Effects & Colour Tools

A toolbox of Illustrator-style effects and colour helpers: reshape objects, soften or glow their edges, scribble a fill, drop printer crop marks, build tint/harmony palettes, pull colours from an image, and add print bleed. Most are one click in the Command Palette (Ctrl/⌘ + K) or the right-click menu, and every one has a window.Yappy API.

Convert to Shape

Replace any selected object with a rectangle, rounded rectangle or ellipse sized to its bounding box — handy to box a label or normalise a messy import. Command Palette → Convert to Shape: …

const Y = window.Yappy;
Y.convertToShape('ellipse');          // selection → ellipse
Y.convertToShape('rounded', 24);      // rounded rect, 24px corner radius

Split Into Grid & Convert to Guides

Split Into Grid turns a rectangle into a tidy rows × cols grid of cells — the fast way to start a grid-based logo or layout. Convert to Guides then turns selected shapes into ruler guides at their edges (Illustrator’s ⌘5) and removes the shapes, leaving a clean guide scaffold.

UI: select a rectangle → Command Palette (Ctrl/⌘ + K) → Split Into Grid (4×4); then with the cells selected run Convert Shapes to Guides.

const id = Y.createRectangle(0, 0, 400, 400, { backgroundColor: 'transparent', strokeColor: '#000' });
Y.splitIntoGrid(4, 4, 0, id);         // 16 cells (rows, cols, gap, id)
Y.select(Y.getSelection());           // …select the cells, then:
Y.convertToGuides();                  // drop guides at every cell edge

3D Extrude

Give any shape or text depth — Illustrator's Effect ▸ 3D ▸ Extrude & Bevel, the classic "3D text" look. A non-destructive shaded back face + side walls draw behind the shape (their colour derives from the fill), and the flat front stays fully editable. Renders in both Sketch and Architectural styles.

Property panel → 3D EXTRUDE: + Add 3D Extrude, then drag Depth (length), Angle (direction), Tilt X/Y (rotate the shape in 3D), Bevel (a lit chamfer on the front edge), and Shade (wall darkness). Expand bakes the result into editable face elements (front / side / back) — which also makes it SVG-exportable. Or right-click → Repeat & Mirror ▸ 3D Extrude.

Yappy.setExtrude({ depth: 40, angle: 135, rotX: 25, rotY: -20, shade: 0.4 });
Yappy.expandExtrude();   // bake to editable front/side/back face paths
Yappy.clearExtrude();

3D text: extrude works on a shape's outline, and a text element's outline is its bounding box — so for extruded letters, right-click → Convert to Outlines first, then apply 3D. (Real shapes — stars, circles, paths — extrude directly.)

Images: extruding a photo keeps its pixels — the bitmap is painted onto the (foreshortened) front face when you Tilt or Bevel it, and Expand emits a real image element for the front (plus the shaded side/back face paths), so the picture is never flattened to a solid colour.

Turntable (rotate in 3D)

Spin a flat vector shape around as if it were a 3D object — Adobe's Project Turntable idea. Unlike 3D Extrude (which adds depth behind the shape), Turntable rotates the artwork itself about a vertical or horizontal axis, and at every angle the result stays a clean, editable path. It's non-destructive and renders in both Sketch and Architectural styles.

Property panel → TURNTABLE (3D SPIN) (shown only for shapes that can become a path): + Add Turntable (a non-path shape is converted to a path first), then drag Yaw (spin about the vertical axis), Pitch (tilt), and Persp. The Volume model chooses how depth is faked: Flat just foreshortens the sheet (always correct); Symmetry gives it a rounded, cylinder-like bulge — the mirror axis is auto-detected — so a turned figure or logo reads as solid. With Symmetry you also get a Depth slider and a Reveal back face toggle that draws the mirrored far side, so a strong turn shows the occluded back (a closed 3D volume). Bake commits the current angle into a real editable path (single undo); Remove restores the flat shape.

Group turntable: select two or more shapes and the panel switches to TURNTABLE — GROUP. The whole selection spins as one rig about a shared axis (the selection centre), so members orbit together (position + shape) rather than each spinning in place. Bake tightens each member's bounds to its new position.

Yappy.turntable({ yaw: 35, pitch: 10, depthModel: 'symmetry', depthScale: 0.6, reveal: true });
Yappy.turntable({ yaw: 40 }, [id1, id2, id3]);   // group rig: spin several together
Yappy.bakeTurntable();   // freeze this viewpoint as editable path(s)
Yappy.clearTurntable();

Animate the spin: click ↻ Spin 360° in the panel to auto-keyframe a full rotation across the timeline (one click — no manual keyframing). For finer control, Turntable Yaw and Pitch are also keyframable channels in the animation / dope-sheet panel. Either way it scrubs, plays, and exports to video/HTML like any other keyframed property. Yappy.spinTurntable360().

AI reconstruction (experimental): for a true "redraw from this angle" result, set the Yaw/Pitch to the viewpoint you want, then use one of two buttons (single shape; needs an API key set in AI Settings — same browser-direct, bring-your-own-key model as every other Yappy AI feature). Both invent the newly-visible parts and insert the result as a new element beside the original (nothing is overwritten):

✨ AI Redraw — a vision model (Claude / OpenAI / Gemini) redraws the shape as clean editable vector paths. Cleaner and cheaper; best on simple/symmetric art. Yappy.reconstructTurntableAI({ yaw: 40 }).
✨ AI Reimagine — an OpenAI image model repaints the shape at the new angle (better at inventing hidden detail), then it's auto-traced to colour vector paths. More faithful, but messier vectors and OpenAI-only. Yappy.reconstructTurntableAI({ yaw: 40, mode: 'image' }).

Results vary run to run; with no key either button just reports and you fall back to the deterministic Bake.

Best on symmetric art: the deterministic rounded look and back-face reveal are inferred from a vertical mirror axis, so characters, bottles, and logos turn most convincingly. The reveal is a mirror of what's already there; the AI reconstruction above is the tier that actually re-imagines hidden detail from the new viewpoint.

Transform Effect (live copies)

A non-destructive effect that draws many accumulating copies of an object — Illustrator’s Effect ▸ Distort & Transform ▸ Transform. Each copy applies the same per-step move / rotate / scale / reflect one more time, so a small rotation builds a radial fan or rosette, and rotate-plus-shrink-plus-move builds a spiral. The original stays a single editable object — change the base and every copy updates. Renders in both Sketch and Architectural styles.

Right-click a selection → Repeat & Mirror ▸ Transform Effect (live) for presets (Radial Fan, Rosette, Spiral, Echo), then Expand to Elements to bake the copies into real, editable objects, or Remove Effect to clear it.

Y.setTransformEffect({ copies: 11, rotate: 30, originX: 0, originY: 0.5 }); // radial fan
Y.setTransformEffect({ copies: 14, rotate: 22, scaleX: 0.86, scaleY: 0.86, moveX: 8, moveY: -6 }); // spiral
Y.expandTransformEffect();  // bake copies 1..N into real elements
Y.clearTransformEffect();   // remove the effect

Pivot: originX/originY are bbox fractions (0–1, default centre 0.5). Set originX:0 to rotate about the left edge for a fan that opens outward. Known limits (first cut): scale is uniform, and Expand bakes cleanly for move + rotate + uniform-scale + reflect (non-uniform-scale-with-rotation baking is a follow-up).

Feather & Outer Glow

Feather softly blurs an object’s edges to transparent — great for soft shadows, vignettes or a dreamy halo. Outer Glow adds a coloured halo around the object (a shadow with zero offset). Both are non-destructive element properties; set the radius to 0 / pass enabled:false to remove.

How to reach it: the property panel has a GLOW & FEATHER section with live sliders — Feather radius, and an Outer Glow toggle with colour + radius. They’re also in the right-click Effects ✨ menu (presets) and the command palette (⌘/Ctrl-K). Scribble is in the Effects menu / palette too. Or script them:

Y.setFeather(8);                          // 8px soft edge on the selection
Y.setGlow({ color: '#00e5ff', blur: 18 }); // cyan outer glow
Y.setGlow({ enabled: false });            // remove the glow

A canvas has a single shadow slot, so an object shows either a drop shadow or an outer glow — the drop shadow wins if both are set.

Scribble

Turn a fill into a hand-drawn scribble of back-and-forth strokes in the fill colour — instant sketch energy. Control the line spacing, angle and stroke width.

Y.scribble({ spacing: 8, angle: 0, strokeWidth: 2 });

Right-click a path → Smooth also relaxes janky curves (Laplacian smoothing, keeping the anchor count) — the counterpart to Simplify, which reduces points.

Y.smoothPath(undefined, 0.5, 2);   // strength 0..1, iterations

Crop marks & print bleed

Toggle crop marks on an object to draw printer registration marks at its corners. For documents, set a bleed margin (Settings → Print Bleed) — a dashed bleed boundary plus crop marks are drawn around every artboard so artwork can run off the trim edge.

Y.toggleObjectCropMarks(true);   // crop marks on the selection
Y.setBleed(20);                  // 20px bleed + artboard crop marks

Colour Guide — tints, harmonies & palette-from-image

Build palettes the way a designer does. Tints gives a light→dark ramp around a base colour; harmonies derive complementary / analogous / triadic / split-complementary / tetradic / monochromatic sets. The colour theme picker extracts the dominant colours from any image, and you can recolour the selection onto any palette.

Y.generateTints('#3366cc');                       // [light … #3366cc … dark]
Y.generateHarmony('#ff0000', 'triadic');          // 3 evenly-spaced hues
Y.applyHarmonyToSelection('#ff0000', 'complementary');
const pal = await Y.extractImagePalette(imageId, 6); // dominant colours
Y.applyPaletteToSelection(pal);                   // recolour onto them
Y.shuffleSelectionColors();                       // randomise the order

Swatch groups & swatch info sheet

Organise global swatches into named groups, and generate a labelled swatch info sheet (colour chip + name + hex + RGB) for brand guidelines. UI: open the Swatches panel (Alt + W, or View → Swatches) to add, group and apply swatches; the info sheet drops onto the canvas.

Y.createSwatch('#112233', 'navy', 'Brand');   // colour, name, group
Y.createSwatchGroupFromSelection('Palette');  // selection colours → group
Y.createSwatchInfoSheet({ columns: 4 });      // labelled chips on the canvas