Technical question on creating shapes together

[Topic]

I am trying to recreate Fig 1 in the picture. Fig 3 shows you how I tried to recreate it. I basically drew a circle and added a cone on top of the circle than I united them through pathfinder. Now the problem is that I am not sure where exactly I need to drag down the anchor point in order to get a smooth line from the circle to the top of the triangle. Eyeballing it doesn't help because when I add a thicker stroke the jagged edge still show up. Any weird mathematical formula for doing this or an easier way to do this? I also attached an image of how one of the pros does it (LegarconBleu), you can see his construction of curved to straight lines in the logo development pictures are perfectly smooth agains each other, I guess this is something I need to figure out how to do in order to create my shape. Thanks in advance

LeGarconBleu
http://www.behance.net/gallery/St-thermohus-Corporate-brand-identity/263213

 

[carlow]

I wouldn't use the pathfinder for your project.

I would simply draw a circle, go to my white arrow, select the top anchor point and drag it to it's place.

Then I would jump tomy pen tool and holding down the alt-key click on the moved anchor point.

In Illustrator there are always several ways of doing things.

 

[Topic]

Didn't think of it that way. Thanks..But now what if it wasn't as simple as just dragging the anchor point to the top? How would I be able to get the line smooth off of the circle as LeGarconBleu does in his logo development pictures? Thanks

 

[apepp]

...zoom in...

...there would come a point in magnification you have to question who would tell if it was lightly off?

andrew

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http://www.apepp.info

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[Topic]

apepp yea you're absolutely right apepp at 6400 zoom no one could tell a difference but I just wanted to know if there was a way of perfectly snapping objects together which pose weird angles.

 

[Gruuuu]

You can snap to lines. In the art preview mode (ctrl/cmd&y) you will be able to see in minute detail the various items to snap to.

If you are looking for the perfect tangential spot for a triangle to join a circle, you will need a little math. Of course you can alway snap to the line but that doesn't mean there will be a smooth transition.

I was going to go into a long mathematical description of what you need to do, but then I just figured out the dimensions of a triangle that has 65° corners.

Make a 1 inch DIAMETER circle (diameter is the length from one side of a circle to the other, passing through the middle. So if you're using ellipse tool, use shift to constrain and make it 1 inch wide)

Then, make a triangle that has 1 inch left and right sides, and .88 inch base. However you want to accomplish that is up to you.

This will give you a smooth transition that is of a decent ratio.

 

[askIllustrator]

I don't see anywhere in that link where it appears LeGarconBleu has combined his existing shapes. It looks more like he used basic shapes for blocking out the area and drew new paths over the top of them.

At any rate, there's no "combine on a tangent" feature in Illustrator. There's always going to be a tad bid of clean up in the process but it can be done.

Here is just one approach. I created a circle, then drew a square. I rotated the square 90 degrees and deleted the lower point by clicking on it with the pen tool. This way I new I had a symmetrical triangle. I then used Pathfinder->Unite on just the triangle to re-orient the bounding box. I then aligned the circle and triangle by their vertical centers and then scaled the triangle until I got the shapes you see on the left. Notice I created my own tangents that way. I then selected both shapes and used Pathfinder->Divide. Then I ungrouped the results and deleted the excess shapes. Finally, I selected everything and used Pathfinder->Unite. After which I inspected the path for cleanliness and excess shapes

Follow me on twitter or just ask me anything. @ask_illustrator
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." -Einstein

 

[askIllustrator]

Sorry, inserted the wrong image and this forum surprisingly won't let you edit posts.

Follow me on twitter or just ask me anything. @ask_illustrator
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." -Einstein