Joining Two Lines...How??

[icr]

I am trying to connect two curved lines with a short straight line to form a shape so I can fill it in. Nothing seems to work. What am I doing wrong?

 

I'm trying to do what is shown here: HERE

Edited April 11, 2020 by icr

[MmmMaarten]

The instruction post uses a single OPEN line path to connect to a single OPEN line path. 

But you try to do something different: you are trying to connect a closed path with another closed path. You cannot do that with join. You cannot connect a node to a crossing path, only to an end point.

If you combine two paths, you first fill the path, select both paths, and than you can use a boolean Add-operation to add one path to the other making them one path.

Is this what you're after?

 

[icr]

Thanks for the reply. Actually I wish the unfilled portion was closed. I'm trying to close it. If you ignore all the brown filled parts, I have the two curved lines that i'm trying to close. Is there some other way besides making two short lines at the top and bottom?  The two curved lines are open at the bottom too, the line that appears to be connecting them at the bottom is not attached either. 

Edited April 11, 2020 by icr

[MmmMaarten]

Ah I see. Than indeed the instructions you found on join path should work. It's a little difficult to tell what's going on with that video alone. Maybe you're using join in a different way or there are nodes on top of each other perhaps? It would be easier to help you if you could provide the afdesign file

[G13RL]

Select both curves, "Join Curves", "Close Curve".

[icr]

I joined them and filled and got this. I'm posting the file also. 

[icr]

Here is the Affinity file:

 

Valco 2020 Logo.afdesign

[G13RL]

Thanks for the file.
Join one by one the first three curves and lastly close the curve.

[MmmMaarten]

Yes as @G13RL I was about to post pretty much the same video. The only thing I would do differently is first putting the nodes of the curve on top on the exact same place as where they should be by dragging them to the spot they snap to the other curve and after that hit 'join curve'. 

There's one thing I don't know as I'm no expert on join curves and that is that the last join and close will add an extra node, which is obviously not what we're after. Do you happen to know how to prevent that @G13RL ?

 

[G13RL]

I didn't try to align the knots before joining the curves, I just wanted to show the principle.
@wigglepixel, if the nodes are superimposed before joining (the node turns yellow when positioned on top of the other one) there will be no additional node added.

[MmmMaarten]

8 minutes ago, G13RL said:

if the nodes are superimposed before joining (the node turns yellow when positioned on top of the other one) there will be no additional node added.

The following shows an extra added node on join and close. Eventhough the nodes are exactly on the target nodes. The extra node is created under the node that turned yellow when putting it on top of the other node, so that should be exact. So what should I do differently to prevent the extra node?

(I provided the file in the attachment)

test.afdesign

[G13RL]

@wigglepixel select the two nodes that must be joined before joining or closing the curve.

[MmmMaarten]

48 minutes ago, G13RL said:

@wigglepixel select the two nodes that must be joined before joining or closing the curve.

@G13RL Yes, I know that way it works by leaving the paths in place and only moving a single node to join. Never had problems with that.

But most of, if not all, the time I'd like to move the full curve to the right position, where nodes are on top of the nodes of the other curve, and then join the paths. I tried it again here by trying to select 2 nodes that are on top of each other after placing one curve exactly on top of the other, but it doesn't work. It looks like it's impossible to select two nodes that are on top of each other to me. It's like it only selects the node that's on top.

How to do you do this?

Test 1: See below (can't move the video on this forum as it seems 😓)

Test 2 (reversed) --> If I join the other ends of the curve first the join works, but the close path still adds a redundant node.

 

Test 1:

[icr]

Thanks for the replies. Is there some function to make the nodes attract when they get close?

[G13RL]

It's weird, sometimes it's necessary to move the knot slightly and put it back in its place for the closure to take place.

[MmmMaarten]

Well, it depends on what you mean by attracting. There is snapping (the magnet button):

[firstdefence]

That video makes a pretty simple job look very hard. I made a video and although it doesn’t address the issue of connecting curves it does offer a solution that doesn’t require all that construction faffing. Although I did add a smidge of faffing to get the shape to fit the original design. 😁

[MmmMaarten]

@firstdefence No offence firstdefense (no pun intended 😉 ) but I think we could all think of that solution, but I think you know we were in fact answering the real question here on the techniques of joining paths. You just can't solve everything with strokes and else we could also have answered to redraw the whole part with the pen tool and just close the path, right?

That said; if you like a challenge to answer a question; maybe you know the answer to my question I asked in my post above? As this one still isn't answered and I'm very curious to know, cause I'm starting to wonder now if this is even possible in Affinity:

 

[Move Along People]

-

 

[G13RL]

As I said earlier, it doesn't work every time, you have to do it twice.

[icr]

Ok, the MAGNET!!. So I turned the MAGNET on and now the two endpoints fall right on top of each other and the JOIN works. What it seems was happening in the video I posted, the two points never get exactly on top of each other. 

 

I was getting close to doing a 'stroke' but this logo will need to be re-sized for various purposes and I really want the design to be a path with separate fill and stroke. 

 

Ok, so now that I was able to close that shape, it was easy to do "Create Compound" twice with the two middle pieces and the outer oval to get what I wanted! 

I was needing to make a logo with a "V" and saw this shadow from the wires on my computer...

 

 

Edited April 11, 2020 by icr

[firstdefence]

Ohh that’s spooky, or Maybe… density 

What even weirder is your desktop looks like mine lol

[MmmMaarten]

13 hours ago, haakoo said:

Steps:

HI @haakoo Thanks for your example. I converted the gif to mp4 so I could scrub through it and did exactly what you did. I even checked that the nodes were really on the same heights and they were. But still I'm having this issue. All node snap settings are turned on, like in your example and while snapping you can clearly see that BOTH NODES turn yellow to indicate they are exactly on top. So I wouldn't expect this to go wrong. But it does.

It still doesn't merge the nodes into one on the right side. Only on the left side, where the path will be closed, it works.

There must be something that's different than in your setup. I am using Designer 1.8.3.641 btw.

In the following video I did exactly the same steps as you did and in the same order too. Even the direction of the marquee selection I did the same to be absolutely sure:

[edit] BTW in the example I have 'Pixel alignment' turned on while you have not, but also when I turn pixel alignment off the results are the same. We could also compare our snapping settings, but that shouldn't make any difference as the nodes turn yellow and the values and interface clearly show that everything is matched up perfectly before joining and closing.

[Move Along People]

-

[MmmMaarten]

6 minutes ago, haakoo said:

I joined the right two nodes and closed the left two nodes and pressed delete to delete the stray node on the joining part

Okay, well that delete node was some crucial information here... I couldn't see that delete in your video. Great you're telling me now 😉

Now it works! Thanks! 😊

BTW I think it's a little strange we need to delete that node ourselves when joining, but don't need to remove a node when closing the path. So for some reason close path seem to 'think' and remove the redundant node, while join path doesn't 'think' and keeps the redundant node, even though it knows the node is redundant as it's exactly on the same place as another node. 

Anyway, for future reference; so this is how it could/should be done: