Creating a ruler scape using Inkscape

Ramaseshan Ramachandran

I needed a dial to measure the total score obtained by a player. While circular dials are used in most cases, I needed a ruler scale to fit it into a given space of the UI. I tried circular dials such as the one (rough drawing) with a needle, but it did not fit well into my UI. It occupied certain height and width and I did not have enough space in my UI to accommodate this design. I tried a wide curved dial with a short height, which did not look good on the interface. When nothing works, choose the fundamental shape is the mantra. I opted to use the standard ruler scale for this purpose. Though I have been using Gimp user for over 10 years, I found Inkscape to be the suitable tool for this purpose. Here is what I did Step 1: Choose the maximum size, as desired by the UI, as the document size. In my case, it was 1280x800px. Step 2: The ruler scale should appear similar to the 30cm/1' scale. Hence, I selected 12:1 as the ratio of the width and height for the scale Step 3: Draw a rectangle with this ratio, so that the width is extended to the edge of the document width Step 4: Now for the markings - This is where Inkscape scores very well and you will become the fan of Inkscape. I needed 100 line markings which are equally distributed. Now, draw the first marking with the desired height. Duplicate it 5 times. Step 5: Select all the five marking and duplicate them to get 10. Select all the 10 and duplicate it to get 20. Go on until you get 100 markings. Once you have a hundred markings, unselect all the markings. Step 6: Select the last line and move it to the far right side. Step 7: Select all the markings including the one that you moved to the right Step 8: With all the markings selected, select Object ->Align and Distribute. Step 9: In the distribute section of the Align and Distribute, select the option "Make horizontal gaps between the objects equal". You will now see the magic of the equally distributed markings across the rectangle Step 10: You may use the same steps to create longer markings and later add numbers to create a ruler scale. Choose your color for the scale and use it wherever it is required Hope you liked it. Please share your comments and suggestions Please note that the image used is only a representative image and not exactly the one used in the App Also note that I am not an expert in graphics design - less than a novice :D

Comment here...