I’m using the app on iPad with my Apple Pencil. I have imported a photo that I’m trying to trace but without freeform drawing it’s very difficult. I was following a video on Facebook that made it look very easy to create curves when drawing a hammer from a picture but I can’t get my points to move like the demonstrator. Every time I try to tap one of the dots it just draws a new line. I’m not clear which dot to move or how to move it. Unfortunately nothing is intuitive with this program.
Hi! To draw freeform curves, please select the Spline tool. While drawing the spline, please do not lift up the pencil from the screen just swipe it between the control points and push it towards the screen where you wish to create a control point.
Thanks for responding. Total newb to this world. What are control points? I’ve uploaded a few images of what I’m trying to trace. Should I keep the pencil on the iPad throughout the sketch? Do I press down the whole time or only every so often? Do you know of any videos that describe how to do this in detail? It’s not very intuitive to someone just starting out.
Let me share two videos with you below,
The first is about the spline tool, which lets you create curved lines. The pencil should not be pressed during the drawing of the curve, but you should not lift it off from the screen. Please only press it when the control points are placed.
The second video is about the adjustment of the splines, this is where control points are important. These are the points that you can move freely and deform the spline with.
If you have a tight corner, please do not place dozens of points next to each other, just make the curves longer as in the video below and trim the unnecessary ends from the lines.
You are awesome and that was so helpful. Since my design is symmetrical I’m hoping that I only need to do one side of it and then can use the mirror function. I have done splines on the top, the bottom, and inside the lens; and added straight lines at the edge and in the middle. What do I do from here to combine all these points and then do the mirror image?
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Aha! I somehow figured out how to mirror it and I trimmed the excess lines. How can I resize it? My print need to be 133 millimeters wide from edge to edge and right now it is 30ish mm. I’ve searched the knowledge database and can’t find anything. Is there a way to join all of my points into a solid continuous loop and then resize the image?
Now that it’s drawn, I need to make it 3D and add half-deep holes to inset magnets once printed.
Thanks for all of your help!
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Solid bodies can easily be created with the extrude tool, just please make sure you have a closed cross-section. As you have one, the enclosed area will be shown in blue. If the area is not closed, please make sure to move the splines accordingly.
I am sure the extrusion will end up in a much simpler shape than you are looking for 
The boolean tools are pretty useful for making the frame a bit more complex:
Even though sketch-scaling is also possible by selecting the sketch elements, I would advise applying the Scale tool on the solid body of the frame:
I have learned so much over the past few days. I’ve had objects that wouldn’t extrude and I soon realized it was because it wasn’t closed but was nearly undetectable to the naked eye. At some points I ended up deleting half of the sketch and mirroring it again. I’ve learned how to edit through trial and error too.
Jozsef helped me through email on the resizing. He told me to draw a rectangle with the measurements I needed and then scale my object within the rectangle. I found that I needed to zoom in to 0.5mm to ensure the scaling was matching up exactly.
Given your advice about stalking the solid object I may go back now and make sure the measurements are precise.
I’ve created about 20 objects over the last few days. I’m addicted.
My next endeavor is trying to figure out how to add details on the face of an extruded object to “decorate it” and also figure out how to link and attach text to my objects. I haven’t been successful with either of those so far.
I’m trying to add stuff to the face like some of these:
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You are rockin’ it! You are a natural Vector artist. Vector art relies heavily on Bezier curves. Which is essentially what a spline line is.
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