When concatenating a number of straight paths placed end-to-end, there’s often no need to keep the anchor points that once separated them. It’s also often worth simplifying the path just a little to reduce the number of anchor points. This is especially true if you plan to edit the path afterward. Now Concatenate for Adobe Illustrator CS6 and CC has been upgraded to version 16.1.5 with a setting for merging these straight segments. Even a very small value such as the default of 0.0001 (one 10,000th of a degree) will remove points when combining straight paths that were cut and rejoined. For the most hands-off handling of paths when concatenating, just enter 0 in the settings for curves and straights. This update is recommended for all users.
The popular free Select Menu plugin is now faster! I guess one could say it’s a speed bump in that its speed has been bumped up. Then again, its speed bump has been the result of removing (unless you want it) a speed bump, as in those bumps in the road intended to make you slow your vehicle down.
One recent improvement, or so I believed, was when the plugin checked for the existence of various types of objects in the current document and disabled unneeded menu items so as to save users from looking for something that’s not there. In a very large or complex document, however, that search can take a second or two, or longer, so the feature didn’t necessary save much time. With version 16.0.6, the default behavior is to enable all menu items whether needed or not. If you decide you’d rather have the menu parse the current object types, just press the Alt or Option key while selecting the Select > Object menu and the plugin will diligently search like Yoda examining the contents of Luke’s food case.
In addition to drawing at isometric angles, the plugin now includes a tool to move selected art along the isometric axes. Since it’s no longer just a line-drawing tool, it has a new, simpler name.
For those occasions when you need a different projection, just double-click the tool’s icon and enter preference settings for the angles of your X and Z axes. Since it’s not just isometric anymore, perhaps the name should reflect axonometric instead… but there are other axonometric tools in the works, and that could get really confusing later on.
If you use Hot Door’s awesome CADtools plugin, you can define your axonometric settings there and IsoTool will adjust accordingly.
IsoTool is still free. I hope you find the updated features useful!
When fine-tuning the position of a pattern, I’ve often wondered if it would be faster and easier to just zoom in, click on a point I want aligned with something else, and drag it to the new position. Nudge Panel now includes a tool to let you do just that. And d’ya know what? It really is faster and easier than clicking the nudge buttons on the panel (although you may want to make the final ever-so-small adjustments with the panel). Snapping the tool to a path or point for alignment makes precise adjustments even more quickly.
For the technically curious, the tool works by choosing a reference point in the pattern, then dragging as shown above to a destination point. It would be great to just see the pattern move with the cursor, but as with all Adobe Illustrator tools, changes while dragging are only updated in wireframe mode until the mouse or stylus is released. Only then is the affected art actually redrawn.
Download the free update for Nudge Panel 16 and try it out!
We’ve come to pretty much take for granted how quickly plugins work, regardless of the complexity of the calculations and manipulations they may do. Concatenate is designed to handle everyday small jobs, but also take on tasks that simply aren’t practical otherwise. Sometimes imported files can contain many layers and a gazillion paths. Seriously, I’ve worked with files containing over 200 layers and over 2,000,000 objects. Yes, two million paths! I kid you not.
Pre-CS6 versions of Concatenate had a progress bar and could be cancelled if things were moving too slowly, or if you’re just impatient like me. When the developers’ landscape changed with CS6 and CC, there were a few things that took a while to work around, and the progress/cancel feature is now back. The progress bar is nice, but the option to cancel an operation that’s taking longer than expected can be a lifesaver, like an emergency brake, escape pod, ejection seat, or special super-powers when life gets complicated.
Helpful tip no. 1: If you have a very complex file, it’ probably helpful to select one area at a time to concatenate.
Helpful tip no. 2: You can simplify the assimilate process by hiding or locking layers that aren’t relevant.
Concatenate 16.1.1 is recommended for all users, especially those who may forget to save before trying ludicrously reckless things. You can trust me on this…
This is the best version of Concatenate ever (IMHO), and I find it’s a real pleasure to use. This update is highly recommended for all users. “What’s new?” you might ask. First, the two checkbox options are gone. Averaging anchor points is now built in. Why would anyone want short connectors between them? If you do, by all means let me know and if there’s enough demand, I’ll be happy to bring that back. Next, the option to average the control points is gone. I’ve never used it, since the results have never really given results I was happy with. Instead, I added an option to smooth joins between two curved paths by aligning the control handles. Of course, we don’t always want all curves smoothed, so there’s a setting to specify a range within which smoothing will be done. With a setting of 0, only paths that are already perfectly aligned will remain perfectly aligned. I.e., nothing changes. You could enter a value up to 180 degrees, in which case every curved join will be smoothed. You can set this to any setting that gives you a satisfactory result.
A couple of under-the-hood changes that allow the plugin to run faster are less obvious. Most significant is a change that makes Concatenate smarter about which paths to consider for assimilation, which also solves a problem of occasional benign errors and their pesky dialogs, most noticeable when layers are hidden.
But wait, there’s more to come! Concatenate is often used with very large map or CAD files, and when it’s evaluating tens, or even hundreds of thousands of path segments, operations can take much more than the almost instant results we’re used to. For those situations, a progress bar will be added soon.
If you have observations about this update or ideas of any way Concatenate or Assimilate can be made better, please let me know. Remember, I’m an illustrator like you and, as Red Green used to say, “We’re all in this together.”