How to divide a circle intio three equal segments

[_daniel_laks_]

I would very much appreciate any advice on the best way to divide a circle into three equal segments, such as the one that can be seen here: http://www.visualfractions.com/EnterCircle.html. I need to divide the circle with Object > Path > Divide objects below.

Thanks!

[_daniel_laks_]

Thank you for your detailed answer, James.

My completely blind guess is that if I save every icon mae in Illustrator as an EPS, then open it with PhotoShop and save it with 700 dpi or more, then convert it into high quality .png with transparency I will be able to get an image that preserves the vector look as much as possible.

My guess is that PhotoShop will do a much better job of converting the image into a higher quality .png.

But I cannot figure out the step by step process.

Right now I have around 12 icons in one .ai page. What would you do, step by step, if you followed my theory? I'm tring to find a rational workflow, different from the 12 or 13 steps (some of them useless, I think) I'm now going through. That is, how to convert each individual image to EPS, how to bring them into PS, do I have to save them as .psd or eps in PS after that?, how would you convert them to high quality png after that, what are the Save us parameters I should use in each program (i.e., interlaced/non interlaced, etc,), etc.

Thanks a lot!

Daniel

[JayJhabrix]

From AI you can just select, copy and paste in a new Photoshop document. Here you have two choices...

1/ Create a document beforehand and paste. And the transform to size you want. Crop extraneous materiel and save a PNG with transparency or non-transparency.

2/ Click new and the options will give you size and res and background colour. Paste and save for web or as...

All... very simple and nowhere near 12, 13 steps... probably about 3 or 4 if you plan from before.

Other option is to save each file from AI as an ai or eps file and just open in PS. You're asked for colour mode and size. See all is ok.. Save as...

JJ

[_daniel_laks_]

Hi Jay,

I now have an .ai document with 12 icons in it. So I'll tell you what I'm doing and please correct me wherever I'm wrong (probably all over):

1. I select one of the 12 icons, Ctrl+C.

2. Open a new document in PhotoShop, use 1000 ppi (instead of 300 or less). Ctrl+V.

3. Then I just Save as PNG.

Everything fine, except that when saving to PNG I have no control over the size, quality, etc. And the result, seen in Word, looks pixelated.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks!

Daniel

[_daniel_laks_]

Hi Jay,

I took a closer look to the icons in Word and I was wrong: they don't look that bad. In any case, if you think I should correct any part of the aforementioned process, please let me know.

What I don't understand is where does the EPS come into play. And there is some point in which I am asked if I want to use interlace or not. How does this affect the final image?

Thanks again,

Daniel

[_Silkrooster_]

To my knowledge Word can import eps files, however on the screen you can only see a thumbnail of the eps file if there is one present. When you print to a postscript printer, Word will pass the eps file on to the printer where it will print at the maximum resolution of the printer.

[JayJhabrix]

Daniel...

1/ Why are you using 1000ppi?
2/ Is the document for network distribution? If it's not going to be printed at high quality all you need 96 ppi. (Windows is 96ppi on an average and Macs are 72ppi.)

What would be best is to save as a .png in close to the actual size you need. Eg... image is to be 4" across on the page. Size the icon fullframe in Photoshop to 4" across @ 96ppi. Save as PNG with transparency (if required. Import into Word. Voila.

There's no need for that eps file. Only time you'd need it is, if you're using an image editor (like PS) that doesn't recognise AI or files from your version of AI.

Silkrooster: Yes, Word can import eps.

Cheers,

JJ

[Gernot_Hoffmann]

Is it true that Illustrator doesn't have an object
'circle segment from angle1 to angle2' ?

In PostScript it's fairly simple (save text as *.EPS):

--------------------------------

%!PS-Adobe-3.1 EPSF-3.0
%%BoundingBox: 0 0 560 560

/mm {2.834646 mul} def
1 mm setlinewidth

100 mm 100 mm translate
/R 90 mm def

1 0 0 setrgbcolor
0 0 moveto
0 0 R 0 120 arc
0 0 lineto
fill

0 1 0 setrgbcolor
0 0 moveto
0 0 R 120 240 arc
0 0 lineto
fill

0 0 1 setrgbcolor
0 0 moveto
0 0 R 240 360 arc
0 0 lineto
fill

0 0 0 setrgbcolor
0 0 moveto
0 0 R 0 120 arc
0 0 lineto
stroke

0 0 moveto
0 0 R 120 240 arc
0 0 lineto
stroke

0 0 moveto
0 0 R 240 360 arc
0 0 lineto
stroke

showpage

------------------------------

Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann

[Jacob Bugge]

Back into life.

[jdboley22]

Do a pie chart with equal parts, and ungroup the chart.

Done.

[Jabbo126]

Yes, i want to write this, it's like ... 10 sec solution? 🙂 But it is really awesom how complicated solutions i find here 🙂

edit: ok, i suppose in 2004 there was no tool like this 🙂

[CheersBigEars]

The solutions here were wayyy too hard to understand for a basic gal like myself, so I figured it out and below is what I came up with. A huge thanks to Jacob for using the magic word 'transform', as it triggered some sense into me. 

1. make sure you are in "align to selection", not "align to artboard" (see attached)
2. draw a circle and work out half the diameter. In my case, circle was 14cm, so 7cm is half.
3. draw a 7cm horizontal line and place it halfway in the circle. Select both the circle and the line, then align the line to the left of the circle 
4. copy that line 2 times and leave there for a sec
5. GROUP the original aligned line from step 2 with the circle 
6. place the 2 copied lines from step 3 halfway so it lines up with the original line, and then align them both to the right of the circle (the reason you grouped the left aligned one is so that it doesn't un-align when you aligned these 2 right ones). You wil notice these 2 lines on the right appear as one, but there are two, don't worry. One is just sitting on top of the other.
7. UNGROUP the left line from the circle
8. now click on the left line
9. go to effect>distort & transform>transform
10. rotate the angle to 120 and click ok.
11. place the line in it's new angled position so one end is aligned to the edge of the circle, with the end of it in the centre of the circle
12. click on the right line (it will select only one line, don't worry). 
13. go to effect>distort & transform>transform again
14. rotate the angle to 240 and click OK
15. place the line in it's new angled position so one end is aligned to the edge of the circle, with the end of it in the centre of the circle
16. THAT'S ALL!
    
    
17. BONUS: if you want to make sure the 3 parts are perfect, simply create a shape of one part to compare it to the other parts. Have attached a vid to show how I did this too (In case you missed it, I duplicated the original circle to start the shape). You can also use this shape in different colors if you are creating a pie chart with equal parts.