Is there an easy way to do a polka dot?

[dvddvd 14]

I want to make a polka dot stencil? It needs to be 600mm x 600mm and the cut out circles 10mm diameter

Similar to this https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/776203495/thick-polka-dots-stencil

I have some uber airbrush vinyl

Is there an easy way to get everything lined up symmetrical ? Thats automatic instead of manually putting 100s of circles on the design?

Thanks

[slice&dice 2,450]

"Duplicate" ---  exponentially adding circles -- 2 will be 4, 4 to 8, 8 to 16, etc.

There is an "Alignment" function to line things up (Center to Center -- Selected objects)

In order to space them out from each other, there's an old trick I learned --- duplicate with your dupe offset exactly as required. (0 vertical, N horizontal) N being whatever distance between them you require.

[slice&dice 2,450]

By the way, with summer coming, and people returning to the beach, here ya go --

 

[dvddvd 14]

It seems a hard way if each row is 30 circles x 30 circles that's 900 circles to align? And each row is off set to the previous one?

I have found a 300mm x 300mm vector polka dot online of 10mm circles which would mean duplicating it and aligning it 9 x to get the 600mm x 600mm

[Wilson 43]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't part of the reason this seems daunting is because you're not real comfortable with the software yet and don't know exactly how to do this?  If it were me, I'd either do what Slice suggested or just start laying and aligning circles.  Shouldn't take more than a few minutes either way.

Personally, as easy as this is I'd stay away from a pre-done vector I found on the web because you could run into more problems if the person messed that graphic up.

[slice&dice 2,450]

I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Time no longer has value while under lockdown. A minor project like this should be a welcome thing!

[dvddvd 14]

I think it will send me mad!

If it's all lined up it would look great but I fear things will drift a little after 600 circles? And I'll start hallucinating...

[Wildgoose 4,200]

There are alignment tools in VM that will make short work of this. You may have some practicing to learn to use them. There should be options to align to top or bottom or sides and some distribution options to spread them out uniformly. Once you get the first row done make another full copy of the first row and remove one circle and it should be perfect to be the second row. Once you have these two just stack copies in and use the same alignment tools on the groups of circles you did on the individual circles. 600mm is what... about 24 inches So your talking about 30 circles and 29 spaces or 31 circles and 30 spaces. You only have to deal with the individual circles for a single row then you are dealing with about 30 more groups of them. If I was at my regular workstation I couple whip this out in about 10 minutes in Adobe and I'm pretty sure VM has similar tools. At least the upper levels do. Inkscape will as well. 

[Sue2 920]

In CorelDraw it's called step & repeat....and, the VM tools are very similar to those in Corel.

[darcshadow 1,626]

Inkscape has a clone function and you specify the number of row, columns, and offsets. You get a grid as big as you want perfectly aligned instantly. I have not played with VM enough to know, but I would assume it has a similar function.

[haumana 1,220]

leading a horse to water people.

[bikemike 711]

Never done a dot before.

Did 310 at 1.5 inch each. Took less than 1 min. to design it.

620 would have been another 3.5 seconds.

[MZ SKEETER 4,708]

That would take "excellent" tracking to cut those perfect. 

[dvddvd 14]

I spent ages on the step and repeat and finally through the towel in!

Then found the tile function, made one 10mm circle, aligned it in top left corner. Clicked 32 x 32 amount in tile function with a 20mm spacing and in 5 seconds I had a page full of beautiful circles.

Then set nudge to 10mm and selected every other line and nudged the pre set 10mm with arrow key.

After spending a couple of hours going round in circles on the step and repeat it took 3 mins in the tile function

[haumana 1,220]

It's part of learning your software better.