help at all. Most of the time the Union action just randomly stops in the
middle of the process without any error, unless I select like less than 8
different shapes, then it will usually succeed, but not always.
I know with the combine and join actions, they resulted in errors telling me
the resultant shape was too complex and couldn't be combined or joined. I
think I had the same message occur with Union too, but I'm not sure. I'm
curious because if I, painfully, do a union 2 shapes at a time until all
shapes are included, would it even matter since at some point there will be
too many shapes (new geometry sections) in the unioned shape that it will be
too complex and not be able to hold all the needed shapes?
I was looking at someway to try and manually code the process of just
keeping the outlines of a group from all the polylines and can easily get the
borders that are somewhat straight, but as soon as they get curves that wrap
around i run into problems... since I'm using SpatialSearch to see if the
point in the polyline is touching anything else when it curves it starts
touching itself in multiple places.
Looks like I'm stuck for now, thanks for the ideas though
"Chris Roth [ Visio MVP ]" wrote:
> You want to use Union, but since the borders of the counties are
> overlapping, you probably get weird results, instead of a nice outline of
> the unioned counties. It seems that there are small discrepencies between
> shared borders on geography shapes, or perhaps there are math round-off
> errors that seem to confuse the Union operation for complex situations.
>
> There are some tricks that might help:
>
> - Draw rectangles that overlap as many of the inner lines as possible.
> Include these rectangles when you do the Union operation. This will help you
> to lose all those nagging "internal borders"
> - Get the pencil tool and drag some of the vertices of the inner borders so
> that they overlap. Do it fast and messy. Anything to make those county
> borders less similar and more overlapping. You will get better results when
> you Union.
>
> This is still a lot of work, but you might get the results you need.
>
> --
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> Chris Roth
> Visio MVP
>
>
> "adb" wrote in message
> news:1E133714-644D-429F-953A-BC096AE042EB@microsoft.com...
> > Is there anyway to create an entirely new shape from a group of many
> > shapes.
> > The new shape would be a single shape and would be the border of the group
> > of
> > shapes. For example, I have the counties of Texas aligned each as their
> > own
> > shape, then I group a big portion of the counties into a group, but I then
> > want to make that group a single shape, preferably getting rid of all the
> > county lines in the middle of the shape.
> >
> > The other problem is that I have tried to use Combine, Join, and Union,
> > but
> > they always result in shapes that are too complex and thus don't work. I
> > have no way to redeuce the number of shapes in the group to make it less
> > complex. I'm using Visio 2000
> >
> > Any ideas?
>
>
>
date: Mon, 1 Aug 2005 10:48:05 -0700
author: adb
Re: Create new shape using the border of a group
For what it's worth, I have suffered through many hours of trying to trick
Union into working myself. Manually deleting redundant vertices, trying to
get shapes to overlap better, etc. So at least you're not alone.
Another procedure I often perform is unioning a few shapes at a time,
because you get rid of LOTS of interior points, so that Visio doesn't have
to suffer. I get the feeling you've already tried that though.
As for code, well the math is pretty tough. You might try the Trim function,
then try joining just the outer oulines that are left, but whatever is
messing up Union might mess up Trim as well (?)
Sometimes if you Fragment the shapes, it can somehow "set things right".
What I've noticed is that the shapes somehow get a double-border. Sort of
like the vertices go around clockwise, then come back around
counter-clockwise. I don't know how or when this happens, but this *does*
mess up Union to be sure. Sort of like matter-antimatter...
--
Hope this helps,
Chris Roth
Visio MVP
"adb" wrote in message
news:CDDA2BA9-4D33-4E44-89DA-C5D66D338AF2@microsoft.com...
> Thanks for the suggestions. I gave them a try but unfortunately they
> didn't
> help at all. Most of the time the Union action just randomly stops in the
> middle of the process without any error, unless I select like less than 8
> different shapes, then it will usually succeed, but not always.
>
> I know with the combine and join actions, they resulted in errors telling
> me
> the resultant shape was too complex and couldn't be combined or joined. I
> think I had the same message occur with Union too, but I'm not sure. I'm
> curious because if I, painfully, do a union 2 shapes at a time until all
> shapes are included, would it even matter since at some point there will
> be
> too many shapes (new geometry sections) in the unioned shape that it will
> be
> too complex and not be able to hold all the needed shapes?
>
> I was looking at someway to try and manually code the process of just
> keeping the outlines of a group from all the polylines and can easily get
> the
> borders that are somewhat straight, but as soon as they get curves that
> wrap
> around i run into problems... since I'm using SpatialSearch to see if the
> point in the polyline is touching anything else when it curves it starts
> touching itself in multiple places.
>
> Looks like I'm stuck for now, thanks for the ideas though
>
> "Chris Roth [ Visio MVP ]" wrote:
>
>> You want to use Union, but since the borders of the counties are
>> overlapping, you probably get weird results, instead of a nice outline of
>> the unioned counties. It seems that there are small discrepencies between
>> shared borders on geography shapes, or perhaps there are math round-off
>> errors that seem to confuse the Union operation for complex situations.
>>
>> There are some tricks that might help:
>>
>> - Draw rectangles that overlap as many of the inner lines as possible.
>> Include these rectangles when you do the Union operation. This will help
>> you
>> to lose all those nagging "internal borders"
>> - Get the pencil tool and drag some of the vertices of the inner borders
>> so
>> that they overlap. Do it fast and messy. Anything to make those county
>> borders less similar and more overlapping. You will get better results
>> when
>> you Union.
>>
>> This is still a lot of work, but you might get the results you need.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Hope this helps,
>>
>> Chris Roth
>> Visio MVP
>>
>>
>> "adb" wrote in message
>> news:1E133714-644D-429F-953A-BC096AE042EB@microsoft.com...
>> > Is there anyway to create an entirely new shape from a group of many
>> > shapes.
>> > The new shape would be a single shape and would be the border of the
>> > group
>> > of
>> > shapes. For example, I have the counties of Texas aligned each as
>> > their
>> > own
>> > shape, then I group a big portion of the counties into a group, but I
>> > then
>> > want to make that group a single shape, preferably getting rid of all
>> > the
>> > county lines in the middle of the shape.
>> >
>> > The other problem is that I have tried to use Combine, Join, and Union,
>> > but
>> > they always result in shapes that are too complex and thus don't work.
>> > I
>> > have no way to redeuce the number of shapes in the group to make it
>> > less
>> > complex. I'm using Visio 2000
>> >
>> > Any ideas?
>>
>>
>>
date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 14:59:18 +0200
author: Chris Roth [ Visio MVP ]
Re: Create new shape using the border of a group
Yeah I think I've tried most things by now (not the fragment though). Thanks
for the ideas though. Ultimately though, I think even if I could get them to
work properly, I'm going to end up with a shape that is "too complex" and so
it wouldn't matter anyway. Do you happen to know what makes a shape too
complex? Is it when it gets over 255 geometry sections or something like
that? Is it different in 2003 versus 2000 or xp?
"Chris Roth [ Visio MVP ]" wrote:
> For what it's worth, I have suffered through many hours of trying to trick
> Union into working myself. Manually deleting redundant vertices, trying to
> get shapes to overlap better, etc. So at least you're not alone.
>
> Another procedure I often perform is unioning a few shapes at a time,
> because you get rid of LOTS of interior points, so that Visio doesn't have
> to suffer. I get the feeling you've already tried that though.
>
> As for code, well the math is pretty tough. You might try the Trim function,
> then try joining just the outer oulines that are left, but whatever is
> messing up Union might mess up Trim as well (?)
>
> Sometimes if you Fragment the shapes, it can somehow "set things right".
> What I've noticed is that the shapes somehow get a double-border. Sort of
> like the vertices go around clockwise, then come back around
> counter-clockwise. I don't know how or when this happens, but this *does*
> mess up Union to be sure. Sort of like matter-antimatter...
>
> --
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> Chris Roth
> Visio MVP
>
>
> "adb" wrote in message
> news:CDDA2BA9-4D33-4E44-89DA-C5D66D338AF2@microsoft.com...
> > Thanks for the suggestions. I gave them a try but unfortunately they
> > didn't
> > help at all. Most of the time the Union action just randomly stops in the
> > middle of the process without any error, unless I select like less than 8
> > different shapes, then it will usually succeed, but not always.
> >
> > I know with the combine and join actions, they resulted in errors telling
> > me
> > the resultant shape was too complex and couldn't be combined or joined. I
> > think I had the same message occur with Union too, but I'm not sure. I'm
> > curious because if I, painfully, do a union 2 shapes at a time until all
> > shapes are included, would it even matter since at some point there will
> > be
> > too many shapes (new geometry sections) in the unioned shape that it will
> > be
> > too complex and not be able to hold all the needed shapes?
> >
> > I was looking at someway to try and manually code the process of just
> > keeping the outlines of a group from all the polylines and can easily get
> > the
> > borders that are somewhat straight, but as soon as they get curves that
> > wrap
> > around i run into problems... since I'm using SpatialSearch to see if the
> > point in the polyline is touching anything else when it curves it starts
> > touching itself in multiple places.
> >
> > Looks like I'm stuck for now, thanks for the ideas though
> >
> > "Chris Roth [ Visio MVP ]" wrote:
> >
> >> You want to use Union, but since the borders of the counties are
> >> overlapping, you probably get weird results, instead of a nice outline of
> >> the unioned counties. It seems that there are small discrepencies between
> >> shared borders on geography shapes, or perhaps there are math round-off
> >> errors that seem to confuse the Union operation for complex situations.
> >>
> >> There are some tricks that might help:
> >>
> >> - Draw rectangles that overlap as many of the inner lines as possible.
> >> Include these rectangles when you do the Union operation. This will help
> >> you
> >> to lose all those nagging "internal borders"
> >> - Get the pencil tool and drag some of the vertices of the inner borders
> >> so
> >> that they overlap. Do it fast and messy. Anything to make those county
> >> borders less similar and more overlapping. You will get better results
> >> when
> >> you Union.
> >>
> >> This is still a lot of work, but you might get the results you need.
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> Hope this helps,
> >>
> >> Chris Roth
> >> Visio MVP
> >>
> >>
> >> "adb" wrote in message
> >> news:1E133714-644D-429F-953A-BC096AE042EB@microsoft.com...
> >> > Is there anyway to create an entirely new shape from a group of many
> >> > shapes.
> >> > The new shape would be a single shape and would be the border of the
> >> > group
> >> > of
> >> > shapes. For example, I have the counties of Texas aligned each as
> >> > their
> >> > own
> >> > shape, then I group a big portion of the counties into a group, but I
> >> > then
> >> > want to make that group a single shape, preferably getting rid of all
> >> > the
> >> > county lines in the middle of the shape.
> >> >
> >> > The other problem is that I have tried to use Combine, Join, and Union,
> >> > but
> >> > they always result in shapes that are too complex and thus don't work.
> >> > I
> >> > have no way to redeuce the number of shapes in the group to make it
> >> > less
> >> > complex. I'm using Visio 2000
> >> >
> >> > Any ideas?
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>
>
date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 13:11:05 -0700
author: adb
Re: Create new shape using the border of a group
Visio shapes support about 240 geometry sections.
--
Mark Nelson
Microsoft Corporation
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
"adb" wrote in message
news:A020C188-FB0A-4438-A297-151D4954DDD6@microsoft.com...
> Yeah I think I've tried most things by now (not the fragment though).
> Thanks
> for the ideas though. Ultimately though, I think even if I could get them
> to
> work properly, I'm going to end up with a shape that is "too complex" and
> so
> it wouldn't matter anyway. Do you happen to know what makes a shape too
> complex? Is it when it gets over 255 geometry sections or something like
> that? Is it different in 2003 versus 2000 or xp?
>
> "Chris Roth [ Visio MVP ]" wrote:
>
>> For what it's worth, I have suffered through many hours of trying to
>> trick
>> Union into working myself. Manually deleting redundant vertices, trying
>> to
>> get shapes to overlap better, etc. So at least you're not alone.
>>
>> Another procedure I often perform is unioning a few shapes at a time,
>> because you get rid of LOTS of interior points, so that Visio doesn't
>> have
>> to suffer. I get the feeling you've already tried that though.
>>
>> As for code, well the math is pretty tough. You might try the Trim
>> function,
>> then try joining just the outer oulines that are left, but whatever is
>> messing up Union might mess up Trim as well (?)
>>
>> Sometimes if you Fragment the shapes, it can somehow "set things right".
>> What I've noticed is that the shapes somehow get a double-border. Sort of
>> like the vertices go around clockwise, then come back around
>> counter-clockwise. I don't know how or when this happens, but this *does*
>> mess up Union to be sure. Sort of like matter-antimatter...
>>
>> --
>>
>> Hope this helps,
>>
>> Chris Roth
>> Visio MVP
>>
>>
>> "adb" wrote in message
>> news:CDDA2BA9-4D33-4E44-89DA-C5D66D338AF2@microsoft.com...
>> > Thanks for the suggestions. I gave them a try but unfortunately they
>> > didn't
>> > help at all. Most of the time the Union action just randomly stops in
>> > the
>> > middle of the process without any error, unless I select like less than
>> > 8
>> > different shapes, then it will usually succeed, but not always.
>> >
>> > I know with the combine and join actions, they resulted in errors
>> > telling
>> > me
>> > the resultant shape was too complex and couldn't be combined or joined.
>> > I
>> > think I had the same message occur with Union too, but I'm not sure.
>> > I'm
>> > curious because if I, painfully, do a union 2 shapes at a time until
>> > all
>> > shapes are included, would it even matter since at some point there
>> > will
>> > be
>> > too many shapes (new geometry sections) in the unioned shape that it
>> > will
>> > be
>> > too complex and not be able to hold all the needed shapes?
>> >
>> > I was looking at someway to try and manually code the process of just
>> > keeping the outlines of a group from all the polylines and can easily
>> > get
>> > the
>> > borders that are somewhat straight, but as soon as they get curves that
>> > wrap
>> > around i run into problems... since I'm using SpatialSearch to see if
>> > the
>> > point in the polyline is touching anything else when it curves it
>> > starts
>> > touching itself in multiple places.
>> >
>> > Looks like I'm stuck for now, thanks for the ideas though
>> >
>> > "Chris Roth [ Visio MVP ]" wrote:
>> >
>> >> You want to use Union, but since the borders of the counties are
>> >> overlapping, you probably get weird results, instead of a nice outline
>> >> of
>> >> the unioned counties. It seems that there are small discrepencies
>> >> between
>> >> shared borders on geography shapes, or perhaps there are math
>> >> round-off
>> >> errors that seem to confuse the Union operation for complex
>> >> situations.
>> >>
>> >> There are some tricks that might help:
>> >>
>> >> - Draw rectangles that overlap as many of the inner lines as possible.
>> >> Include these rectangles when you do the Union operation. This will
>> >> help
>> >> you
>> >> to lose all those nagging "internal borders"
>> >> - Get the pencil tool and drag some of the vertices of the inner
>> >> borders
>> >> so
>> >> that they overlap. Do it fast and messy. Anything to make those county
>> >> borders less similar and more overlapping. You will get better results
>> >> when
>> >> you Union.
>> >>
>> >> This is still a lot of work, but you might get the results you need.
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >>
>> >> Hope this helps,
>> >>
>> >> Chris Roth
>> >> Visio MVP
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> "adb" wrote in message
>> >> news:1E133714-644D-429F-953A-BC096AE042EB@microsoft.com...
>> >> > Is there anyway to create an entirely new shape from a group of many
>> >> > shapes.
>> >> > The new shape would be a single shape and would be the border of the
>> >> > group
>> >> > of
>> >> > shapes. For example, I have the counties of Texas aligned each as
>> >> > their
>> >> > own
>> >> > shape, then I group a big portion of the counties into a group, but
>> >> > I
>> >> > then
>> >> > want to make that group a single shape, preferably getting rid of
>> >> > all
>> >> > the
>> >> > county lines in the middle of the shape.
>> >> >
>> >> > The other problem is that I have tried to use Combine, Join, and
>> >> > Union,
>> >> > but
>> >> > they always result in shapes that are too complex and thus don't
>> >> > work.
>> >> > I
>> >> > have no way to redeuce the number of shapes in the group to make it
>> >> > less
>> >> > complex. I'm using Visio 2000
>> >> >
>> >> > Any ideas?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>>
>>
date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 22:56:11 -0700
author: Mark Nelson [MS]
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