Upon installation, the Curved to Fit MicroTool shows its presence with the addition of a new tab on the far right of the PlansPlus tab controls:
This tab, like its three companions, acts as a mode control. When you click on it the normal pointer changes to the curve pointer, indicating that Curved to Fit is in control. In addition, all the splineable points on the design are selected with the normal reverse-colored selection square, and the control points are depicted ashandles as well, and a dashed line from the PT point to each control point.
You can use the curve pointer to drag any of the points, the handle and control points, around to edit the curve. Quickly gained experience will show how the moving of the points affect the curve they define.
Curved to Fit allows for a context menu at each of the selectable points when the curve mode is active. The context menu gives the user a number of options which can be exploited:
The first option Link splines indicates the linking status at the handle selected (or the one referenced by the control point selected). Remember that a pair of control points, if linked, move in direct opposition to each other, and their being linked guarantees that the curve flows smoothly through the handle. The checkmark indicates whether the splines are linked at this point or not, and clicking on the menu option toggles that information. This option has no effect on end points of an object, where there is only one control point.
The next four options are labelled Scale length by 1 through Scale length by 8. It often happens that the required motion of a control point cannot be accomplished because the mouse movement takes the point off the screen, with unpredictable results. To avoid this, these options scale the length of the control lines by factors of from 1 (the default) to 8 times shorter, for the current handle only. This reduction in point movement effort is traded-off with an equivalent loss in sensitivity, so it is up to the user to use this option only as needed. Note that the lines which connect the handle with its control points has a line drawn which indicates in the length of its dashes the scale value in place.
The Set spline to 0 does just what it says - the lengths of the lines to the control points are set to zero, and the control points are drawn right atop the handle. If the context menu was invoked from the handle, both sides are set to zero; if it is invoked from one of the two control points, that point is set to zero and if linking is on, it is turned off, so the other point is not affected. If all three points are right atop one another, only one of the control points is visible and no lines; if two of the points are together (one side zeroed), the two handles erase each other and it appears there is no handles at the pass through point, but that is an illusion. If you drag from such a point with the curve cursor, you will drag out one of the control points; the other will head in an opposite direction. Look at the curve carefully when you do this; it may be that the control points will need to be switched (rotated 180 degrees about the handle) to properly render the curve.
The command Restore handle's spline restores the handle's position, and that of its control points, back to where they were when Curved to Fit started up. The Restore object's spline does the same thing for each point on the whole object.
Curved to Fit and the contents of this help file are
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