Combining the Shapes

After arranging the shapes use the union tool to combine the shape by selecting two shapes at a time.

For example, select the vertical rectangle and semi-circle, then use combine tool. Then select the combined shape and above horizontal rectangle, then follow same process to combine them too.

Now let us look at all the process at once:

• Thus we see that the basic shapes which make the test tube are rectangles and a semi-circle. These basic shapes of rectangle and semi-circle are available to us in Inkscape.

Drawing and arranging Basic Shapes

Let us see how we can do this in Inkscape. In this process we will also learn a few new tools.

• First create a rectangle of height 400 px and width 100 px using the Rectangle Tool
• Remove Fill colour and keep only Stroke (outline colour)
• Create a circle with diameter of 100 px using the Ellipse tool
• Make it a semi-circle with help of Ellipse tool.
• Align the rectangle and circle with help of Align tool
• Now move the rectangle closer to the circle so that they touch each other
• Combine the rectangle and circle into a single shape using the Union option in Path

• The test tube can be thought of as composed of two rectangles and a semi-circle as shown below:

• To make clear the different shapes we arrange the shapes as shown below