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Question

OVERLAPPING OBJECTS

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
November 7, 2024
2 replies
3138 views

Hi, team. I'm working with illustrator and I have a scene with many objects placed randomly. Some of these objects are overlapping. Is there a script or feature that can automatically adjust their positions to avoid overlaps and ensure a more even distribution?

Scripting

m1b

Community Expert

Hi @Hanschrs, this discussion inspired me to write a script that might help (but don't worry if it doesn't suit your case—I was happy to write it anyway as I've wanted to do something like this for a long time!)

The script is called "Distribute Items.js" and you can download it from my github repo for general scripts (it's a new repo, I just made today but I will be adding new scripts to it all the time).

If you try it out, try it on not-too-many page items to start with while you are experimenting with the parameters. If you like you can adjust the default parameters by editing the "settings" object in the script (it is near the start).

Let me know if it is useful.

- Mark

H

HanschrsAuthor

Known Participant

The program will only run if fewer than 200 objects are selected."

m1b

Community Expert

Yes, Mark, the progress bar is displayed, but only after a pretty long time of frozen state (1 up to 2 or 3 minutes when using about 400 objects at the same time). Then the script dialog appears and it may take another minute to see any progress.

Then, changing any parameter in the script dialog causes further delays. Impatient people may not entirely be satisfied at that point.

Nonetheless, this script is very good. It just takes some time.

As an alternative one can always use Illustrator's symbol tools and explore other oddities with them.

Oh wow! That is very different from—and much worse than—my experience on my machine here. Okay I've had a look and I think I had a glitch with my version control and lost part of a previous change. I have updated again and the time to come up to the UI will be much improved—no more than a second or two no matter how many items.

@Hanschrs very sorry but as you noticed—the code was still wrong. I have fixed it now properly. Note that this will only speed up the time between script launch and seeing the UI.

You can download from the same repo here.

- Mark

CarlosCanto

Community Expert

I haven't seen a script for that, can you post screnshots showing more details of what you need? or better yet can you share sample files?

H

HanschrsAuthor

Known Participant

When I use brushes in Illustrator to create a stippling effect, I end up with too many overlapping points and have to manually move them to achieve a more uniform shape. That image has been hand-edited to create a more balanced effect.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

You could check out the plugin Stipplism. But it's not free

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