GarryP Posted November 23, 2019 Share Posted November 23, 2019 Just in case anyone is interested, I was playing around and came up with these simple dimensioning objects (in the attached afdesign file). To use them accurately you will have to snap to the grid, they don’t have automatic measurements, and they don’t work in all situations, but they can be used for simple drawings without too much fuss (you can see them working in the GIF). You might need to adjust some elements in some copies of the objects to make your drawing look right but it’s not too difficult. You can change the “Dimensions” Text Style font to get a different look and you can change the “Dimensions” colour in the “Dimensioning” Palette to create a quick blueprint (see last attached image). affinity-dimension-lines.afdesign Tatyana, shizuka, malayali and 15 others 16 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catlover Posted November 25, 2019 Share Posted November 25, 2019 Very useful, thank you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarryP Posted November 25, 2019 Author Share Posted November 25, 2019 You're welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ledoconguyen Posted December 25, 2019 Share Posted December 25, 2019 Very helpful, thank you so much for sharing it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lancifer Posted January 17, 2020 Share Posted January 17, 2020 Wow. Thanks for this. Definitely a time-saver. Sometimes I use photos for reference at my job. It can be a pain to fire up Autocad and import/scale the images just to make some quick annotations. Using these on various colored photos, with a simple Contrast Negate blend, really makes them stand out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarryP Posted January 17, 2020 Author Share Posted January 17, 2020 You’re welcome. Nice to hear that they have been useful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Puck Posted January 22, 2020 Share Posted January 22, 2020 Thanks a lot!! Quote iMac 2017, 16 GB RAM, Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 1536 MB, MacOS Ventura 13.6.6 (22G630) - Affinity V2-Universallizenz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarryP Posted January 22, 2020 Author Share Posted January 22, 2020 You're welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DutchDude Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 Awesome tool. But where do I find the Dimensioning Palette? I'm so clueless... First one I tried somehow the text turned gray. Put both the fill and outline to black the colour palette said were black but it was still gray. ungrouped them, transformed to curves, still gray. Just started over. And how can I extend just one of the legs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uneMule Posted June 8, 2020 Share Posted June 8, 2020 Bonjour GarryP, bonjour à tous. Bel exemple de l'utilisation des contraintes. Ca attise la curiosité Cordialement Good morning Garryp, good morning everyone. Good example of the use of constraints. It arouses curiosity Cordially Quote Toujours pas !Windows 10 Pro 21H2 - Intel Core i7-3630QM CPU @ 2.40GHz - 16 Gb Ram - GeForce GT 650M - Intel HD 4000 Affinity Photo | Affinity Designer | Affinity Publisher | 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarryP Posted June 11, 2020 Author Share Posted June 11, 2020 DutchDude: You can find the “Dimensioning” palette in the Swatches Panel. Open the drop-down menu in that panel (below “Recent”) and you should see it in that list somewhere. uneMule: Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackamus Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 On 11/23/2019 at 1:34 PM, GarryP said: Just in case anyone is interested, I was playing around and came up with these simple dimensioning objects (in the attached afdesign file). To use them accurately you will have to snap to the grid, they don’t have automatic measurements, and they don’t work in all situations, but they can be used for simple drawings without too much fuss (you can see them working in the GIF). You might need to adjust some elements in some copies of the objects to make your drawing look right but it’s not too difficult. You can change the “Dimensions” Text Style font to get a different look and you can change the “Dimensions” colour in the “Dimensioning” Palette to create a quick blueprint (see last attached image). affinity-dimension-lines.afdesign That is a very useful idea! Is this what you would call an 'Asset'? If yes then I could create a couple of these. I would normally snap to the object but it could also snap to near object but not the one you want. I've never tried snapping to the grid so next time I will give it a go. Quote If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed! Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools. To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable. Truth does not need to be protected only lies do. Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4 AD version 2.3.0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A_B_C Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 Very nice idea. 😀👨🎓 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarryP Posted July 28, 2020 Author Share Posted July 28, 2020 19 hours ago, jackamus said: Is this what you would call an 'Asset'? Yes, you could probably make these into Assets. I can’t remember why I said that you would need to snap to the grid, rather than snapping to other things, but I think it might be something to do with the way I used Constraints to get the various layers working together (notice the gap between the visible lines and the bounding box). I created these a while ago so there’s a good chance that someone can come up with better versions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackamus Posted July 28, 2020 Share Posted July 28, 2020 (edited) Hi Garry, I have taken your dimension file and edited to suit mysef. However I do not understand how the 'Buffer' works. It would work better if the Group bounding box coincided with the two extension lines (not the line with arrows). This would mean that I could drag a side handle so that it snapped the extension lines with edges of the rectangle then I could read off the text for the dimension value. File attached. I haven't yet tried to make it into an Asset. Dimensions.afdesign Edited July 28, 2020 by jackamus Additional information Quote If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed! Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools. To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable. Truth does not need to be protected only lies do. Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4 AD version 2.3.0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarryP Posted July 29, 2020 Author Share Posted July 29, 2020 I can’t remember why I added the buffer layer. I added a note in the name which says it’s a “work-around for group clipping” but I can’t remember what I meant by that. I don’t think I would have added it on purpose without needing to do so for some reason. However, that doesn’t mean that the reason for it is still valid (it might have been added for a purpose which no longer matters). Maybe it will come back to me at some point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackamus Posted July 29, 2020 Share Posted July 29, 2020 Yes I know the feeling! You forgot to comment on the attached file! I have attached another file to explain the problem. A Is using your method. When you click on the dimension group the bounding box does not coincide with the left and right extension lines. B Is a screen shot showing this. C Is how I used to do it long-hand so to speak. When made into a group the group bounding box coincides with the left and right extension lines. This mean that I can read off the dimension text from the Transform tab. However you idea saves a lot of time but there is that bounding box problem. Why is this? Quote If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed! Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools. To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable. Truth does not need to be protected only lies do. Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4 AD version 2.3.0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joachim_L Posted July 29, 2020 Share Posted July 29, 2020 Perhaps you can test this by 1. Deleting the buffer layer. 2. Ungrouping. 3. Grouping again. Hmm, this recipe seems only to work for the horizontal version. Quote ------ Windows 10 | i5-8500 CPU | Intel UHD 630 Graphics | 32 GB RAM | Latest Retail and Beta versions of complete Affinity range installed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A_B_C Posted July 29, 2020 Share Posted July 29, 2020 Would using a layer instead of a group make a difference? 😀 Layer.mov Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackamus Posted July 29, 2020 Share Posted July 29, 2020 Yes that would seem achieve the same result but as a 'Group' I have saved it as an Asset and can use it any time. Quote If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed! Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools. To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable. Truth does not need to be protected only lies do. Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4 AD version 2.3.0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A_B_C Posted July 29, 2020 Share Posted July 29, 2020 But since the bounding box of the layer is exactly as wide as the distance between the left extension line and the right extension line, you can snap it to the bounding box of the object to be measured when resizing (see my video). Isn’t that what you meant to achieve? 😀 Comparison.afdesign Markio 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A_B_C Posted July 29, 2020 Share Posted July 29, 2020 The downside of the layer approach is the click-through property of layers. You’ll always have to select the layer in the layers panel, rather than being able to grab it on the canvas. 😕 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackamus Posted July 29, 2020 Share Posted July 29, 2020 55 minutes ago, A_B_C said: But since the bounding box of the layer is exactly as wide as the distance between the left extension line and the right extension line, you can snap it to the bounding box of the object to be measured when resizing (see my video). Isn’t that what you meant to achieve? 😀 Comparison.afdesign Yes but the bounding box of the top example is wider than the object and will only snap to the handles of that box. Whereas in the lower example the bounding box is the same width as the object and snaps to the object. This achieves my objective and in a previous post I said that I made it into an 'Asset' for future use. The problem has now been solved the only question remaining is just academic. What is it ,in the upper example ,that creates a bounding box WIDER than its group? Quote If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed! Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools. To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable. Truth does not need to be protected only lies do. Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4 AD version 2.3.0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackamus Posted August 1, 2020 Share Posted August 1, 2020 I have created a 'Dimension' Asset and it works well and save me a lot of hassle. However I have just used to for the first time to dimension a drawing but I wanted to resize the drawing and the dimensions and discovered, although I had selected the 'Scale with object' the dimension text does not resize but stays at the same original size. Is there a way to do this? File attached. Dimensions.afdesign Quote If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed! Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools. To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable. Truth does not need to be protected only lies do. Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4 AD version 2.3.0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted August 1, 2020 Share Posted August 1, 2020 44 minutes ago, jackamus said: although I had selected the 'Scale with object' the dimension text does not resize As in DrawPlus, the ‘Scale with object’ option only applies to line weights. Also as in DP, Artistic Text resizes when you resize its container but Frame Text does not. Quote Alfred Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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