Creating gears
The Gears LPE creates gears around each node of a skeleton path and adjusts the gear radius and the number of teeth , in order to make the device realistic. This effect can be employed, for example, to add a busy, mechanical look to a background In this recipe we will take the LPE for a spin (no pun intended!) and create a very simple array of gears.
How to do it...
The following steps will show how to create gears around a path:
1. Use the Pen tool (Shift + F6 or B) to create a path with seven nodes by clicking on the canvas. Zigzag the nodes' positions (it doesn't matter if the segments are straight or curved).
2. Open the Path Effect Editor by using Shift + Ctrl + 7 or by going to Path | Path Effect Editor....
3. Under Apply new effect, choose Gears and press the Add button. Notice that gears appear around some of the nodes. Things don't look quite right: such a machine would probably crash and burn as soon as it is operated!
4. Enter 20 in both the Teeth and the Phi (Pressure...
