DrGrafix

Just curious if I reformat my Mac is its pita to confirm license purchase? Not using time machine.

I have a friend who has a CNC Plasma cutting table, its 5 feet by 10 feet. Currently he's using it to build flat brackets for the specialty automotive market. He's not CAD-savvy and uses Seimens free Solidworks program to make simple part shapes. We are both gear heads LOL, and I asked him if he could cut a flat pattern for a radiator shroud. Thats the tray/box like thing behind the radiator where the fan goes. I'm not very CAD savvy myself, so I created a detailed dimensional drawing in VISIO, and saved it as a PDF. I was also able to extract the main piece without dimensions and then save that to DWG in Visio. What is pretty cool is that I emailed him the files and he was able to open and edit my DWG-saved file. We haven't cut the shape yet, there's a bit of a logistical problem with him being 100 miles away, but here's an image of my two drawings, and a quick "Illustration" I created in Photoshop plus some test-fit pix. Only used PS because I haven't yet grasped all the image manipulation aspects of Affinity Photo. Just for kicks, I have built a few prototypes to check for fit and dimensional reference, and its worked out pretty good. Bottom line is that I think DXF and DWG... being the world standard for CAD should get the utmost consideration. I haven't looked at Affinity Designer, but if I could create a component design in Affinity Designer that could be exported as a DXF/DWG I'm halfway on board. Getting Affinity to import/export DXF, DWG, and CDR... well, ca-ching, there goes my credit card. Please work on this. MyShroud-XDRev3-041420.pdf MyShroud-XX-Rev4-041420.dwg

I've been a longtime user/devotee to CorelDraw, and yes... its amazing how many industries use CorelDraw as a tool for graphic design and execution. Many CNC pieces of equipment will use CDR files to do a variety of things from printing to cutting vinyl and other materials. I think many people in the vehicle wrap business use Corel's CDR files. Corel's GUI is very user friendly, and while I prefer Photoshop to CorelPaint, its the old story about the more you use it, the more you like it. I'm trying to ween off PS because of Catalina and trying to get more familiar with Infinity Photo. Ironically, I have kept around a PC specifically for two products; CorelDraw and VISIO. IIRC, in CorelDraw you could save files to an incredible number of formats, even DXF (CAD type drawings). Same goes for VISIO... you can save a VISIO drawing to almost anything including PDFs, DWG, and I think DXF. The latter two being AutoCAD standards for the world. Affinity Photo can "export" as a PDF, PSD, JPG and several other formats. If you Google "VISIO for MAC" you'd see how many people are wishing there was something as intuitive as VISIO that ran on a Mac. If Affinity's team created a hybrid that perhaps brought Corel and Visio capabilities and file saving into the Designer product, I'd buy it in a heartbeat, and probably so would many others.

LOL... yeah Bruce, I missed that one. Maybe .AFX ? I'm schooled in the Bauhuas ideals... less IS better.

A full blown CAD would be nice for the truly technical folks, but for the average user a VISIO-like addition with easy 2D/3D design capabilities would be great. I used to use Visio for all sorts of things like floorplans and creating simple 2D layouts that could be saved as DXF type files. There's plenty of CAD programs out there, but most are pretty complicated. And now with 3D printing a virtual home hobby, the ability to create a simple 2D or 3D design and print out a small part within a familiar suite would be awesome.

I'm also new to this software, and its a bit confusing (maybe unnerving LOL) to see such a long file extension when we've been conditioned for decades to 3-character file extensions like PSD, CDR, PDF, JPG, TIF, DXF, and dozens more. Many of us are trying to migrate from the Adobe and Corel mindset, and I think it would be more understandable if the native file extension were something like AFP for Affinity Photo, AFD for Designer, AFP for Publisher.