Breaking down a path into seperate sections.

[sandy.s]

Hello,

does anyone know if there's a function that splits up a path into segments - from one anchor point to the next? I know that if I use the outline stroke function and use the pathfinder divide tool...but is there any way to do the same thing while keeping the linework as an unclosed path?

and...

on a similar subject, is it possible to add random or irregular extra anchor points to paths while keeping the path straight? If I use the >Object>Paths>Add Anchor Points, it seems to add them in very regularly. At the moment I am adding extra points in by eye, which is very timeconsuming.

Perhaps I need to use a 3rd party Plug-in?

Any hints from anyone would be really appreciated...

Thanks,

Sandy.

[kazbear]

Sandy,

I'm not sure about either of your requests, but I have to ask: Why? Just mostly curious, but if you describe what your goal is, there may be other ways of getting there, or the solution might present itself.

kaz

[sandy.s]

Hi Kazbear,

thanks so much for responding.
I am using multiples of parallel lines for putting in background textures into plain parts of my designs. In order to achieve a more hand-generated effect, I often need to add random points along all of the lines, then manipulate them.
I think I may have found a solution yesterday afternoon...adding in anchor points using Object > Path > Add Anchor Points, then going to Filter> Distort > Roughen, which seems to add in the random anchor points and not skew the horizontal lines too much.
The unsolved problem I run into is when I have a series of parallel paths (not outlined shapes) and the points at which I want to add anchor points is a path, or a series of paths. At the moment I just turn the paths that define the new anchor points into guides and add anchor points by eyeballing them in...but I was wondering if there's a more function that does this as sometimes it just takes forever to do this...
I've added PDFs of what I am talking about as when I write it down it looks like gobblydegook.

Best wishes,

Sandy.

[pateeg]

did you get your answer? I'd like to know how to split a path more simply as well. I just want to take a rectangle and do a command that will split it at the corners so I have 4 separate lines.

[MichaelSchade]

Honestly, I'm extremely basic with Illustrator and have no clue if this is right, and am too tired to start up Illustrator right now. However, would the scissor tool do the trick for splitting it up?

Again, sorry I haven't tried it out myself.

[mec_os]

i'm trying to do exactly that. CAD applications have this option to break polygons into segments and i've been exporting in and out of illustrator but that's a real pain, it's not unreasonable to be able to do within illustrator. hope someone has a solution

i use the concatenate plugin to join separate lines so maybe someone might make a plugin to do the exact opposite.

[sandy.s]

Hi Guys,

thanks for your responses, I guess I'm not the only one who needs this function but a quick glimpse at CS3 promotional material doesn't encourage me that it will be coming anytime soon.
Pateeg - I know that you can use the scissors or knife tool to do something similar but in my situation I often need to add anchor points or cut through banks of 100's of parallel paths in an irregular formation that takes the form of a path anyway. So it just seems odd that I can't find a function to automatically split paths (rather than shapes) in a vector based program, rather than eyeballing it hundreds of times.

xSandy.

[sjcaputo]

Sandy- Use the pen tool to draw intersecting lines where you need them, select both and use the Pathfinder's divide function. To add anchor points use the pen tool with the plus sign (manual add anchor tool).
The scissors work great for dividing up paths as well. Should do it for ya.

Toodles

[sandy.s]

Hiya,

just to illustrate what I'm blathering on about, I've tried to attach a crude example of what I am trying to do. The "Divide" tool in the Pathfinder function is brilliant for dividing shapes, but I get an error message if I try to divide unfilled paths (eg "The filter produced no results - please select one or more filled paths").

Thanks so much for responding though!

xSandy.