Download - 27088348 Freehand Tutorial

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GEO118 exercise 2winter, 2003 due:week 3, beginning of lab

Freehand Tutorial

For the first few lab exercises we will use a graphics application called Macromedia Freehand.Freehand is a vector-based graphics package widely used in cartography and graphic design shops.Vector graphics contain graphic objects or shapes that are made up of lines or curves called vectors.Raster graphics are the other graphic type on which graphics software can be based. We will talkabout these in a few weeks, but all you need to know for now is that raster images are made up oflittle squares called pixels. Pixel stands for picture element, the smallest unit a raster imagecan contain. Raster based software always reference individual pixels rather that objects or shapes.

Accessing the class file server

All the files you need for this lab will be located in a directory on L: called Geog118. To access

this directory, do the following:

Open Lab##(where ## is the number of your computer)and double click labs on UBAR

(L:) Double click on the folder called Geog118. Double click on the folder called Handouts.

There will be a file called FHTutorial.fh10 in theweek02folder. Copy this file to yourdesktop by dragging the icon to a clear green spot. The file you just copied is an unfinished mapof the Boulder, Colorado area.

Freehand

Double click on the file that you copied to you directory. Since it is a Freehand file (.fh10),Freehand will automatically open. It takes a little time, so be patient. When it opens fully youshould see the beginnings of a map. What you are looking at is the Boulder, Colorado Countyboundary with various roads and rivers on it.

Selecting and Deselecting

Take your mouse and select the boundary of Boulder County by clicking once on it. Notice thefour black squares that appear when you click on it. These squares tell us that the boundary isselected. Click on a blank place on the page to deselect it or press TAB. Now try selecting anddeselecting some of the roads and rivers. Make sure you know when they are selected anddeselected.

When an object is selected you can move it around, delete it, change its color, or do a number of

other operations on it. Try moving the boundary a bit, by clicking and dragging it a bit to theleft. Go to the menu items and select EDIT, the first choice under this item is UNDO (whateveryou just did). If you moved your boundary line and want it back to its original position selectUNDO MOVE. You can use undo to reverse your actions one by one. The number of undos canbe set under EDIT and PREFERENCES. You have many undos, but dont depend on them!

If you want to select more than one object, you can click on the first item you want to select, holddown the Shift key, and select a second item. This is called shift clicking. Try selectingmultiple roads and rivers. Make sure you are comfortable with shift clicking.


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Magnification

Make sure your Tools palette is open. To do this go to the Windows menu andmake sure there is a check mark next to tools. The toolbox should be visible on yourscreen, and look like this...

Select the magnifying glass icon by clicking on it with your mouse once (on right, nearbottom). You can use this to zoom in and out on the map. Notice after you click on ityour mouse cursor now looks like a magnifying glass rather than a pointer. There aretwo ways you can use the magnifying glass. You can simply click any place on the mapand it will zoom in on that spot. If you click again, it will zoom in even further.Notice that on the lower left hand corner of the screen, it will tell you percentage of

magnification. To zoom out simply hold the ALT key on your keyboard whileclicking on the map, (Alt click.) Notice that when you do this your mouse cursorchanges to a magnifying glass with a minus sign in it. Also, notice that as you zoom outthe magnification percentages decrease.

There are other ways of changing the magnification. While you still have the

magnifying tool, drag a box around the whole map. This is one method of magnifyingso that a specific area is under magnification. It also fits a particular area of your mapto the screen. Practice this method of magnifying a bit.

Another method of magnifying is under theVIEWand MAGNIFICATIONmenu.You can choose any magnification from this list. In addition there is a menu to choosemagnification in the lower left hand corner of your screen.

You can type any magnification you would like into the magnification window. Inaddition, you can click and hold on this arrow shown above to get a menu ofmagnifications. If you ever lose your map try using this menu to magnify to FIT PAGE. Thiswill center the page on the screen.

Layers

Layers are a key feature of a good graphics package. It is important to know how to use the layerspalette in order to organize your map and control what can be selected and what cannot. To access

the layers palette go toWINDOW,PANELSand select LAYERS. You should see a layerpalette on your screen that looks like this:

Right now everything on your screen is in one layer, theForeground layer. Click on the check mark next to theForeground layer. Notice that when you click on the checkmark, it disappears, and so does your map! This check markcontrols what is visible on your map.

Make the map visible by clicking in the space where the checkmark was originally. The check mark should reappear, and so


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should your map. Now click on the lock icon next to the foreground layer. When you click onthis notice that the lock closes. Now try to select something on your map. You shouldnt be ableto select anything. This is because when the layer is locked it cannot be selected. This is one wayof protecting your map. When objects are locked they cannot be changed in any manner. Nowunlock the foreground layer by clicking on the lock.

We want to make three new layers. We want a roads layer, a rivers layer, and a parks layer. First,click on the right arrow atop the layers window (highlighted in red on previous page). A newmenu should appear.

Choose new from the menu. You should get a new layer in the palette called Layer-1. Double

click on Layer-1 and type the new name Roads and hit enter. It is very important to hit return.If you do not, your typing will not register on the layers palette.

Now we need to add all of the roads to this layer. Right now all of the roads are on theforeground layer. Select your pointer tool (top left of tool palette) and shift-click all of the roadsthat you can. Then click on the Roads layer. This automatically moves all of the roads that you

selected to this layer. To see if it worked click the check mark next to the Roads layer. Look atthe map, did all of the roads disappear? If you still have some roads visible on the map thatmeans that they are not on the roads layer, which is not visible. Select the remaining roads andclick on the Roads layer. Make the Roads layer visible and invisible by clicking the check markon and off. Are all the roads on the layer? Once you have all of the roads on the roads layer, lockthat layer by clicking on the lock icon next to the roads. Now you will not be able to select anyroads until you unlock that layer.Now do the same thing with the rivers. Under the arrow menu, make a new layer. Click on thenew Layer-1 in the layers palette, type the new name Rivers and hit enter. Now add all of therivers to this layer, by shift-clicking to select multiple rivers. Click on the Rivers layer to addthem to this layer. Use the check mark to determine if you have successfully added all of therivers to this layer. When the Rivers layer is complete, lock it.

We have one more layer to make, and this is the Parks layer. Do the same as above to add a newlayer named Parks. Click on the three polygons on the far left of the map; these are the Parks youwant to add to the layer palette. Once they are added to the Parks layer, lock that layer as well.The remainder of the map information can remain on the foreground layer. If you would like, youcan rename this layer Basemap.

Saving

Lets save what you have done so far. Go to FILE in the menu options and choose SAVE AS. Awindow will appear asking you where you want to save the file and what you would like to nameit. You can save your file temporarily on your desktop. Click the down arrow next to where it

says personal and scroll to the top of the list. Select Desktop from the list. Now name yourfile with your last name.

Drawing Lines and Curves

There are several roads missing from your map. One is the Diag, the Diagonal Highway(Hwy119) that runs from Boulder to Longmont. The other is at the west end of Table Mesa which runsup to NCAR (curvy road starting where the brown star is).


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First lets draw the Diag (where the green diamond is). Make sure all of your layers are lockedexcept for the Roads layer. Since we are drawing a road, we want it to sit on the Roads layer.

Click on the line tool (see image below).

Notice that your mouse cursor has changed again from an arrow to a cross bar. Clickand drag to draw three sections of lines like those below connecting BoulderandLongmont.

Use the map above as a guideline. We are just practicing some of thetools in Freehand, so it doesnt have to be geographically perfect.

Okay, lets try another tool used for drawing lines. Click on the Freehand tool.(See picture)

Try drawing a squiggly line by simply clicking and dragging the mouse. Trydrawing a curvy road at the Baseline/Broadway intersection (where the brown star isin the map). See below for shaping the look of the road.


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Another way to draw curved lines is the Bezigon tool.

Instead of clicking and dragging, this tool allows you to just click the points ofthe line. In order to make the line curved, you must hold down the ALT key,otherwise all of the lines will be straight. Practice with this tool a bit.

SAVEyour work.

Text

The text tool allows you to add text to your map. First make a new layer called Cities. Lock all

of the layers except for the Cities layer. Click on the A in the toolbox. Now click nearLongmont on the map. Lets label Longmont with the text tool.

Under the Menu item Text we can choose the font, size, and style. You can also bring up anothertoolbar with the Windows menu, under Toolbars and Text. Lets choose Tahoma size 8 (ifthis font is not available on your computer choose another one). You may need to highlight the textby clicking and dragging over it in order to change the style. When you are done typing, you mustselect the arrow icon from the toolbox. Then click on an empty space on the page to deselect thetext.

Now click on the text to select it. You can move blocks of text around as objects. MoveLongmont so that it is placed somewhere where it is legible but also can be associated with thearea symbol representing Longmont.


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Use the text tool to label Boulder, Louisville, Superior, Lafayette, Ward, and Nederland. Seebelow:

Attaching to PathNow lets label some of the Rivers and Roads. So that the text can be easily associated with thegeographic features, it is best to use a method of text placement called attach to path. Lock all ofyour layers except for the Rivers layer. Draw a line using the Freehand tool just over North SaintVrain Creek. You may need to zoom in to the river in order to do this. See below:


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Now click on the text tool. Type North Saint Vrain Creek. Under the Menu item TEXTwe canchoose the font, size, and style. Since water bodies by convention are italicized, lets make ourtype font italicized Tahoma, size 8. You may need to highlight the text by clicking and draggingover it in order to change the style.

Select both the text and the line using shift-click. Choose the Menu option TEXTand Attach ToPath. The line that you drew automatically disappears and the type should flow along that line.If all of your text didnt show up on the line, then you didnt draw your line long enough. You canstart over and draw your line longer or you can simply select the bind to path and drag the end ofthe line out longer.

If you cant get it right, dont worry this is just a practice round. Keep trying and practicing. Usethe same method described above to label other rivers such as Middle Saint Vrain, North BoulderCreek, Boulder Creek. See the map at the end of this tutorial to guide you. When you are done

working with the rivers. Lock that layer. Save your work.

This method can also be used to label curvy roads. Make sure all of the layers are locked exceptfor the Roads layer. Try this method with the Peak to Peak Hwy (the road with the orangetriangle in above map).

When labeling straight roads, use the straight line tool to draw a line right next to the road. Letsdo the Diagonal Hwy.


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Now use the text tool to type Diagonal Hwy. Select both the line and the text using shift click.Go to Text and Attach to Path. Sometimes the text doesnt look great on the screen, especiallywhen your text is going at diagonal directions. This is simply due to the low resolution of thescreen. When you print the map it will look much better.

Masking

Another useful tool in labeling is masking. Masking is used to make text more legible when it issitting on top of another feature. Lets try masking the names of the Parks, which will be placedover the gray representing the area of the park. The end result will look like this:


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First we need to open our text inspector. Click on windows inspectors and text. If awindow closes on your screen, it was already open, so do the same thing again. This panel allows

us to make modifications to the brush strokes that make up our image.

In the Text inspector select the pulldown menu at the bottom left that by default should read noeffect. Select Inline from the menu. Click on this same menu again and select edit. In thenew dialog change the stroke width to 0, and the background width to 0.5, and click OK.Notice the masked text now appears on your map.

Aligning

Now we can label some of our roads with Highway numbers. To do this we will use the aligntool. First make sure your active layer is your roads layer by simply clicking on the layer name inyour layer list. Also make sure that the swatches list has black in the stroke well (see image

below).

Now go to the stroke inspector. Makesure the stroke width is set to .3528. Weare going to draw a perfect circle usingthe ellipse tool in the toolbox:

Click on the ellipse tool. Notice yourmouse cursor has changed to a cross bar.Hold down the shift key (this allows youto draw a perfect circle). Drag and drawa circle. Practice a few times if you need to. Using the

swatches palate set the fill color to white and the outline color to black. Select which part tochange with the buttons directly above the colors. When you are ready draw a small circle overHighway 36:

Notice that as soon as you do this your circle has a white fill (you can no longer see through it) anda black outline. Lets add some numbers to this symbol. There is another way to modify type in

Freehand. Go to the Menu optionWINDOW, INSPECTORSand choose TEXT. This is apalette that allows you to change the Font, style, and size. Make the font whatever you would like,


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but change the size to 6. You will need to type this into the Text palette manually. Now you areready to use the text tool to type a 36.

Select the 36 and then shift-click to select the circle. (You may need to draw a box around these to

select them both) Go to the Menu item WINDOWS and PANELS andALIGN. You should

have a palette on your screen that looks like this:

Click and hold on the arrow under Horizontal (the upper pulldown menu): choose Align center.

Do the same under Vertical (the lower pulldown menu). Your palette should look like the oneshown above. Now click on Apply. The number should be directly on top of the circle. If youcant see the number it may be sitting under the circle. If this is the case backtrack by using undosand try it again. This time make sure you select the number first and the circle second. Whateveryou select first will sit on top.

If the align tool didnt perfectly center the number on the circle, use the arrow keys to fine tune thecentering. When it is just as you want it to appear deselect both of them. Now, select the numberand hold the Control key and the Shift key while clicking on the circle again. Remember that theshift key allows you to select more than one item at a time and the Control key allows you toselect something behind something else.

With both of them selected go to the menu itemWINDOW, INSPECTORSand select theObjects palette. This palette gives us more information about any object. The inspector windowshould say 2 objects at the top, this tells you that you have successfully selected 2 objects.

Lets group these objects so that they function as one object and we can move them around

together. Go to the menu item MODIFYand select GROUP. Now look in the inspectorpalette and notice that it says group at the top. Now it will be very easy to place this symbol overHwy 36. It should look something like this:


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Duplicating

There are several ways to duplicate an object. Duplicating places an exact copy of the object justoffset of the original object. You can also copy/paste an object; copying/pasting is best reservedfor when you want to copy between two different documents or two separate pages.

Since there are other places we could put the Hwy 36 symbol, lets duplicate it. That way it wewill not have to recreate it. To duplicate go to the menu item EDITand then Duplicate.

You can also ungroup the Hwy 36 symbol and duplicate the circle, that way you can use the circleagain for other Hwy numbers. Select the group and go to the menu item Arrange and chooseUngroup. Deselect both by clicking on an empty space on the page. Now select just the numberand drag the number away from the circle. Select just the circle and duplicate it.

Use the methods in this section and the previous section to create additional highway numbers.Use the map in the back of this tutorial as a guide. You dont have to do all of the highwaynumbers, just enough so that you get the hang of using align, group, and duplicate.

ColorThis section on color will just introduce you to the concept of using color in Freehand. Beprepared to explore on your own! Close some of the palettes that are crowding your desktop. Dothis just like you close any window, click the X box in the upper right hand corner. Now go to

the menu itemWINDOW> PANELSand select the swatches and the color mixer. We will beusing both of these to experiment with color. The palettes look like this.

In the Color mixer drag the scroll bars to mix a green color. (c=cyan, m=magenta, y=yellow, andk=black). Click on OPTIONS in the color list window and select new this will add the newcolor to your color list. You should have a new green color square at the bottom of the color list.Double click on the text and name the color Forest.Go to the menu item Windows and select Layers. When your Layerspalette is visible, make sure that the Parks layer is unlocked.

Remember, if the Parks layer is locked you will not be able to selectit or color it.

Lets color the Rocky Mountain National Park this green color. Thereare several ways to do this. You can drag and drop the color squareinto the object you want to color or you can select the object you wantto color and drop the color square into the fill well of the color list.


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Now try coloring Indian Peaks Wilderness a lighter shade of green.Lock the Parks layer and unlock the Rivers layer. Mix a shade of blue. In order to color the riversyou are going to select the river and select the blue color in the strokes well (as opposed to the fillwell). See below.

Use the text tool to add a title to your map. Feel free to add anything else you would like to addto this map. Be sure to use the text tool to put your name on the map.

SAVE your work!!!

What you need to hand in:

When you are finished, rename your file (.fh10 file) to your last name, first and middle initials,followed by _lab2.fh10. If you have no middle initial, use the letter x. So for example, forSara the file would be labeled...

fabrikantsi_lab2.fh10

In the L:\Geog118 folder there is a folder called Hand-in. Drag and drop your Freehand (.fh10)file into the Hand-infolder. Please note that you will not be able to open or list the contents ofthe Hand-in folder.

When you have done this, copy your file to your ownZIP disk. Once you are certain that the fileis on your personal zip disk, erase the file off the computer. Do not leave your file on labcomputers. If Kirk finds your files on a lab computer, you may be graded down.

How you will be graded:

This is a tutorial designed to help you get comfortable with Freehand and drawing programs ingeneral. Do your best and try to get comfortable with some of these functions. You will need to

apply the same tools for upcoming exercises, so the more comfortable you are the better. Yourwork will be checked to make sure you tried all of the tools described in this tutorial.

Most of your assignments will be turned in digitally for this class. We will also grade you on howwell you follow file management directions. Here are some pointers for this lab...

label your file as indicated in this handout. If we do not know whos file it is, and forwhich lab, we cannot grade it.

always make sure your file opens without problems and is not corrupted BEFOREdropping it into the Hand-in folder. It is a good idea to always test your files before youput anything in the Hand-in folder. A file that does not work when we grade it isconsidered late.

Make a backup copy of all your lab files on your own ZIP disk(s). We will check for it atthe beginning of next weeks lab.

based on tina g., revised and modified by sara f. /kirk g.,2003


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Reference map

For additional reference maps on the Boulder region check out the MapQuest Web Site:www.mapquest.com. Select Boulder and CO as your query keywords. See an example mapbelow

Boulder, Colorado