Plumbing illustration

[bohunkljh]

I am illustrating a flow diagram for a fuel system. I need to know how to illustrate a curved 90 degree pipe fitting with the gradient included so it matches the straight pipe that I have already illustrated I am including a sample of my straight pipe. Any suggestions 836:confused:

[Lukas Engqvist]

there are other ways and you will get different results depending on how oblong your rectangle is. There are ofc many other ways, thied doing as a brush, but AI had to work really hard :p rotated 45° after
837

[joeparis]

See this thread:
http://www.illustratortechniques.com/forum/showthread.php?p=8350#post8350

in particular, Scott Weichert's reply with the link to his video.

Edit: Apologies, I thought I was in IllustratorTechniques.com. Anyway, the link is to there.

[alcbevtesting@alltel.net]

Effect> Distort and Transform> Transform and Blends came to mind
See Figure.

Best one seems to be 3. Take two small rounded rectangles and apply gradient. Then blend together. Draw out a curve - I used the arc tool here and then selecting the blend and the arc go to Object>Blend>Replace spine.

I tried the Distort and Transform with a short cylinder but could not get the vertical and horizontal displacement to "render" a smooth curved pipe - came close but no cigar!

However, these approaches might get you close to your intention with a bit of practice. Unfortunately you cannot make gradient filled brushes (although you could create gradient tubes in InDesign?) in Illustrator. But see Joe-Paris' links to Scott's gradient tube tutorial.

Gary.

OK: Played a bit more. The Blend method does work well. Then create a symbol. You can then join segments together (relecting the bits creates some non-aligned gradient light effects but I think this could be the way to go to create your plumbing pipes and tubes). Flatten the rounded rectangles a bit more than I show here before creating the blend. Unfortunately, once you replace the spine you lose the original object/blend so you may have to make several blends using the same sized initial objects but I do think complex pipework could be made this way.

[bohunkljh]

Thanks for the tips guys.