Shapes and folds
Waving some edges and not others
A banner scalloped on three sides has to stand on a flat bottom. Naming the sides gets each one its own whole number of waves, and leaves the rest dead straight.
3 min read
The obvious way to scallop three sides of a rectangle is to wave the whole perimeter and then straighten one. That is not what happens here, and the difference shows at the corners.
Four arrangements
| Choice | Waved | Straight |
|---|---|---|
| All round | The whole perimeter | Nothing |
| Top | The top edge | Sides and bottom |
| Sides | Left and right | Top and bottom |
| Top & sides | Top, left and right | The bottom |
The screen offers these four rather than a free list of sides, because they are the arrangements a job sheet asks for. At the command line the sides are named individually — top, bottom, left, right, comma separated, or all.
Why each side gets its own count
Each named side is given its own whole number of waves. That puts the displacement at exactly zero at every corner, so a waved edge meets a straight one without a step, and the sides you did not name stay dead straight along their whole length.
Wave the whole perimeter of a rectangle instead and the count has to divide the perimeter, not each side — the wave arrives at a corner mid-cycle, and the corner is where the eye goes.
All round is still the right answer for a circle or an ellipse. Neither has a corner to anchor to, so there is nothing for a per-side count to line up with.
Picking the sides
- A banner that stands on a table wants top and sides, so the bottom is a flat edge to stand on.
- A hanging banner usually wants sides only: the top is where it is fixed and the bottom is where it is weighted.
- A shelf talker or a header card wants top only.
The same reasoning drives the corner radius arrangements — top only leaves the bottom square, which is the edge a panel stands on. They are two controls answering the same question about the same edge, and it is worth setting them to agree.
The depth, the wavelength and the band the scallop eats out of the artwork all behave the same way whichever sides you name. Scalloped and wavy edges covers those.
Try it on your own artwork
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