Blend lines along font letters illustrator

Question

Hi i'd like to achieve this final result with those letters made out of thin lines..How do I achieve that? I want to use the Myriad font. I know about the replace spine method but does it work for my purpose?

thanks

Answer 1

It's a multi-step process, and a bit painful, imho, but it seems like this technique would work:

• Create a path along the center line of the character or character segment.

• Create the blend using line segments about 50% longer than you will need, and the total blend at least as long as you need.

• Replace spine.

• Adjust the end points of the blend for perpendicularity to the shape.

• Adjust the spine path as needed. This also changes line angles, so there's plenty of room for tweaking.

• Object > Expand (I left everything checked in the dialog.)

That gets you to about here (I didn't do most of the tweaking you'd need to do):

• Copy the original character, paste in place (Ctl/Cmd-F) and move above the expanded blend.

• Object > Clipping Mask > Make gets you this:

• Remove unwanted overlaps (line segments overlapping other line segments) and tweak awkward angles by hand. These are all live strokes, so it's not too much of a pain. The end result is below. This is a very crude example, but I think this would be workable as a technique. (Note: There's an anti-aliasing artifact in the screen capture that makes it look like the blacks are protruding from the edges of the character. They don't, in fact.)

Answer 2

This would require hand manipulation of the lines.

There's no method - blends, patterns, pattern brushes, etc. - which could accomplish this. This is especially true due to the varying character stroke widths and varying angles of the inner lines.

You could use blends or pattern brushes for some areas, but in the end you would still need to manually place lines and manipulate them to complete many characters.