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outline / offset path function


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Hello:

I have seen several posts about offset path, but I don´t know what are you exactly meaning. Affinity Designer has a posibility of using outline strokes with 2 different ways: appearance panel and FX panel.

Way 1: appearance panel

image.png.2c90bfedbc7c7b1e3fd623f0caaccca1.png

 

Way 2: FX panel

image.png.512b870d488b6a7913b75e0862ba1f86.png

 

I don´t know what is the problem for using this ways instead asking an offset path tool.

 

Thanks.

 

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@spsorrel: What you just showed is far from beeing an adequate equivalent to an "offset path" function (or however you might name it) like, for example, Illustrator has it. In some situations you need an  editable copy of path with a defined  offset (positive or negative) from the original path. For example in signmaking business (where I come from), to have a cutting path for stickers and that is just one example. In fact, at work ( where I use Illustrator) I need this every day. As a home solution Affinity is a good app, but there are still some basics missing for professional use, regarding on what you have to do with it. Yes, there are "workarounds" for most issues but they are not always efficient.

Despite that, Affinity Apps are great and they are constantly improving and implementing great features.

Adobe killed Freehand nearly 2 decades ago and I am still missing some of it’s great features, even if they implemented a few of them into Illustrator over the years... Considering that, Affinty did a great job in a short period of time!

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Hello Schlubub:

Thank you for the answer, now I understand something more about the requirements of the offset path tool. With your explanation, a Youtube video and some practice I have seen the difference between what I said and what you ask for.

Thanks.

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  • 2 months later...

I'm doing a lot of isometric drawings for a recent project. As a result I came across Affinity Designer and I've found it far superior to Illustrator CS6 (Never moved to CC).

Unfortunately, I needed the offset tool feature for a diagram. After checking out Help, Youtube, and Affinity Forum I've discovered it's not available.

The stroke method produces some odd results and is too time consuming.

So here's my workaround.

Drop my shape into Illustrator, add the offset, copy and paste back into AfD and Fit to plane.
Then I can copy and paste, or transform the shape as much as I want.

Not ideal, but until AfD gets an offset tool it's faster than anything I've seen on YT!!

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  • 1 month later...

This would be immensely useful for various designs. As well as vector work destined for laser a cutter/engraver such as a Glowforge to make kerf adjustments.

Great product but this is definitely a missing feature since offset adjustments are often needed instead of scale.

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  • 7 months later...

Hello all:

Again with this topic...

With the new Contour Tool of the 1.9 update, I have been cheking this new tool and if the possibilities are close to an offset path tool.

Well, I am not a professional of graphic design, but I think that 2 options that I´m going to write below can be very usefull as and offset tool with fully customizable strokes. I hope anyone tells me what they think...

 

Option 1 - Appereance panel

I insist with the Appereance panel...

We have a circle with 3 strokes, and the white one we want to be transparent in the future.

image.png.8e799d9e27ec3540a6404aab0d5a9487.png

 

The stroke must be aligned to out.

image.png.e7a86865eed498cf926a51d7f09f83a1.png

 

We Expand Stroke of the circle, so we´ll have 4 layers:

  • Circle.
  • Yellow stroke layer of 10 pt of width.
  • White stroke layer of 20 pt of width.
  • Green stroke layer of 30 pt of width.

image.png.c5669bfb56e5b769ad7dabf82d0b3ea3.png

 

Now, we want to have only 3 layers:

  • Circle.
  • Yellow stroke layer of 10 pt of width.
  • Green stroke layer of 10 pt of width.

 

We choose the green stroke layer and later the white stroke layer and with a boolean operation of sustraction we´ll have what we want:

image.png.2692fb7069362e33028e2b3fc70b8e7b.png

Even all stroke layers are fully customizable by node tool.

 

Option 2 - Contour Tool

For me the Contour Tool is a strange tool yet and must be very pulished by developers, but the result of the following procedure is the same as the before one.

We have a circle with a stroke of 10 pt of width.

image.png.c3e85cc96bf24f7da4d0264b79d1d4b4.png

 

To be exact as the above example, the stroke must be aligned to out.

image.png.e7a86865eed498cf926a51d7f09f83a1.png

 

Now, we duplicate it, and apply the Contour Tool to the most bottom layer.

image.png.a25b15bc06f6f2381c48a2fadeb3bcbb.png

We use 10 pt of width for the radius and we´ll use Expand Appereance (important).

image.png.b4cbbbd2c82bae90f653b39a8b52d29b.png

Note that once used Expand Apperance with the bottom layer, the selection box will fit to the new size:

image.png.757b5a0f74ce674d5ee882a33271684b.png

We can follow creating new layers to include more strokes

image.png.db06f5849b1833f3b003bb6f82f74595.png

The last step is to select all layers and use Expand Stroke:

 

image.png.489025eced6a25b293bca054503a10cb.png

 

As we have initially 3 circles with different strokes, Designer will create 3 layers as circles. We must delete the bottom ones and only keep the top one. Also, we´ll delete the middle stroke to convert it to a transparence:

image.png.f513420378bb6cac29ab6aed9327813b.png

Now, the strokes are fully customizable by the Node Tool.

 

 

Can anyone tells me if there is any difference between these results and what Adobe Illustrator can do? One of the missed options in Affinity Designer was to have offset strokes modificables by the Node Tool, but I think we have it now...or not?

 

Thank you.

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