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Previous: A House  Up: Step-by-Step Examples  Next: Cheese and Lettuce on Toast  


Lettuce on Toast

This example illustrates how to edit paths. The aim is to create the picture illustrated in Figure 11.11.

  1. Let's start with the toast first. To begin with create a rectangle with a brown fill colour. (If you are using the CMYK model, you can get brown from 0% Cyan, 81% Magenta, 100% Yellow and 60% Black. If you are using the RGB model, you can get brown from 40% Red, 8% Green and 0% Blue.) Create the rectangle shown in Figure 11.6.

    lettuce1
    Figure 11.6: Lettuce on Toast Example--Brown Rectangle

  2. Bread quite often has a curved top, so let's edit the rectangle so that the top is slightly curved. To do this, select the rectangle, and then either click on the edit path button or select the Edit->Path->Edit Path menu item. This will display the path in edit mode (Figure 11.7(a).) Select the top segment, this will then be highlighted in red (Figure 11.7(b)).

    lettuce2a
    (a)
    lettuce2b
    (b)
    Figure 11.7: Lettuce on Toast Example--editing the rectangle: (a) edit mode; (b) select top segment.

  3. Use the edit path popup menu to convert the line segment to a curve (Figure 11.8).

    lettuce3a
    (a)
    lettuce3b
    (b)
    Figure 11.8: Lettuce on Toast Example--converting the top segment to a curve: (a) edit path popup menu; (b) segment converted to a curve.

  4. The segment now has two extra control points, these need to be moved to change the curvature (Figure 11.9(a)). Deselect the edit path tool (Edit->Path->Edit Path or Ctrl-I) to exit the edit path mode (Figure 11.9(b)). Note that if you have the grid lock enabled, you may find it easier to temporarily disable it while you are editing the curvature control points.

    lettuce4a
    (a)
    lettuce4b
    (b)
    Figure 11.9: Lettuce on Toast Example--finish editing the curve: (a) changing the curvature by moving the control points; (b) exit edit path mode.

  5. To make the lettuce, select the closed curve tool, and set the fill colour to green. Make a rough outline of the lettuce leaf, clicking on each vertex, and double-click to close the path. Then, if necessary, edit the path to modify the control points (Figure 11.10).

    lettuce5
    Figure 11.10: Lettuce on Toast Example--Adding a Closed Curve Path
    Set the fill colour to transparent, and using the open curve tool, add in some paths to give the lettuce leaf some creases and edit as appropriate (Figure 11.11).

    lettucefinal
    Figure 11.11: Lettuce on Toast Example--Completed Image

To save the picture, select the File->Save As menu item, and enter the filename.

To include the image in a LaTeX document, select the File->Export menu item, and save it as a LaTeX file (click on the File of Type drop-down list and select pgf environment (*.tex, *.ltx), and name the file e.g. lettuce.tex. To include it in your LaTeX document, remember to use the pgf package:

\usepackage{pgf}

and to include the image use \input, e.g.:

\begin{figure}
\centering
\input{lettuce}
\caption{Lettuce on Toast}
\end{figure}



Previous: A House  Up: Step-by-Step Examples  Next: Cheese and Lettuce on Toast  

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