For some reason, I love creating spirographs--this tutorial shows
how you can create spirographs in Xara Xtreme--there are similar
tutorials for Microsoft
Expression and Adobe
Illustrator.
Here's
how you can make a spirograph in Xara Xtreme:
Create a new document in Xara Xtreme by
choosing
File | New | 1024 by 768
Drawing.
Draw any shape--I selected the ellipse tool (shift+F4)
and created a medium sized circle (See Figure 1).
Figure 1: A quick circle
Make sure that the circle has no fill
attributes. This can be checked in the Color Editor window,
that you can access from Utilities | Color Editor.
If you cannot see the expanded color editor window that you
see in Figure 2, click the Show advanced options icon
in the top right to see the full window--then, click the the
Set 'no
color' option to remove any fill.
Figure 2: Set fill to no color
Make sure your circle is selected, and
then click on the Freehand and Brush tool (F3).
In the property
bar, click
on Create Brush button. This will summon the Create new brush
dialog box (see Figure 3) that will ask you
for brush name-- I named this 'Brush 1', but you could name
it anything you like. Click OK.
Figure 3: Name your brush
Once the brush is created, you can delete
the circle in the document.
Draw another circle using the ellipse tool--this time make
it a little larger. Make sure this circle has no fill as well
(see Figure 2 above).
It is now time to apply the new brush we
created to this circle. You'll find all the brushes in the
Line Gallery that you can access through Utilities | Galleries
| Line Gallery (see Figure 4). You'll find
your newly created brush (I named mine Brush 1) in the New
brush strokes folder within the Line Gallery.
Figure 4: The Line Gallery
Select the brush, drag
it and drop it over the circle. Make sure that the cursor looks
like an arrow with a smaller reverse arrow when you let go
of your cursor on the line (see Figure 5).
Figure 5: Let go when your cursor looks like
this!
Your circle will now look like Figure 6, and that's certainly
not a spirograph! But wait, there's more to do.
Figure 6: Beginnings of a spirograph
With
the circle still selected, choose Freehand and Brush tool (F3)
and
click
the Edit Brush button
in the Properties toolbar to summon the dialog box that you
can see in Figure 7.
Figure 7: Editing the brush
Changing the setting
of the
Rotation,
Spacing,
and
Offset
can
generate
some
interesting patterns including a spirograph!
Just reducing the spacing created the spirograph that you can
see in Figure 8.
