Hi, I would very much like to be able to draw circles, and have their sides distort when I move them close to each other. Like bubbles do when they stick together, or as cells grow in a monolayer. I've been trying to find a solution to this for years, and if there is one I can't find it - in Inkscape or Illustrator or Affinity Designer.
Is there a way to do this? The closest I can get is to draw an array of hexagons and round their corners, but that is too regular for what I want. I can do it one by one by adjusting points, but that is too slow for what I want.
Thatās not quite what I mean. I need them to stay separate and NOT get the āneckā between them. They want to almost do the opposite of what those are doing - like pushing two balloons against each other, where the membrane/wall/whatever you want to call it goes flat but doesnāt disappear.
As I suspected. I was so hoping that it was just me not knowing how.Ā Itās not quite like that either, only the touching sides would distort and flatten. What I actually want to be able to draw is a monolayer of cells, They are not quite the same size as each other, start off vaguely spherical but flat on the bottom where they touch a surface,Ā and as they grow together they stop where they touch each other but keep growing into any gaps. Itās easy enough to do a few by hand, but not lots of them.
Is there any imagery available? I believe itĀ“s not possible in vector graphics - I know just of one SVG editor who has a kind of "rigid body" status where objects stop at their shape/outline when moved one to another - but no "squeezing" available.
ThereĀ“an add-on Appolonian-master, but it spreads only circles in circles - so to speak.
Hopefully this pic will upload. These are less circular than the ones I would like to draw, but you get the idea of filling a plane with similar shapes that abut but donāt overlap. Top right circle with cells jammed together.
Hmm. It doesnāt need the clipping, and that might work, if it can be adjusted. Iāll have a play. Of course then Iād need to add in all the nuclei ā¦
I have it worked out. The Voronoi pattern is not what I needed - the Voronoi diagram is, as it lets me incorporate nuclei to my cells. Firstly I created a small ellipse and cloned it with a good bit of randomness. Then I used the array of small ellipses to create a Voronoi diagram. Following instructions fromĀ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zK2po8Hfc4Ā I made eachĀ "cell" into a separate object and coloured them all with a gradient. The only thing I couldn't work out how to do in Inkscape was round all the corners in one operation, but a quick pass through Illustrator fixed that. Result - a perfect monolayer of similar but non-identical cells.
Beginners' Questions Drawing adjacent bubbles/cells
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Hi, I would very much like to be able to draw circles, and have their sides distort when I move them close to each other. Like bubbles do when they stick together, or as cells grow in a monolayer. I've been trying to find a solution to this for years, and if there is one I can't find it - in Inkscape or Illustrator or Affinity Designer.
Is there a way to do this? The closest I can get is to draw an array of hexagons and round their corners, but that is too regular for what I want. I can do it one by one by adjusting points, but that is too slow for what I want.
Speaking of Affinity Designer itĀ“s perfectly doable:
Will try with Inkscape later this day (right nowĀ 2:20am). ;-)
Thatās not quite what I mean. I need them to stay separate and NOT get the āneckā between them. They want to almost do the opposite of what those are doing - like pushing two balloons against each other, where the membrane/wall/whatever you want to call it goes flat but doesnāt disappear.
I donĀ“t think that possible in a dynamically way - just manually:
As I suspected. I was so hoping that it was just me not knowing how.Ā
Itās not quite like that either, only the touching sides would distort and flatten. What I actually want to be able to draw is a monolayer of cells, They are not quite the same size as each other, start off vaguely spherical but flat on the bottom where they touch a surface,Ā and as they grow together they stop where they touch each other but keep growing into any gaps. Itās easy enough to do a few by hand, but not lots of them.
Is there any imagery available? I believe itĀ“s not possible in vector graphics - I know just of one SVG editor who has a kind of "rigid body" status where objects stop at their shape/outline when moved one to another - but no "squeezing" available.
ThereĀ“an add-on Appolonian-master, but it spreads only circles in circles - so to speak.
Hopefully this pic will upload. These are less circular than the ones I would like to draw, but you get the idea of filling a plane with similar shapes that abut but donāt overlap. Top right circle with cells jammed together.
The closest I can think of is the Voronoi pattern - with fillet/chamfer LPE to round every corner/edge - clipped by a circle:
Hmm. It doesnāt need the clipping, and that might work, if it can be adjusted. Iāll have a play. Of course then Iād need to add in all the nuclei ā¦
Ā
Thanks
I have it worked out. The Voronoi pattern is not what I needed - the Voronoi diagram is, as it lets me incorporate nuclei to my cells. Firstly I created a small ellipse and cloned it with a good bit of randomness. Then I used the array of small ellipses to create a Voronoi diagram. Following instructions fromĀ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zK2po8Hfc4Ā I made eachĀ "cell" into a separate object and coloured them all with a gradient. The only thing I couldn't work out how to do in Inkscape was round all the corners in one operation, but a quick pass through Illustrator fixed that. Result - a perfect monolayer of similar but non-identical cells.
No need to go AI: Path effect->Corners:
Thanks for the video link.Ā Never used Voronoi Diagram before.Ā That was fun:
Thanks for that corner tip.