How to Make a Clock Face / Radial Design with Inkscape

My starting off point for learning how to make a radial design, specifically a clock face, with Inkscape was the information provided in Inkscape under Help > Tutorials > Tip and Tricks > 'Radial Placement with Tile Clones'. After messing around with Tile Clones for a bit I came up with some additional pieces of information which are integrated into the following step-by-step instructions.

1. Draw a Vertical Path
Select the Bezier Tool, click to make the top point, press and hold Ctrl (to keep it snapped to perpendicular), drag the mouse down, left click then right click to end the path.

2. Create Tiled Clones
Use the Select Tool to select the path you just drew. Then go to Edit > Clone > Create Tiled Clones.



In the first tab labeled 'Symmetry' choose P1. At the bottom of the tab, set Rows, columns: to 1 x 60 for minute marks, or 1 x 12 for hour marks.

[Note: If you want to know more about the notation system used for symmetries, read Designing Tessellations : The Secrets of Interlocking Patterns. It's a beautiful book about tesselated designs - the kind of tiled, interlocking designs found in M.C. Escher's artwork and patchwork quilts. The book's author, Jinny Beyer, is a master quilt-maker.]

Then go to the 'Shift' tab; set the Per Column Shift to -100 and leave the rest of the Shift values set to 0.

Next, click on the 'Rotation' tab. If you are making minute marks, the Per Row angle needs to be 6 degrees (6 x 60 = 360). If you are making hour marks, it should be 30 (30 x 12 = 360). Leave the other settings as they are.

The click on 'Create' to create the tiled clones. The result should look like this:

3. Edit the Primary Path
If for some reason the original path isn't still selected, use the Select Tool and click anywhere on the design. Then click Shift-D to select the primary clone. Choose the Node Tool to edit the path. Press Ctrl (snaps the angle to keep it straight) while selecting the bottom node and dragging it upward; all the clones will copy what is being done to the original. You should wind up with something like this:

That's pretty much it. If you want hour marks, simply repeat the process using the appropriate settings in the 'Shift' and 'Rotation' tabs of the Tile Clone dialog. To distinguish the hour marks from the minute marks, you can use a thicker line by setting a larger stroke width for the path.

Of course, you can get really fancy if you want to simply by continuing to edit the primary path. Below is a clock face using just 12 divisions; I added nodes to the original path.

You can also place objects in a radial pattern by first converting the original object to a path (Path > Object to Path) and then editing the path to add a 'lollipop handle'. (see update below for a better way to do this). Once the clones are made, you can edit the primary path and delete the lollipop handle. Below is an example of this technique using a star.

A 'lollipopped' star:

After cloning and editing:

Update May 30, 2008
There are a lot of different ways to do things, and I just found tutorial on YouTube which covers this topic; it is actually in two parts. For me the best tips were in part 2. Instead of adding a 'lollipop handle', you can change the center of rotation by double clicking on the object and moving the center of rotation itself, which is represented by the '+' sign. The other thing I learned was very basic: you can use the space bar to paste a copy of a selected object; this is called stamping. I prefer cloning for making radial designs, but the stamp trick is very handy. Check out both videos and see what you think -> Circular Array Tutorial, parts I & II.

~~~
Please leave a 'comment' if you need clarification or have a question.