User Guide

Chapter 4: Drawing And Vector Effects
Smoothing polygons with straight segments
If you created a path object with the Polygon tool, use the Smooth command to convert a straight-
segment polygon to a path with smooth curves. You can smooth any paths made of straight
segments, including rectangles and paths drawn with the Curve tool, as long as they have only
straight segments. The Smooth command is a convenient way for those who haven’t mastered curve
drawing to create smooth shapes.
Polygon Smoothed
If you require that the polygon object have smooth curves, you should use the Smooth
Polygon tool if you haven’t yet created the object.
To smooth a straight-segment polygon:
Select the polygon and choose Path | Smooth. Canvas converts the polygon’s corner points into
smooth points, which changes the path’s straight line segments into curved segments. For more
information about editing smooth points and curved segments, see "Reshaping paths by editing
anchor points" on page 338.
Use the Unsmooth command to restore the straight segments of a polygon that was smoothed with
the Smooth command. However, you can use Unsmooth only if the smoothed polygon wasn’t edited
after it was smoothed.
To unsmooth a smoothed polygon:
Select the smooth polygon and choose Path | Unsmooth. Canvas restores the polygon’s straight
line segments.
Drawing freehand paths
You can draw objects with the Freehand tool by simply dragging the pointer. The Freehand tool
creates paths with curved segments based on the movement of the pointer.
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