CreateCloseFigure

There are two ways to create a shape that can be filled with colors or patterns. The first is the easiest, and recommended way. The second is used when you have created lines that you decide later on that you want to close.

Polylines/Polycurves

These are lines or curves that have multiple segments. Both have plain and fractal variants giving you four types to choose from. For the lines, each time you click the mouse on the work area, you create a "node" that will form part of the line on the map. So to create a rectangle, for example, you would click once to start the first corner node, then three more times at each corner. The last step -- maybe the most important, but certainly the most obscure, is to click the right mouse button. You will be presented with a context menu with three choices (ignore the last for now):

1. Create Open Figure

2. Create Close Figure

3. Suppress this...

If you select the second option, AutoRealm will finish the shape for you and fill it with the current background color.

Polycurves work exactly the same way, only you will have two extra clicks for each node to adjust the curves.

I should also note that if you select "create open figure" from the context menu, your lines will be left as is. If you should decide to create a closed figure later on, select the shape and go to the Transform menu and select "Close Selected Figures."

Closing Lines and Curves

There are some times that it makes sense to go back and "glue" together lines that were created individually. That is when you use the tool that was created for this purpose: the Glue tool. On the default layout it is on the left side tool bars, second column, fifth from the bottom (just above the blue dots), its icon looks like a square bottle of white glue with an orange cap (see figure below).

It is a part of the node editing group of tools. The other two are the Eraser and the Scalpel. The Glue tool is used to join to line nodes together to create a polyline. It is not the easiest tool to use, but it does get the job done.

After you select the tool, your mouse pointer turns into a "bottle of glue" to represent the current mode. Hover the pointer over a line and you will see the end points (nodes) highlighted as black squares. If you move the pointer over one of those squares the inside of the icon will change to black, indicating that you can select it (see figure below). Click and hold your left mouse button and the pointer icon will change again into a tipped glue bottle. Continue to hold the button down and drag the pointer over to another line end point (node). Once again the pointer will change color, indicating that you have selected a node. If you release the button now you will glue the two end points together, creating a new polyline.

Note: fractal lines change during the gluing process since the line you first select takes on the random seed of the line it is being "glued" to.

Now you've done all that, you still haven't gotten a closed shape. You must keep gluing lines together until you have a single polyline. It cannot be glued to itself so now you must make sure it is selected and then go to the Transform menu and select the option, "Close Selected Figures," and finally you will have a filled shape (see figure below).

So the steps are:

1. Select Glue tool

2. Glue end points of one line to the next

3. Continue connecting end points (nodes) until you have a single polyline

4. Select the polyline and close by going to the menu: Transform | Close Selected Figures