Inspiring

Question

Dividing a solid circle into pie shapes

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
July 24, 2012
7 replies
88811 views

Hi,

I've googled everywhere about this but can't find a working answer yet. I want to divide a solid circle into 5 equal parts. All of the suggestions out there suggest I use the "paste in place" function. I create a circle. I draw a horizontal line that's equal to the radius of the circle. I align it to the right and centered vertically in the circle. Then, I do a "paste in place." This confuses me because I see a little flash as it duplicates the line. But, when I try to rotate that second line 72 degrees, nothing happens. I don't see where that second line is that I supposedly duplicated from the first. So, I end up just duplicating the line, rotating it appropriately and try to have it start at the same point as the first line. I do this for 5 lines, 72 degrees from each other.

360 degrees divided by 5 is 72. That's why I'm creating these lines 72 degrees from each other. And, I get my circle with 5 equal parts with these lines. But, they're just a bunch of lines. I want to use them to cut the circle into 5 pie shapes. I've tried compounding the paths, but, that doesn't work.

Thanks a lot for any help.

Peter

This topic has been closed for replies.

JoyAnne1960

Participant

If you don't have an answer to this by now, here's how I've discovered a way to make percentage lines within a circle. Do this in Illustrator, then export.

1. Alt+Shift in center of document. Draw circle.

2. With Line tool, place cursor at center point (make sure your smart guides are turned on), then hold alt+shift and draw a line vertically or horizontally to width of circle. Keep selected.

3. Double Click on rotate tool to bring up dialog box. Click preview. Then enter 72 in the degree box and click Copy.

4. Click Ctrl+D to repeat action four more times.

I use different percentages, but the outcome is the same.

D

dadalab

Participant

use the Illustrator Pie Chart tool.

Insert and create as many slices as you need, equal parts or any combination adding up to 100.

Select the paths and copy on a new layer and away you go!

Jongware

Community Expert

A script to make pies (and more)

A

Anonymous

Illustrator has a pie creater as well simple to use.

http://modernl.com/article/howto-make-pretty-pie-charts/

Is a discription how to use it

M

Michael_Gianino

Inspiring

If you don't have Illustrator and you have to do it in InDesign, here's another way. I'm not saying it's better or worse than any other way, but it does work.

1. Start with a circle, and place guides at the center both vertically and horizontally.

2. Make a straight line.

3. Rotate the line 72° from the left side, and hit the Copy button instead of the OK button.

4. Join the angle at all three sides with the Join Path tool in the Pathfinder.

5. Snap the bottom left corner of the triangle into the intersection of the two guides in the center of the circle.

6. Select the circle and the triangle and use the Intersect tool in the Pathfinder. This will create a wedge with one rounded edge.

7. Use the Rotate tool to rotate a copy of the wedge 72°, with the rotation proxy set to the lower left corner where the guides intersect.

8. Repeat the rotation/copy for the other 3 segments with Object>Transform Again.

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Peter_B__BaileyAuthor

Inspiring

This looks great, but, it doesn't seem to work for me. I managed to make the triangle, but, not in the way you suggest. Pathfinder did nothing for me. There is no "join" for PathFinder. So, I just used Path/Join. After I placed it at the center of the circle, though, all of the PathFinder attributes are grayed out. I can't use them to slice the section out of the circle. Your finished product up there looks great to me, so, I'm open to more prodding.

Cheers,

Peter

F

flaming1

Inspiring

You could also try this...

Select two of your lines - which I assume are meeting in the middle of your circle. Go to your Pathfinder palette and click 'Join Path', then click 'Close Path'. This will give you a segment of your pie. Repeat this for all your five segments, duplicating the lines as necessary.

Once you have got your five segments, colour them as required, group them and then paste inside the circle.

I should add - you should make your lines extend past the edge of the circle to make it simpler when closing the path. Easier than having to extend the shape afterwards!

If you wish to have the individual segments selectable, perhaps so you can offset one of them, you can take this method a step further.

Once you have the segments created, draw a box large enough to cover both the circle and the segments. Select your circle and bring it to the front. Punch the circle out of the box using the pathfinder tools. This now gives you a mask that you can use to curve the ends of your segments.

Using the pathfinder tools again, use the mask to round of the end of each segment individually. You will then end up with your 5 segments individually selectable/movable

Message was edited by: flaming1

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flaming1

Inspiring

There's a useful piechart script available from Marc Autret at Indiscripts.

http://www.indiscripts.com/post/2010/06/claquos2-pie-chart-builder-for-indesign

It's a beta but it works very well. I'm not sure if a final version ever got released.

You could also look at purchasing the font FF Chartwell which uses glyphs to create piecharts.

Very reasonably priced and very cool. See it in action at

http://tktype.com/chartwell.php

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Peter_B__BaileyAuthor

Inspiring

This is a beautiful script. It's sort of unbelievable, actually. This is perfect for me. I just created five slices, at 72 degrees each and it worked. Then, a little satin effect and I've got what I need. Thank you very much.

I looked at the Chartwell font info., too. I might invest in that.