dot circle how?

[Warless]

Call me what you want but i cant figure out how to make a dotted circle. Using the "Dash" panel creates oblong circles, i need a perfectly circular ring of perfectly circular circles. Anyone know how?

thank
Warless

[Scott Weichert]

Welcome Warless,

Set a 0pt dash then a gap. And set the ends of the stroke to be rounded....

http://www.weichertcreative.com/stored/dottedCircle.jpg

[TORCH511]

Lots of ways, including using a dotted path:

For a dotted path, turn on rounded endcaps, the length of the dash is 0, the length of the gap is whatever you want it to be. If you want the dots to be evenly spaced, then you need to find the circumfrence of the circle, and then divide by the number of dots you want.

So if your circle is 4 inches across, and you want 20 dots... then you need a gap of .628 (3.14 x (2x2)/20).

However, you can also do this:

-Create your dot, make it a symbol, apply symbol to circular path (though you have to do the math thing if you want it evenly spaced.
-Create a dot, rotate it around the circular paths center point (360/dots for precise spacing)
-Create your dot, create a polar grid, use grid as refernce to hand place dots

[nutella]

Call me what you want...
Ok, but then don't complain!

Nahh... just kiddin :)

[soisix]

You could try the effect shown in this video tutorial to get a nice effect.
http://www.layersmagazine.com/blending.html

[osiris37]

Yup, there's quite a few ways, personally I'd choose the Rotate Tool as Torch511 mentioned in his second additional as you can get it precise.

This is how I'd do it.
• Create a Circle of a required size, Make it into a guide (Apple +5)
• Mark centre with a vertical and horizontal guide.
• Create Your Dot from the point where the horizontal guide intersects the Circle guide.
• With Dot selected press 'r' to select rotate tool and click on the centre of the circle guide (intersected by horizontal and Vertical guide) Whilst pressing Alt down (this should give you a crocs with a minus Sign next to it) this creates a new rotate point and brings up the rotate dialogue box, now all you need to do is calculate the degree of rotation 360/number of instances i.e 90 degrees will allow you to place dots at 12, 9, 6, and 3 o'clock) whereas 3.75 degrees allows 96 instances.
• Once the first is created you just need to Apple + D to create the rest.
• I you realised that you want to alter the size of the individual dots afterwards, just marquee all the dots and Apple+Option+Shift+D to transform each (from menu: Object/Transform/Transform each) in the dialogue match your vertical and horizontal percentage, click preview to see changes and Ok.

An alternative if you aren't too fussy on how the ends match up is to run a load of bullet points along a circular text path.


Edit: Just checked that Tut soisix, Very Cool! I'll be using that, Nice find!

[osiris37]

Yup, there's quite a few ways, personally I'd choose the Rotate Tool as Torch511 mentioned in his second additional as you can get it precise.

This is how I'd do it.
• Create a Circle of a required size, Make it into a guide (Apple +5)
• Mark centre with a vertical and horizontal guide.
• Create Your Dot from the point where the horizontal guide intersects the Circle guide.
• With Dot selected press 'r' to select rotate tool and click on the centre of the circle guide (intersected by horizontal and Vertical guide) Whilst pressing Alt down (this should give you a crocs with a minus Sign next to it) this creates a new rotate point and brings up the rotate dialogue box, now all you need to do is calculate the degree of rotation 360/number of instances i.e 90 degrees will allow you to place dots at 12, 9, 6, and 3 o'clock) whereas 3.75 degrees allows 96 instances.
• Once the first is created you just need to Apple + D to create the rest.
• I you realised that you want to alter the size of the individual dots afterwards, just marquee all the dots and Apple+Option+Shift+D to transform each (from menu: Object/Transform/Transform each) in the dialogue match your vertical and horizontal percentage, click preview to see changes and Ok.

An alternative if you aren't too fussy on how the ends match up is to run a load of bullet points along a circular text path.