Guided Fill

What it is

Generate curved fill with guide lines.

How to Create

• Create a closed path with a fill color. This shape may have holes.
• Create a guide line to define stitch directions:
  • draw a line with a stroke color and without a fill color
  • select that line
  • run Extensions > Ink/Stitch > Edit > Selection to guide line
• Select both and group them together (Ctrl + G).
• Open the params dialog (Extensions > Ink/Stitch > Params) and select Guided fill as the fill method.

Each group is allowed to contain more than one fill object, but only one guide line is effective and will be used to guide all the shapes of the group, guiding each shape with the intersection of the shape and the guide line. In that case, a shape that does not intersect the guide line will be filled with a regular auto fill. The group is also allowed to contain regular stroke objects. On the canvas, a marker allows to distinguish a guide line from a regular stroke.

If the group contains several guide lines, only one is effective. If the guide line is a composite path, only one subpath is used as a guide line. However it is possible to use sinuous guide line , that may even cross the shape border many times.

Filling Strategies

Two filling strategies are allowed for guided fill:

Copy

Copy (the default) will fill the shape with shifted copies of the line. Sometimes, in particular is the guide line has sharp angles, it may result in a very irregular covering.

Parallel offset

Parallel offset will ensure that each line is always a consistent distance from its neighbor. Sharp corners may be introduced.

Set Start and End Point

Set start and end points for autofill objects with Visual commands.

Params

Run Extensions > Ink/Stitch > Params to tweak the settings to your needs.

Settings		Description
Automatically routed fill stitching	☑	Must be enabled for these settings to take effect.
Fill method	Guided Fill	Guided Fill must be selected.
Guided Fill Strategy		Copy( défaut), top, fill the shape with copies of the guide lines. Parallel offset, bottom, will ensure that each line is always a consistent distance from its neighbor. Sharp corners may be introduced.
Expand		Expand the shape before fill stitching, to compensate for gaps between shapes.
Maximum fill stitch length		The length of each stitch in a row. “Max” is because a shorter stitch may be used at the start or end of a row.
Spacing between rows		Distance between rows of stitches
Running stitch length		Length of stitches used when moving from section to section
Running Stitch tolerance		All stitches must be within this distance of the path. A lower tolerance means stitches will be closer together. A higher tolerance means sharp corners may be rounded.
Skip last stitch in each row		The last stitch in each row is quite close to the first stitch in the next row. Skipping it decreases stitch count and density.
Stagger this many times before repeating		Stitches are staggered so that neighboring rows of stitches don’t all fall in the same column (which would create a distracting valley effect). Setting this dictates how many rows apart the stitches will be before they fall in the same column position.
Underpath		Must be enabled to let running stitches travel inside shape instead of around the border when moving from section to section
Allow lock stitches		Enables lock stitches in only desired positions
Force lock stitches		Sew lock stitches after sewing this element, even if the distance to the next object is smaller than defined in the collapse length value value in the Ink/Stitch prefreneces.
Trim After		Trim the thread after sewing this object.
Stop After		Stop the machine after sewing this object. Before stopping it will jump to the stop position (frame out) if defined.

Underlay

Underlay in Guided Fill doesn’t follow the guide line, but uses the fill angle which can be defined in the underlay params.

Samples Files Including Guided Fill Stitches