Vacuum Gauge Blend?

[bohunkljh]

I am trying to illustrate a vacuum gauge. It is basically like any other analog gauge. My question is. Is there a way to make a blend for the increments on the dial? I want to put a certain amount of line segments attached to an arc or circle. Any ideas?

[eugenetyson]

Draw a circle.

Create a horizontal ruler across the center of the circle.

Draw a line from the center of the circle to the edge of the circle.

Rotate the line 45 degrees and copy it, using the top (where the top is at the center of the cirlce).

Then duplicate what you've done.

You can delete the horizontal line that you began with, you can clearly see the 7 points that is for the gauge.

7 is easy to calculate for.

Including the bottom line, you have 8 points, so 360/8 = 45 degrees.

If you wanted to add further points, then you would rotate again but divide the 45 degrees by the number of points you want.

If you wanted 14 points on the gauge, you would do 360/15 (you end up with 15 points but remove the last one.

Again divide the segments as you see fit.

The it's just a matter of shortening each line and colouring them etc.

Once you do this you will understand the dynamics of it, then you can do it for real yourself.

[bohunkljh]

Hey it worked once I got all the division worked out and what to put in front of what. Thanks a million you really helped me make a deadline.832

[eugenetyson]

There you go, good job.

[Lukas Engqvist]

I would have made the pattern on a straigt piece, draggeded it into an art brush and applied it on an arc…*but illustrator allows many roads to Rome.

[eugenetyson]

I thought it was important to understand the principal of basic drawing.

But I too am amazed at the amount of ways to do things in illustrator.