Help with AI or Inkscape - joining shapes

[cre8ting]

I have a file that I am trying to figure out how to join the shapes in - essentially I am trying to just create the outline -- so not a separate triangle and rectangle but more like a house on its side if that makes sense. Does anyone know how to do this? I keep getting an error message when I try the join function.

Thanks!

[jasenj1]

The problem with your file is that the diagonal lines are just lines. That is, they are not joined to anything to make a continuous path. When doing this kind of work, the node tools are your friend.

node tools screenshot.jpg (3.93 KiB) Viewed 3198 times

You use them to cut the ends off of bounded areas (rectangles) and attach the end points of separate lines.

It is often better to build objects up from rectangles or polygons, deleting, adding, and moving nodes as needed, rather than using lines.

Another technique is to draw a big rectangle around the entire shape. Then use the paint bucket tool to fill in the surrounding area like this:

paint bucket example.jpg (37.78 KiB) Viewed 3198 times

Then you "Break Apart" the filled in shape and delete the outside frame, leaving just the surrounded shape. But the paint bucket can give inaccurate results.

I've attached a fixed up version of your file I made by deleting lines & attaching endpoints.

Hope this helps.
- Jasen.

[hkvalerio]

TFS!

[sstehman]

I need to bookmark this topic. Thanks for the explanation.

[cre8ting]

Thanks everyone.

Does anyone know of any good tutorials that utilize the node tool to do this?