You mean, like to calculate how much gold leaf transfer stuff you'll need to cover the letters when you have them fabricated in 3-D?

Not that I know of, but I can see how that would come in handy, in certain kinds of projects. Maybe you could ask somebody in the 3-D lettering business. If you get an answer, please remember to share it here!

Mara

I don't think Illustrator works this way since it's more concerned with the points and bezier curves than calculating what's inside those.

You'd probably have to import the letterforms into AutoCAD and scale to 1:1 to get your surface areas. Or maybe google sketchup would do it? It's free.

[EDIT: Actually I found something. CADtools 5.0 for $279: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12108/cadtools]

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Natobasso
dirtandrust.com
"Powerpoint is not a design application"

thanks for the link.

i'm also trying to emphasize points to recontect them. like for example after pathfinding in Illustrator then looking for points. they are all there on the canvas but they are invisible. and selecting them does not help much.

it would be nice to have a plugin to make all those the points visible. or at least having a tutorial to do that...

if you understand what i mean: first removing the paths leaving only the points then making all the points visible.

imagine a square on the canvas. first we want to remove the lines that make up the square but leave the anchor points.

after that we'd like to reconnect the anchor points to an X sign (using the Pen Tool), but without searching for the anchors using mouse-overs and selections, because it wouldn't be practical, especially on more complex shapes than a square (perhaps you already noticed that you loose the selection after clicking on a point with the Pen Tool).

therefore we would have to emphasize the anchor points to visible spots, to be able to easily connect the anchor points, thus without a need for selecting or mouse-hovering.

But why would you want to do this in the first place? Why not just draw the shape? In the process you connect the dots already.

You can also hit command + y to go to "wireframe mode" to see all points and lines and remove fills.

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Natobasso
dirtandrust.com
"Powerpoint is not a design application"

duplicating a layer to have visual reference might be a good idea. i'm going to try that.

well, the square was not the best example. actualy, i want to involve the points where the paths intersect each other, too.

i can't just draw a shape freehand, because the coordinates of the intersection points are unknown (they are a result of a intersection), but i'm able to create the intersection points using the Pathfinder palette. after that i try to connect the anchors with the intersection points.

Actually, dudes, there IS such a plugin, and it's free unlike those CADtools. Go to http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw/ - there are 2, "patharea" and "pathlength", names are pretty self-explanatory.