I create illustrations and artwork where I need to use dotted lines to simulate rows and fields of panel rivets. I need round dots, not rectangular or square ones.
Most of the artwork is very fine...much of the line width is hairline or .5, so the standard dotted line is so small nobody can see that it isn't round dots...but there are times when I want to simulate larger "rivets" and I am forced to create rows of circles. This is a ton of work when filling in hundreds of rivets on an aircraft wing! And worse when rivet patterns follow the shape of objects. I am working in X6.
I'm sure there are many ways of doing this.
For rivets in a straight line, I would draw one, put it at the beginning position, duplicate it and move it to the end of the line and then do a 100 step blend between them.
For freehand positioning, I might consider creating an artistic brush. Though I'm not sure how precisely you could position them like that -- as the name applies, its more of an artistic effect than a technical drawing tool.
But rivets following the shape of an object ought to be achievable :
Some text (Ariel Black):
Increase the inter-character spacing to 200%:
Fit text to path:
Almost there -- probably need to increase the character spacing a bit, or add one more character to the string.
Without getting into a lot of specifics.....the "Blend" tool has some benefits over the "Artistic Media tool" Your circle (dot) can be any size you want, 0.001 mm if that is what's needed, and spacing is also easily controlled with acceleration too. Also, the dots can grow to a finished size, giving an idea of distance/perspective...
These are both done with the blend tool. If you have a lot of lines to "rivet", just make several duplicate blend groups first, then apply to the lines as needed.
Also note: The Artistic media brush will be difficult to place a dot at both ends perfectly, unlike the Blend tool which is automatic.
weird...when I click the Blend docker, I just get a blank/empty box. so, I had to go to the Corel manual to understand what the Blend tool was and where to find it (in the tool bar on the left! duh!) anyway, that is a very cool way to join two objects. I see you point about producing end dots where I want them. The perspective thing isn't too much of a concern. The artworks I am doing are relatively small. Perspective is limited to the parallel perspective of adjacent rows of rivets, not the rivets themselves. I can get away with using a smaller size "rivet" for different types of rivets (some are bigger) and smaller dots for rivets that are further away, less visible, etc. I cannot figure out how to create a curved path of rivets, or worse, a line of rivets that follows a compound shape (while using the Blend tool). Still seems like a bit too much work...I'm trying to simplify this part of the process and I think the artistic media method may just do that. I want to be able to draw a ton of lines freehand (what I am used to) and then just click and apply a look and colour. Its not perfect, but neither is the method I have using for the past two years. I can adjust end dots by dragging the line length and repositioning the line ends (and by changing the dot spacing). Only thing that irritates me is this default spacing everytime apply a dot change. And is there any way to draw a straight line with the artistic media tool? It seems to function like a freehand paint brush. I tried drawing a row of panel rivets, in a straight line and in a gentle arc, but my mouse control is not good enough. The way I work now is use the freehand line tool...draw straight lines (arc them if necessary) and then apply dots, colour, width, etc