Expand Stroke Problems

[jeffreydevey]

I'm experiencing problems when expanding strokes. Please see the attached examples.

I accidentally posted on the Windows Bugs thread earlier, so I'm reposting here.

[Hangman]

Hi jeffreydevey,

I would say that your main 'shield' shape isn't a properly 'closed' shape which is why you are seeing what you are seeing...

shield.afdesign

 

 

[jeffreydevey]

Thanks for the reply. The shape is closed, but there are duplicate nodes at the bottom point, which I think is causing the problem. I had originally built one half of the shape, duplicated and flipped it, then used the "Add" function to merge them together. I can't figure out how to eliminate the extra node at the bottom where the two shapes were joined. Please see the attached video.

[Hangman]

I'm unsure whether this has now been improved in 1.8.X as I'm still using 1.7.3. I took the same approach as you in that I created one half of the shape, duplicated it, flipped it horizontally, moved the second half to align with the first half. I then selected both halves in the layers panel and using the node tool again, selected the two top nodes where the two shapes meet and selected 'Join Curves' and then selected the second two nodes at the bottom and selected 'Close Curve'.

In doing so you still end up with 'both' nodes at each junction which to my way of thinking is not right, I would expect selecting 'Join Curves' to leave just a single node and likewise when selecting 'Close Curve' to do the same. You can select and delete the extraneous nodes though for the purposes of what you are doing, when you then expand the stroke it should now work as expected.

Maybe someone can add to this to confirm whether this has been improved in 1.8.X and the extraneous nodes no longer appear or if there is a better approach to achieving this?

 

[jeffreydevey]

Thanks for taking the time to respond. You've done a couple things differently than I did—the shape I duplicated was closed and I used the "Add" Boolean function rather than joining the open curves. My stroke was also set to outside rather than center. I'll give both of those a try.

I come from a background in Illustrator, so I'm still trying to get the hang of how certain things work in Affinity. It's odd to me that there are both "Close Curve" as well as "Join Curves" functions, and the extra overlapping nodes are going to drive me crazy. I'm firmly in the Affinity camp, however, and I have faith that the software will improve as time goes on.

[G13RL]

After having answered in the Windows section I just saw this post, so I put my answer here.
If you put on "Round Join" the ends of the lines will overlap and you won't have a gap.

[Nazario]

I was thinking it might be down to the end cap. Try the one on the right of the three options. This will give the overlap but with a sharper edge. 

[SPaceBar]

Hi @jeffreydevey

Sorry for the delay in replying, is this issue now solved using one of the tips above?

[jeffreydevey]

8 hours ago, SPaceBar said:

Hi @jeffreydevey

Sorry for the delay in replying, is this issue now solved using one of the tips above?

I was able to complete the project by working around the problem, but I would say the issues that created the problem are still there. I suspect it has something to do with the way Affinity Designer handles joining curves when the two open end nodes to be joined are in the same position, resulting in redundant overlapping nodes where there should only be one node. The "Add" Boolean operation gives the same result, which you can see in the video I attached earlier in this thread, quoted below.

 

On 5/17/2020 at 11:24 AM, jeffreydevey said:

Thanks for the reply. The shape is closed, but there are duplicate nodes at the bottom point, which I think is causing the problem. I had originally built one half of the shape, duplicated and flipped it, then used the "Add" function to merge them together. I can't figure out how to eliminate the extra node at the bottom where the two shapes were joined. Please see the attached video.

 

shield.mov 1.23 MB · 2 downloads

 

[lepr]

10 hours ago, SPaceBar said:

Hi @jeffreydevey

Sorry for the delay in replying, is this issue now solved using one of the tips above?

These tips were workarounds. There is a bug in Expand Stroke to be fixed so that workarounds are not required, and that will be a solution.

[madPXL]

I have the same problem, maybe we should have an option like 3D software do to clean / merge by distance nodes.

This will be very useful and we can imagine having a distance parameter for better control.

[SPaceBar]

16 hours ago, jeffreydevey said:

I was able to complete the project by working around the problem, but I would say the issues that created the problem are still there. I suspect it has something to do with the way Affinity Designer handles joining curves when the two open end nodes to be joined are in the same position, resulting in redundant overlapping nodes where there should only be one node. The "Add" Boolean operation gives the same result, which you can see in the video I attached earlier in this thread, quoted below.

 

 

Glad you were able to work around the issue, I was also able to recreate it. Could you attach a copy of the document you were using? I would like to pass it on to development to be looked into.

[jeffreydevey]

@SPaceBar Here is a document with the problem object. It also includes three copies of the object with the stroke expanded. I thought it was interesting to note the result was different for each, depending on its position on the artboard before expanding.

expand-stroke-shield.afdesign

[SPaceBar]

@jeffreydevey Thanks, that's great and will be a big help. I will pass it on to development. 👍