Equivalent of Inset / Outset in Inkscape

[andmocychmen]

Hello,

I am looking for the equivalent of inset and outset in Inkscape. Can't find anything related in AD. There's something like that right?

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, BenjiGameDev said:

I am looking for the equivalent of inset and outset in Inkscape. Can't find anything related in AD. There's something like that right?

You could look at the Gaussian Blur layer effect. (Layer > Layer Effects... in the menu, or the fx icon at the bottom of the Layers panel).

[GarryP]

My understanding is that Inset and Outset are nothing like Gaussian Blur.
Inset/Outset take a shape and make it smaller/bigger (respectively) in respect to the original shape. A bit like a person getting thinner or fatter.
See here: https://inkscape.org/doc/tutorials/advanced/tutorial-advanced.html (and scroll down).
There’s currently no Inset/Outset function in Designer (or the other Affinity apps) but you can sort of mock them by expanding a stroke and doing some editing. Not neat, but usable in some case.

[v_kyr]

See also:

• Inkscape - Path Offsetting (Inset/Outset)

[GarryP]

Here’s a very quick and crude example where the black line is the original shape, the orange shape is “Inset” and the blue shape is “Outset”.
The Lasso selection mode of the Node Tool is very useful for this.

[v_kyr]

The AD FX outline effect can partly visual emulate this behavior via the radius and allignment (inside/middle/outside) settings.

[walt.farrell]

I may have been confusing it with Inset-Outset Halo (which is used to blur). If so, sorry.

[GarryP]

Walt: Ah, I see what you mean. The Inset/Outset the OP is asking about seems to be the non-blurring functionality as shown in the screenshot but I could be wrong (they may have given the wrong screenshot, easily done).

[firstdefence]

This may help to understand the Inkscape commands

Offset paths: http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Paths-Editing.html#Paths-Offsets

Basically the only way to create a similar effect in Affinity is to use strokes of a given size and expand them, so inset would be to align the stroke to the inside and then expand the stroke, and outset would be to align the stroke to the outside and expand.

You expand the stroke by using the (main menu at the top) Layer > Expand Stroke.

There is no specific offset path feature in Affinity apps at the moment.

[andmocychmen]

Thanks all,

A little bummed this feature isn't there  but the Expand workaround is usable. 

So I did:

1. draw shape 1.
2. duplicate shape 1 as shape 2.
3. add stroke to shape 2.
4. modify thickness of stroke of shape 2 as desired (observing inside our outside of stroke as required).
5. expand shape 2 as shape 3.
6. delete shape 2.
7. duplicate shape 1 as shape 4.
8. subtract shape 1 to shape 4 or vice versa as required.

Kinda convoluted, especially for large pieces of work like world maps where each region would have inset and outset borders in land and sea respectively. That's going to be a real pain in the bubu.

It'd be nice to have this in AD.

[firstdefence]

@BenjiGameDev Totally agree, I'm sure It will be added at some point but possibly not until version 2 but hopefully sooner if we offer blood sacrifices to the Affinity features fairies on the last day of tomorrow 

[Move Along People]

 

[GarryP]

That looks great. I think a lot of people will be happy when that comes.

Shame, for me at least, that they are using Twitter - which I don't use - to give these things an airing. Would be nice to see them here.

[Move Along People]

-

[Atreides]

On 12/24/2019 at 12:18 PM, BenjiGameDev said:

Hello,

I am looking for the equivalent of inset and outset in Inkscape. Can't find anything related in AD. There's something like that right?

 

Not sure if it will be still useful for you, but for anyone else who is looking for the same function in Affinity. I found out, how to do this: You have to select nodes you want to transform and toggle transform mod. Then you drag any corner while holding shift+ctrl - this is how you can scale your rectangle up or down while it stays centered (holding shift makes the rectangle keeps its proportions while holding ctrl makes it centered on its original place). You can scale rectangle as you wish and you dont lose any nodes as it may happen with using inset/outset in inkscape. True, this is not so fast as in Inkscape, but bit more flexible on other hand. Hope this helps :)

[sfriedberg]

Unfortunately, scaling a vector is not the same thing as offsetting a vector.  For a simple shape like a circle or a square, you get the same results.  For text or any object with some concavity, the results are very, very different.

Creating contours in CorelDRAW is something I do reasonably often, and it would be nice to have the capability in Affinity Designer.

[dvelh]

Trying to find path inset/outset as well. It's still not there after AD2 update?

[walt.farrell]

Does the Contour Tool provide this? I think it's new since the question was asked.

[dvelh]

Hi,

Yes I found it already as I found another thread about this same topic. They mentioned something about upcoming "contour tool". I decided to try my luck and went through the tools in the left-hand tools panel and found it was already there.

It's doing exactly the thing i'm looking for. I'm coming from Illustrator and and if you menu-dive in there you would find it's called inset & outset path.

As a non native English speaker I have no idea how the word "contour" describes what the tool does but I'm glad I found it after all

Thanks!