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Lettuce on Toast

This example illustrates how to edit paths. The aim is to create the picture illustrated in Figure 11.11.

  1. Let's start with the toast first. To begin with create a rectangle with a brown fill colour . (If you are using the CMYK model, you can get brown from 0% Cyan, 81% Magenta, 100% Yellow and 60% Black. If you are using the RGB model, you can get brown from 40% Red, 8% Green and 0% Blue.) Create the rectangle shown in Figure 11.6.

    Figure 11.6: Lettuce on Toast Example--Brown Rectangle
    Image lettuce1.png

  2. Bread quite often has a curved top, so let's edit the rectangle so that the top is slightly curved. To do this, select the rectangle, and then either click on the edit path button or select the Edit->Path->Edit Path menu item. This will display the in edit mode (Figure 11.7(a).) Select the top segment, this will then be highlighted in red (Figure 11.7(b)).

    Figure 11.7: Lettuce on Toast Example--editing the rectangle: (a) edit mode; (b) select top segment.
    Image lettuce2a.png
    (a)
    Image lettuce2b.png
    (b)

  3. Use the edit path to convert the line segment to a curve (Figure 11.8).

    Figure 11.8: Lettuce on Toast Example--converting the top segment to a curve: (a) edit path popup menu; (b) segment converted to a curve.
    Image lettuce3a.png
    (a)
    Image lettuce3b.png
    (b)

  4. The segment now has two extra , these need to be moved to change the curvature (Figure 11.9(a)). Click anywhere outside the to exit the edit path mode (Figure 11.9(b)). Note that if you have the grid lock enabled, you may find it easier to temporarily disable it while you are editing the curvature control points.

    Figure 11.9: Lettuce on Toast Example--finish editing the curve: (a) changing the curvature by moving the control points; (b) exit edit path mode.
    Image lettuce4a.png
    (a)
    Image lettuce4b.png
    (b)

  5. To make the lettuce, select the closed curve tool , and set the fill colour to green. Make a rough outline of the lettuce leaf, clicking on each vertex, and double-click to close the path. Then, if necessary, edit the path to modify the (Figure 11.10).

    Figure 11.10: Lettuce on Toast Example--Adding a Closed Curve Path
    Image lettuce5.png

  6. Set the fill colour to transparent, and using the open curve tool, add in some to give the lettuce leaf some creases and edit as appropriate (Figure 11.11).

    Figure 11.11: Lettuce on Toast Example--Completed Image
    Image lettucefinal.png

To save the picture, select the File->Save As... menu item, and enter the filename.

To include the image in a LaTeX document, select the File->Export... menu item, and save it as a LaTeX file (click on the File of Type and select pgf environment (*.tex, *.ltx), and name the file e.g. lettuce.tex. To include it in your LaTeX document, remember to use the pgf package:

\usepackage{pgf}

and to include the image use \input, e.g.:

\begin{figure}
\centering
\input{lettuce}
\caption{Lettuce on Toast}
\end{figure}


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