how to turn many dots with strokes and no fill into a line

[phillipm4321033]

hello I am inexperienced here and I need some help.

I generated a colored line using matlab and then exported to an EPS. The plot has many colored dots with a stroke but no fill. There are about 3000 or so dots and each is a unique color give or take. I used the blend function to create a beautiful seemless transition between the dots but now I'm stuck. 

I want to be able to modify this as a line where I can edit the stroke to make the line more or less prominent, but if i change the stroke becasue there are so many dots many of them overlap which means that the colors 'shift' as you can see below (I know they do not litterally shift,  but is just overlaping) 

What I wish to do and have tried to do for the last 2-3 work days is to make this into a line object. If not this then there must be a blending option that allows you to ensure the the average of the overlapping colors. it is really important that the y axis color of the color line stays consistany as I change the size becasue it represents data that the viewer to read. 

here is a AI file I made if it helps, 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jfbttdio9tgtmxt/blendedColorLine.ai?dl=0

[tonyharmer]

Hi—here's a suggestion for you, and apologies in advance if I'm misunderstanding the nature of your problem but:

• Given that you have created this with a blend, you could use the Group Selection Tool to select the blend spine;
• Copy it out and change the pasted copy to the desired weight;
• Apply a gradient to the stroke, and tune that gradient to the desired effect.

Would that work?

🙂

[phillipm4321033]

thank you for the response, while this might work it is a bit subjective in terms of where the color line is and tuning the gradient. Becasue it represents data I don't want to 'tune it' myself, if that makes sense. 

thank you!

[Monika Gause]

Put your image as a template in the background and then draw it. It would be pretty simple to make this into a shape, but not a line.

[phillipm4321033]

I think this might be the answer, could you explain a littel more about how to do this. I tried looking this up and am still pretty lost. 

thank you so much