Dear Alan, I have the following sample (as I wrote, this is addictive ;-)): \startMPpage draw fullcircle scaled (.06TextWidth - .05LineHeight); for m=1 step 2 until 10 : path s ; s := (dir30--dir150--dir315--dir90--dir225--cycle) scaled m; n := (m * 50) ; o := (m / 5) ; for i=0 upto n : draw textext("\utfchar{"EB09}") scaled (o * .025) shifted point (i/n*length s) of s ; endfor endfor \stopMPpage dir seems magic to me. I don’t understand how it works, not even how it can be used for drawing not having an origin. Would it be possible that all stars are vertically centered? How should be the path defined? Many thanks for your help, Pablo -- http://www.ousia.tk