Gimp tutorial: How to use paths and selections to create a nice pie chart

Hello everyone,

This is a beginner level tutorial to show you how to use guidelines and how to use paths in conjunction with selection tools in order to create a nice pie chart as practice example.

Start with a new 600px x 600px with a white background, and setup two guide lines for centering as in Picture 1.

Create a circle selection using the ellipse selection tool . Hold down SHIFT + CTRL keys to create a perfect circle centered at guide lines intersection as in Picture 2.

Now from the Select menu click To Path ( Picture 3).

You will see in the path dialog the newly created circle path (Picture 4). Rename the path to circle for reference. Press CTRL+SHIFT+A to remove any selection.

Ok, it’s time to begin our pie slicing. Remember to keep the guide lines in place. First we will create the slice paths and then we’ll complete the pie.

Click on the eye icon at the left of the circle path icon in order to make the path visible. See Picture 5.

Select from the ToolBox the Path Tool or press the B key. See Picture 6.

Create a path as in Picture 7 from outside the circle to the intersection of the guide lines and again outside the circle. On the Toolbox click Selection from Path button. You will get a selection as in Picture 8. Go to the Path Dialog window (Picture 9), right click on circle path and choose intersect with selection from the menu (Picture 10).

You will get a selection as in Picture 11. Go to Select menu and choose To Path. You will obtain a new path as in Picture  12. Rename the path to sector 1. Hit CTRL+SHIFT+A to remove the selections.

So far we got our first pie sector. To create the next sector we switch to our knife path and drag the left (outside the circle) node of the path to the new cut position as in Picture 13.

We’ll repeat the steps above to create another 2 more sectors :
- path to selection
- right click on the circle path and intersect with selection
- selection to path
After this we have the configuration of the paths as in Picture 14.

We are now ready to start coloring the pie. Go to the Layers dialog window and add another transparent layer. Named it sectors. See Picture 15 for details.

This layer will contain our sectors.

Go back to the Paths dialog and right-click on the sector 1 path. Choose Path to Selection from the menu. From the Toolbox choose a color of your choice and drag it into the selection. See Picture 16 for result.

Repeat the operation above for each path and choose your preferred color for each sector. I have colored mine like in Picture 17.

Switch to the layers dialog window and select the background layer. Go to the Path dialog window, right click on the circle path and choose Path to Selection. Fill the selection with a color of your choice.

That’s it. Hope you enjoyed my tutorial.

Here is the final image:

Gimp tutorial: How to use paths and selections to create a nice pie chart, 9.9 out of 10 based on 8 ratings