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You are here: Home / Shape Design / ShapeSheet Formulas / Understanding Segments of Visio Geometry

Published on February 21, 2024 by David Parker

Understanding Segments of Visio Geometry

I recently had to revise my understanding of the POINTALONGPATH(…) function in Visio because I was getting a #REF! error in some cases. My particular scenario requires a line with a number of vertices that are initially all in a straight line but can be moved by dragging controls around that each vertex is bound to. My assumption had been that a segment of a path is always between vertices in a geometry section, but this is not the case. So, I thought I would look deeper into the ShapeSheet functions of paths and segments. The following screenshots show a series of ShapeSheet formulas and the result of them on a single line that has 4 vertices that can be moved using a yellow control that they are bound to. Notice how the PATHLENGTH(…) formula fails to understand the segment parameter until the vertices are moved.

  • A straight line with 4 vertices
  • Then 1 vertex moved
  • With 2 vertices moved

In case the screenshots are a little dry, I have recorded a short video to explain further.

My own need was for a boundary shape around some other shapes where I wanted to make the segments disappear if they were outside of the Visio page. The unexpected #REF! values were causing distortions because the co-ordinates were failing to update.

However, I can see that this understanding of line segments and points will be useful in many types of diagrams.

For completeness, I thought I would try the same exercise with a PolyLineTo row rather than multiple LineTo rows.

  • A straight PolyLine with 4 vertices
  • Then 1 vertex moved
  • With 2 vertices moved

The PolyLineTo formula does have the advantage of being a single row, but this means that the PATHLENGTH(…) function does not have a segment index to that can be used to calculate with. In fact a PolyLineTo row does have two segments, but the last one is always 0 length!

  • Muliple LineTo Geometry rows
  • A single PolyLineTo Geometry ow

However, I was able to calculate the lengths of each segment in both cases, by using the co-ordinates of the Controls in the Tip cell for each Controls row with the SQRT(…) and POW(…) functions..

  • PATHLENGTH() matches trigonometry formula for LineTos
  • PATHLENGTH() not available for PolyLineTo row

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Filed Under: Shape Design, ShapeSheet Formulas Tagged With: ShapeSheet, ShapeSheet Functions, Visio

About David Parker

David Parker has 25 years' experience of providing data visualization solutions to companies around the globe. He is a Microsoft MVP and Visio expert.

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Comments

  1. john m says

    February 27, 2024 at 1:25 am

    Was the team able to explain the behaviour?

    Reply
    • David Parker says

      May 12, 2024 at 8:16 pm

      I think they have their hands full enhancing Visio for the Web….

      Reply

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