Cropping many lines at once (designer)

[duncancreamer]

I want a shape to not just mask another shape, but to crop each line that intersects with it. I then want to delete every line not within (or in some cases outside) a masking shape. 

Imagine a hundred squiggly vector lines filling a page. Now imagine a simple square, or maybe a circle (doesn't matter) placed over the lines. I want only the lines within the circle to remain. And I don't want to spend time deleting the ones outside the circle because in a more complex illustration, this is a daunting task. (see attached image)

Is this possible yet?

This is the one single thing I'm looking for in a vector program. I want to use vector lines as a sort of crosshatch or pattern, that are then contained within a shape. The vector lines have to be gone, not just hidden behind another shape.

[GarryP]

You can crop anything by putting it inside any closed curve or shape but the cropped parts will still remain (while being ‘invisible’).
You can remove parts of a shape or curve by using various Geometry functions (and others) but the best method to use will depend on what you have and what you want to remove using what shape.
I can’t get a good idea of what you want by looking at your image as I don’t know how it was made, whether it’s the before or after image, or what you want to do with it.
Can you supply a mock-up showing us, more specifically, what you want to do?

[duncancreamer]

The process you describe would take too many steps to be practical.

Sorry for the potato quality image. It's a pen and ink drawing of my grandfather that I drew years ago. I'd like to recreate it in vector.

As you can see, even in this poor quality image, the background is basically a bunch of swirly lines. The face, can be seen as a white shape over the lines.

Redrawing the lines themselves is simple enough. But then cutting and deleting all the lines that intersect (or overlay, if we think of the white as a cut out shape) where the white face is… well, doing it by hand is neigh impossible. 

It's looking like this is a feature request, and a very difficult one to implement. I think it would make the product stand out though - Illustrator can't do it either (to the best of my knowledge.)
 

 

[ashf]

Lines? you mean open curves?
You can't crop open curves in Affinity.

[GarryP]

6 hours ago, ashf said:

You can't crop open curves in Affinity.

What do you mean by that? I only ask as you can crop curves whether they are open or not.

[ashf]

1 minute ago, GarryP said:

What do you mean by that? I only ask as you can crop curves whether they are open or not.

I didn't reply you, I just told duncancreamer that it's not possible to use Geometory on closed curves and open curves together.

[GarryP]

I knew you were not replying to me but I noticed that what you wrote was incorrect, so I asked you to explain what you wrote.
It’s probably just a language issue but someone reading what you wrote might have got the wrong idea if they took it at face value.

[ashf]

1 minute ago, GarryP said:

I knew you were not replying to me but I noticed that what you wrote was incorrect, so I asked you to explain what you wrote.
It’s probably just a language issue but someone reading what you wrote might have got the wrong idea if they took it at face value.

Understand, but I meant Geometory which is impossible to crop(cut) open curves

[GarryP]

That’s okay. I have often used the wrong terms myself, and have subsequently been corrected by others.
I only mention it because we don’t know how people get to a forum post and so they might not see the ‘larger picture’ of the whole thread when they read an individual post. I didn’t want people thinking the wrong thing about the software.

[duncancreamer]

You can't crop an open curve? Is this the big problem holding everything back?

This surprises me a great deal. I have questions.

 

Why can't it do this? Especially since I can manually put an extra point on the line that crosses a shape and then delete that segment (that intersects with the shape) to achieve the line crop. This can't be automated?

I'll try to upload an example:
(This is illustrator CS6 - it's what I know as I am still learning the Affinity, but the same technique works in both I think.)

1: A curved line, open. And a purple square, closed.

2: Square over line.

3: Remove foreground shape via Pathfinder tool = WRONG! 

4, 5 & 6: But, it is possible to add the points manually, then select and delete the segment that intersects. This is what I am looking for - it works fine, manually.

This can't be automated? Is there a decent explanation as to why?

This seems like such a severe limitation.

 

[lepr]

8 hours ago, duncancreamer said:

This can't be automated? Is there a decent explanation as to why?

It would be quite trivial to automate, as would many workflow enhancements, but developers are busy working on other things which have been given higher priority. 

[ashf]

On 5/15/2020 at 7:23 AM, duncancreamer said:

You can't crop an open curve? Is this the big problem holding everything back?

This surprises me a great deal. I have questions.

 

Why can't it do this? Especially since I can manually put an extra point on the line that crosses a shape and then delete that segment (that intersects with the shape) to achieve the line crop. This can't be automated?

I'll try to upload an example:
(This is illustrator CS6 - it's what I know as I am still learning the Affinity, but the same technique works in both I think.)

1: A curved line, open. And a purple square, closed.

2: Square over line.

3: Remove foreground shape via Pathfinder tool = WRONG! 

4, 5 & 6: But, it is possible to add the points manually, then select and delete the segment that intersects. This is what I am looking for - it works fine, manually.

This can't be automated? Is there a decent explanation as to why?

This seems like such a severe limitation.

It's the same in Affinity.
It would be improved in future release but it's not possible for now.

[duncancreamer]

So it's possible, but we have to wait for the developers get around to it. Fair enough. 
I would like to think that this would be a great feature for Affinity! It would be the only app out there that could do this - as far as I know. 

I have added this as a feature request in the appropriate forum.

Edited May 17, 2020 by duncancreamer
added feature request.

[Andy05]

4 hours ago, duncancreamer said:

I would like to think that this would be a great feature for Affinity! It would be the only app out there that could do this - as far as I know. 

Corel Draw can crop open curves by using boolean functions with closed objects. I can't remember for how many years already.

[ashf]

53 minutes ago, Andy05 said:

Corel Draw can crop open curves by using boolean functions with closed objects. I can't remember for how many years already.

Actually Inkscape also does it which is free.

[duncancreamer]

16 hours ago, ashf said:

Actually Inkscape also does it which is free.

I can only see that it will do a single line at a time. This might not be the place, but if you can explain how to do multiple lines at a time, that might help. 

[ashf]

3 hours ago, duncancreamer said:

I can only see that it will do a single line at a time. This might not be the place, but if you can explain how to do multiple lines at a time, that might help. 

You need to "combine" lines before you cut lines with a object.

[duncancreamer]

On 5/18/2020 at 12:21 PM, ashf said:

You need to "combine" lines before you cut lines with a object.

Doesn't seem to work. Worked with a couple lines, but any more than a handful and it goes wonky. If combining a number of lines, they seem to join ends and make a funky pattern.

I suppose this is the wrong forum because it's a different company's app though. I'll keep looking into it. 

[ashf]

5 hours ago, duncancreamer said:

Doesn't seem to work. Worked with a couple lines, but any more than a handful and it goes wonky. If combining a number of lines, they seem to join ends and make a funky pattern.

I suppose this is the wrong forum because it's a different company's app though. I'll keep looking into it. 

As far as I know cutting dozens of lines works at least.
But it may not work in a complex situation.

I think it would be better to just use clipping path on lines to make them look like it's cut.
Something like the picture you posted may be too complex.

[duncancreamer]

On 5/21/2020 at 3:23 PM, ashf said:

I think it would be better to just use clipping path on lines to make them look like it's cut.
Something like the picture you posted may be too complex.

The problem, and why I am looking for a solution, is that it's going to be sent to a plotter type machine. It will cut/draw all the lines, masked or not. So it must be cut and removed.