can we draw 3d in visio

Today I saw a question in the Microsoft Visio newsgroups.

Stefan wanted to know how to make a 3D pointer wait like it was going through a rectangular aeroplane.

Of course I couldn't resist the opportunity to practice some cartoon, plus it seemed like a dainty topic for today'south Visio 3D drawing tutorial!

If you lot've perused the Visio Fine art folio, you might have seen this Pin and PinLoc illustration:

or perhaps the Knife Through Fe Chef piccie:

Both of these visuals accept elements of what Stefan needs.

And so it's possible to exercise this with Visio, just how?

Fake Isometrics

I like to draw using Visio's grid, which you can turn on via the View > Grid menu. Armed with the grid, some settings under Tools > Snap & Glue, and the Line tool, yous tin do a skillful task of cartoon consistent "isometric" shapes, as long every bit they are fairly simple.

Hither I'm creating the first part of our 3D illo: the foursquare, or plane through which the arrow will pass. I am using "isometric" lines that have a gradient of 1/4. Not really isometric, but easier to draw using grid snaps, and it looks pretty 3-dimensional:

Fragment…

To create the arrow, I used a slightly different arroyo, because I found it hard to visually depict all the sides of the arrow, and maintain that 1:4 gradient.

This is going to look weird for a few paragraphs, and then bear with me. It will all make sense before long.

Instead of painstakingly trying to draw each vertex, I merely created one single "1 to 4"  line. Using Ctrl + Left-mouse-elevate, I chop-chop duplicated it a bunch of times, and placed them parallel to each other to form the lengthwise regions of the arrow.

Then, I flipped a few copies of the line horizontally ( using Ctrl+H ) and placed them at the points where the tail, point and head of the pointer would be.

The resulting grid doesn't look similar much right now, merely you'll meet that information technology can easily be turned into a 3D arrow:

…That We May Preserve the Wedlock

Once I had that grid, I could quickly perform three steps that got me closer to an arrow:

1. Select all lines and choose Shape > Operations > Fragment to cut (solid) pieces where the lines overlap.
2. Delete pieces that don't belong to the arrow
3. Shift + click (multi-select) the 3 pieces on either side of the pointer, and Shape > Operations > Union them into solid chunks.

one, two and 3 wait like this:

It's starting to brand a bit more sense, isn't it? That almost looks like an arrow! By the way, I promise you are starting to appreciate power of Visio's Boolean operations (located under the Shape > Operations menu!)

And then now nosotros need to "de-hammerhead" our "arrow". We can exercise this easily past deleting two vertexes.

We'll need our Line tool (Pencil tool likewise works) again to do this. With the line tool, we tin can select the vertexes at the outer edges of the hammerhead and delete them.

Now all you accept to do is select both sides and Wedlock them into one, unmarried piece.

See, I told you lot it was an arrow!

To the third Dimension and Across!

Now that we've got an arrow and a aeroplane, how (on Earth) do we go it to look similar it is poking through the plane?

Sending to Back or Bringing to Front (Shape > Order menu) doesn't seem to aid u.s.a. very much:

Because parts of the arrow are in front of the aeroplane, and parts are behind. So nosotros need to operate again. Yup, get your scalpel out, our arrow will require farther surgery.

Hopefully you lot've saved a few copies of those simulated isometric "1 to four" lines from earlier. Here I've copied one to the position where I guess the arrow hits the aeroplane:

I've also added a vertical line at the correct edge of the plane. These ii cherry-red lines will exist used to cutting our freshly-marriage-ed pointer into pieces:

One time we've fragmented, we tin delete that extra flake that shows upwards as a result of where the red lines intersected.

Another tip: to preserve the orange fill in the fragmented shapes, make sure you select the arrow first, then the red lines. It goes like this:

1. Press and concord the Shift key
2. Click the arrow
3. Click a red line
4. Click the other red line
5. Shape > Operations > Fragment

The resulting shapes will have the line, fill and text attributes of the first-selected shape!

Using Ctrl+Shift+B, nosotros tin can quickly send the middle scrap of the arrow to dorsum, then that information technology is obscured past the plane:

Make it Really Stand Out

And for further effect, add together transparency to the aeroplane, and then that the middle of the arrow shows through just a little bit. Transparency can exist set under the Format > Fill up dialog.

There you have it! A fairly simple-to-create, yet realistic, 3D illustration. All done in Visio, so you don't have to get out and buy Adobe Illustrator!

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Source: http://www.visguy.com/2009/12/10/faking-3d-in-visio/

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