OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas: Distorting Shapes to Make the Objects You Need: Using the OpenOffice Draw Distortion Tools

July 07, 2008

Distorting Shapes to Make the Objects You Need: Using the OpenOffice Draw Distortion Tools

I like to fiddle around with Draw. In the 2.0 release I need to do it less because of all the great prefab shapes. However, sometimes you just need to create your own shapes. Make a shape vaguely like a Hershey's kiss, or just make something totally unusual.

You have the tools to do this with the Mode toolbar. Choose View > Toolbars > Mode.

Dist0

The far right tool on the upper row and the first two on the lower row are the fun ones.

Here's how it works. Just draw a normal shape. Select it, then click on the icon you want. You'll see a message like this; click Yes.

Distmessage

So let's take a look at what happens to perfectly innocent shapes when you use the distortion and set-in-circle tools. Here are the perfectly innocent shapes I'll work with, but you can use any polygon shape include the smiley face shown at the top.

I'll show the effects of this tool first.
Setincirclefirstone

I select the blue shape then click the Set in Circle tool. When I move my mouse over the shape and drag a corner, I get something like this.

Dist2_1

Here's the effect of some random distortion of the three original shapes.

Next, let's look at the Set to Circle (slightly different) icon.

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Here's what it looks like when you start fiddling with a shape. It doesn't show here but your mouse pointer will look like a little crown when you move it over a corner.

Dist3a

Here are the three original shapes, just showing what I happened to do with them. Your results will vary.

And here's the last of the three icons, Distort.

Dist4

Here's how I chose to distort the objects.

The Set in Circle item is the most fun, I think, and that's what I used to create the purple shape at the top. However, they're all quite useful depending on what kind of shape you need to create.

And don't overlook distorting a shape, then making it 3D. Select the distorted shape, right click, and choose Convert > To 3D. (NOT 3D rotation object.)