Interesting Polygon Tool Tricks in Inkscape

Inkscape Polygon tool is a great method to expedite the production of complex designs. Here you have some cool tips in this fast tutorial to make the Polygon tool more practical for your designs.

The Star/Polygon tool, which distinguishes Inkscape from other vector editing programs, may be the most fascinating tool for novices.

1. Polygon tool

If you select the Polygon tool, you can draw Regular Polygons or draw Stars. You can see the options: CornersSpoke ratioRounded, and Randomized.

Step 1

Regular polygons have only one handle. With the handle you can rotate or stretch the shape.

The options here are:

  • Corners: Number of corners/sides (minimum of 3)
  • Spoke ratio: Not available for regular polygons
  • Rounded: Value of rounding all corners and sides (-10 to 10)
  • Randomized: Value of randomizing the positions of the corners (-10 to 10)

For this tip we will use a regular polygon with 6 corners and a Rounded value of 0.125. A smooth hexagon will be created.

Step 2

Star polygons have two handles, unlike the Regular polygons. The outer handle is used to rotate or stretch the star. The inner handle is used to adjust the Spoke ratio and spoke angle.

The options here are with  a few differences:

  • Corners: Number of spokes (minimum 3)
  • Spoke ratio: Ratio of the spoke length from the center (0.10 to 1)
  • Rounded: Value of rounding the spokes and joins (-10 to 10)
  • Randomized: Value of randomizing spoke position, length, etc. (-10 to 10)

The randomized option is making a chaos. If you use it, you will get:

2. Convert Polygons

Step 1

You can change a regular polygon into a star, just click the Star polygon. It may not look like it has changed anything. That is beacause it only added the second handle.

Step 2

To change a star into a regular polygon, click on the Regular polygon button. It removes the second handle.

3. Shape Starters

Step 1

We want to draw a complicated shape. Let’s try with a heart. We can start by using a basic polygon. It can be a star polygon with 3 Corners – it creates a triangle.

Step 2

Go to Path > Object to Path to work on this shape properly. Add a couple more nodes as shown below.

Step 3

Now, adjust the shape by selecting the appropriate nodes.

Step 4

This is an example of how you can use polygons to create complex shapes’ foundation.

4. Complex Shapes

Step 1

We have a star polygon with changed options and it barely looks like a polygon. As you can see below, there’s a beautiful form which we’re going to make it!

Step 2

Draw a square that entirely covers the design in the middle (try not to go over the polygon). Make sure you convert both of these shapes into paths by Path > Object to Path.

Step 3

Send the new square to the back with Object > Lower to Bottom. With both shapes selected, go Path > Difference.

Step 4

You will see only the neat design.

We can go next with this design and using the same method. You can adjust the handles around a bit to get the shape like you want.

For example, you can see this design that uses one of these complex shapes.

You got it!

Exercise with the Inkscape Polygon tool and you will get a good understanding on how it works. You can make polygons more useful. Keep trying with those settings and you will come up with some awesome shapes and designs.

Interesting Polygon Tool Tricks in Inkscape

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