How to remove intermediate anchor point on straight line

[defaultqgbihsem62wz]

Hi - 

I have graphics generated by another program that creates 5 point squares -- four corners and one intermediate point on the upper line.  As below:

I would like to remove that center anchor point, so that distortion/transformations behave as I want.  "Simplify" seems to add curves, not quite what I want.  There are 1000s of these objects; so fixing by hand not really an optimal solution.  Any suggestions for automating this?

Thanks!

Jim

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Automating? None that I know of.

Even if you have invested in a plugin like Pathscribe, there's only so much it can "automate".

The bigger question is why the other program is creating these extra anchor points to begin with. They are unnecessary in the usual construction of a rectangle, so can you describe how these are made?

[defaultqgbihsem62wz]

Thanks for the response. They are coming from a statistical graphics program (SAS), exportin to PDF. No idea why they embed such...
Best,
Jim

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

You might want to try out the Free Trial of VectorScribe's plugins (I mentioned PathScribe, but that has been superceeded by VectorScribe) and see if there's something there for you.

[Monika Gause]

VectorFirstAid comes to mind.

[pixxxelschubser]

Simplify with option "straight lines" checked does not what you want?

[Ton Frederiks]

Simplify seems to work, but when using straight lines, the Corner Point Angle Threshold needs to be set to 90 degrees.

[Ton Frederiks]

It seems that turning on the straight lines option and setting the angle to 90 degrees remove the anchor point in the middle of a line, but introduces a new anchor point at a corner. Simplify without the straight lines option works fine.

[defaultqgbihsem62wz]

Thanks to all for giving it a think...much apprecaited! 

As I look closer at the object, seems in fact there are two stacked points at that center line (so 6 points in total, 1 at each corner and the two in the middle.   I've attached one for reference.   I'm not able to get the simplify to work on this (selecting straight lines & 90-degrees).

Best & thank you,

Jim

[Kurt Gold]

As long as your rectangles are unrotated (and ideally non-overlapping) you may just select them, go to the Pathfinder palette, use Pathfinder "Add" there (while the "Remove Redundant Points" option is turned on in the Pathfinder Options dialog (see flyout menu of the Pathfinder palette).

[Ares Hovhannesyan]

I was able to delete it in following steps:

1. Select that anchor points with lasso tool
2. In context menu select "Average" (both)
3. Then In context menu select "Join" command. That will create 1 anchor from 2
4. From properties panel use "Remove Anchor" command.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

I'm wondering if your issue is not so much with the "additional" anchor point, rather it's the fact your paths are open.

I can see how distortions/transformations would be affected by the path being open.

There's a plug-in available for free at rj-graffix.com called Select that can find all the open paths in your document, then you can use a script* to close them. (*I forget where to find this as I'm not in front of my computer right now, but you might find it in a search). This doesn't remove the anchor points, but may solve your transformation issues.

[Haley36527048itov]

Object ≥ Path ≥ Simplify...
That should help!

[Bobby Henderson]

The Vector First Aid plugin in the easiest approach, especially for documents that have many objects with similar problems.