5 replies to this topic

[jamierob]

Hi Cartotalk- I've been searching high and low for a way to apply a color-to-transparent gradient to a stroke that i've aligned to the inside edge of a polygon. Whenever I search for this on google, I come up with 'You cant apply a gradient to a stroke' as the answer, but i thought if anyone knew a way to do this, it would be the cartographers on cartotalk!

So, in the attached image you'll see where i'm at:

1. apply a green swatch to the stroke aligned to the inside.
2. outline the green stroke, add the 'feather' effect. This is almost what i'm looking for, but want to be able to align the feather effect the way that I align the stroke itself. (w/o converting it to a polygon if possible)
3. This is sort of what i'm looking for. A green-to-transparent gradient from the outer edge to the inside. This was created by outlining the stroke, cutting the resulting polygon at the corners, and manually applying a gradient to each polygon. (hence the sloppy corner) ugh..

So, is there a way to accomplish this? A fade-to-transparent effect that i can apply to any stroke that is aligned to the inside, is restricted by the stroke width, and neatly fades on the corners?

Thanks!

(as if myriad pro wasn't enough of a giveway, i'm using illustrator)

Attached Files

•  gradstroke.jpg   68.66K   46 downloads

[razornole]

Program?

[razornole]

Is this what you want?

If so it is pretty easy. I made one stroke, copy-fowarded it twice so I have 3 identical lines. The bottom line I made it twice as wide as I wanted (in the case 10pt). I then added a color (green) and feathered it. Then the middle stroke I put as a dashed line (black, 1pt). Then the top line I just closed it off and made a clipping mask out of it. Then I clip masked my feather line and it cut it in half and left me with a 5pt line that is only feathered on the inside.

Oh yeah, this was all done in illustrator.

kru

Attached Files

•  Untitled_1.jpg   181.91K   56 downloads

[cartdeco]

There's probably a few ways to achieve this effect. One method I use is to use the inner glow function.

Select your polygon, apply your stroke as you normally would. Open your appearance palette and select the fill and change colour to white. With the fill selected click the fx button in the attributes palette and select Stylize > Inner Glow...

In the inner glow dialog you can select the colour (in this case green), the mode (choose multiply to get the transparent effect), opacity and blur distance. The distance units are controlled by the units set in your preferences, so it may show points, inches or mm depending on your setup. Check the preview box to visually see the effect on your artwork.

To finish the process you need to set your white fill to multiply so that you can see through the polygon.

Save this as a graphic style to replicate it across all your desired artwork.

Note you can set your fill to a colour other than white if you want to create a political map.

Cheers,

Craig

[jamierob]

Craig - That is perfect! I need to explore the blending modes a lot more than i usually do.

Thanks for your help and clear instructions

-Jamierob

[DHissemGISCARTO]

Craig, brilliant, I always did it the hard way of multiple copies and progression down to the glow, this is much faster and efficient, thank you!

There's probably a few ways to achieve this effect. One method I use is to use the inner glow function.

Select your polygon, apply your stroke as you normally would. Open your appearance palette and select the fill and change colour to white. With the fill selected click the fx button in the attributes palette and select Stylize > Inner Glow...

In the inner glow dialog you can select the colour (in this case green), the mode (choose multiply to get the transparent effect), opacity and blur distance. The distance units are controlled by the units set in your preferences, so it may show points, inches or mm depending on your setup. Check the preview box to visually see the effect on your artwork.

To finish the process you need to set your white fill to multiply so that you can see through the polygon.

Save this as a graphic style to replicate it across all your desired artwork.

Note you can set your fill to a colour other than white if you want to create a political map.

Cheers,

Craig