how distribute objects along part of a circle
- March 30, 2023
- 3 replies
- 2315 views
I'm trying to draw a scale for a rotary dial on a panel. The object is to distribute evenly along the path of *part of* a circle ten large scale markings (a 4mm straight path with a stroke) and 60 smaller ones (1.5mm long).
I have managed to discover (and get working) that the rotation tool lets you do this for a closed circle. It distributes the scale marks evenly at the intervals (in degrees) that I specify. So far so good.
The thing is that I want to distribute the scale marks along only a part of the circle. With the scissor tool I have cut a 50-degree portion out of the circle, creating an open path. The scale markings should be distributed evenly across this 310-degree remainder of the circle.
I tried with the blend tool after seeing some videos about that, but the scale mark segments are placed in an incorrect orientation on the path. They need to have their anchors on the path, pointing out in the opposite direction of the center of the circle. Like the rays of a sun drawn by a child...
Is there an automated way of doing this, or is manual and time consuming the only way to get this right?
For an idea of what I need I uploaded a screenshot of what I did with the Rotate tool with a 360/12 setting for distributing the large markings and a 360/60 setting for the small ones.
