Connecting curves smoothly?

[melbendi]

I'm trying to make a design with geometric curves based on circles.  I have two circles, each with a quarter removed, and want to turn them into a smooth curve that flows gracefully between the two circular shapes.  So I made a new endpoint for each circle, but when I join them, all I get is a straight like and not a graceful curve transtion between the two endpoint.  I understand that's what's supposed to happen with Cmd/Ctrl-J, but could anyone please tell me if there's a tool for doing this, or any way to get a smooth transition between the two cicular shapes? If I manually tweak it, I loose my perfect circular shapes. Or I could break the angle of the joined points and tweak one side, but just checking to see if there's a better way. Thanks!

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

The Connect tool of the plugin Subscribe can do that. It's a paid third party plugin

https://youtu.be/BOyL_ABaxiU

[melbendi]

This looks like a great tool, but no perpetual pricing for a single plug-in. Otherwise I'd buy it. Thanks for letting me know, though.

[melbendi]

After watching the video, I think I'm hoping for too much. I guess the plug-in I'm dreaming of would be able to calculate the perfect location for the endpoint of each cicle curve that would allow it to be a continuation of the circular curve, or have options for finding it. Tweaking it might be the only way.

[Monika Gause]

They have other plugins that can do a lot for that. Optimizing curves, analyzing curves, continuing curves.

[melbendi]

Sounds good, Monika!  If more of my work was in Illustrator, I'd subscribe.

[Bobby Henderson]

The Astute Graphics plugin suite might seem expensive at first glance. But if you need to do a lot of serious Adobe Illustrator use in everyday work the cost of those plugins pays for itself in terms of saving lots of time and eliminating a whole lot of aggravation. I might be willing to pay $100 per year just for the Vector First Aid plugin. The collection of plugins Astute Graphics offers to Illustrator is pretty incredible.

Adding to Monika's suggestion of the Subscribe plugin, Astute Graphics has this other handy tool called the Curve Visualizer. Anyone wanting to truly fine tune the smoothness of curves on a path would find this one pretty handy. Here is a link to a tutorial video Astute Graphics posted just a day or two ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeh3OmKxKJY