Geological diagrams?

[Julia-geologist]

Is anyone using Affinity Designer to make geological diagrams, e.g., maps, stratigraphic columns?  I am a complete beginner and I'm struggling!

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums.
Various forum members use the Affinity applications to create maps of different kinds and stratigraphic columns – if I am looking at the right thing – don’t seem to be difficult to do.
Is there some specific thing that you are struggling with?

[Julia-geologist]

I really am a total beginner, having out of the field for about 20 years and now coming back, and I have little tech/digital expertise or experience.

Can you suggest tools in Affinity to help me just get started, e.g., making columns with different symbols to indicate different rock types, etc., etc?

I have explored many of the tutorials which Affinity offers, but most are either very basic or far too complex and not addressing things that I need.  I'm a sedimentologist, so stratigraphic columns with symbols etc. is a big part of what I want to create.

Thanks, Julia

[lacerto]

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[GarryP]

Lagarto: That’s probably all very good advice but Julia said that she’s a “total beginner”, so mentions of things like ASE palettes and swatch patterns probably don’t mean a lot to her. It sounds like she needs information on how to get ‘the basics’ done first.

Julia: Can you give us a visual example of what you would like to recreate, or something like what you want? Once we have some idea of your requirements we can probably start to give specific help. From what I have seen of such diagrams they shouldn’t be too difficult to recreate but we need to know the style (and, to some degree, the content) of what you’re trying to put together.

[lacerto]

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[Julia-geologist]

Thank you, GarryP and Lagarto for your responses.  Yes, much of what Lagarto refers to is a stretch for me to understand.  But I think we are moving in the right direction.  I will explore Inkscape, I was not aware of Inkscape before.

I'm thinking that when you refer to 'pattern swatches' you mean filling in spaces on a diagram with dots, i.e., a stippled pattern, or with vertical or horizontal lines, or with a ''v' pattern, or a 'brick'-type of pattern.  These are patterns which geologists typically use to designate different rock types, instead of (or in addition to) using  different colors.  And this is one of the things which I would like to be able to do and was hoping I could do with Affinity Designer.

I'm attaching 3 files here to give you an idea of the sorts of things I want to draft, to produce in Affinity Designer.  Each is a scan of a free-hand pencil sketch, but you can see some of the fill-in patterns I'm using and the sorts of diagrams I'm talking about.  I will also be working with maps.

I suspect a lot of what needs to happen is for me to continue to try and explore AD, patiently, to build up my knowledge and expertise.  I would just like to short cut this process if I could!

Thanks, Julia

Fig3a.afdesign PS_syncline-stratXsectn.afdesign River_Is_col.afdesign

[RNKLN]

Maybe this is helpful. It is a nice template to help you create your own patterns in Affinity Designer. Once you've done that, you can use them by using the Fill Tool of AD.

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[v_kyr]

Nope, the Affinity products SVG engine (parser & interpreter parts) does only handle a limited SVG spec format subset, in this case here it doesn't know how to handle "SVG <pattern>", same as it doesn't handle "SVG <linearGradient>" and certain other SVG format definitions. - Thus it can't reuse or make much out of those things.

 

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[v_kyr]

11 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

Can you tell how well this kind of SVG is generally supported e.g. by browsers?

For webbrowsers pretty good, since webbrowsers have among the best build-in SVG parser engines available, which are the most conformant to the SVG specs.

[sfriedberg]

 

19 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

Ok, thanks. Can you tell how well this kind of SVG is generally supported e.g. by browsers?

Pretty well by FireFox, in my experience.  Can't really say for other browsers.

[lacerto]

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[StuartRc]

Hi

Interesting question....This might get a bit complicated

I looked at Geological mapping with QGIS sometime ago.....but not stratigraphic sequencing. Unfortunately I decided it was quite a lot of work to convert the base pattern/symbols  directly to AD either as .SVG or vectors. AD does not have the tools yet Especially when the US and British have different symbol standards.....

But....you can do it!

In AD without a vector or indeed raster pattern fill it can be a difficult issue. The best routes I found were to either:
a. Create a repeating pattern using symbols or block vector pattern that could be used as bitmap fill or vector symbol. The two are inter-changeable.
b. Manually edit/recreate the patterns as scalable vector (a lot of work as there are so many patterns!)
c. OR find a way of importing the downloadable files from US Geological Survey or British Geological Survey. Both sites have files that you can use but as you are finding they are .SVG Patterns that are accessible to Inkscape...but that seems to be as far you can go.
d. Resort to Illustrator where Swatch fill patterns and vector versions (.eps) are available
e. Create Pattern Brushes using a 'hi-res' repeating pattern

However!

Documentation/Sites
There are a couple of sites that you could look at to pursue the .SVG route:

1. Daven Quinn at  FDGC Geologic Patterns for the Web has attempted to convert/solve the problem. There is a Github link associated with this where you can extract and download .SVG versions of the Patterns. But without cross referencing the numbering system it can be a bit difficult to decipher the patterns. 
2. Procreate Brushes
3. FGDC Digital Cartographic Standard (link to files)

Optional Files to access the standard patterns
4. US Geological Survey (I think this site is quite old looking at the files)
Here if you have the time you can open a series of .eps/PDF/CS2 files that are actually vector. These worked but they are quite large files...but it does give you access to the patterns... some of which are as .jpg above...I tried to put these onto a single sheet/file..that was a failure..but have managed to convert/extract the patterns (import as cropped layer masks!) 
5 British Geological Survey standard symbols documentation
Here inside the document Pages 46, 47, 48 have vector versions of the British Symbol Standard. Unfortunately There is some considerable work in making them viable!

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, StuartRc said:

1. Daven Quinn at  FDGC Geologic Patterns for the Web has attempted to convert/solve the problem. There is a Github link associated with this where you can extract and download .SVG versions of the Patterns. But without cross referencing the numbering system it can be a bit difficult to decipher the patterns.

The SVG/PNG assets of that Github repository would be reusable in AD, the SVGs there have a simpler SVG format and thus can be handled/imported by AD. The PNGs can be reused for building own AD style categories out of them then, they just have to be named accordingly so they can be identified either by name/ID or just visually from a related created styles palette then.

All in all it's just a bit of work to organize, assign and setup those as let's say bitmap styles or vector assets, but once done they would be always reusable later the easy way.

 

[lacerto]

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[v_kyr]

6 hours ago, Lagarto said:

UPDATE: Note that to be able to have the patterns as reusable assets, they should be added to the asset library when applied in a vector shape (e.g. rectangle) as a bitmap fill.

The same applies to Styles here, aka to have the patterns then as reusable styles, for that they also should be added to the styles panel as a vector shape (e.g. a rectangle etc.) filled with the corresponding bitmap (fill tool & type bitmap) from a PNG file then.

[StuartRc]

12 hours ago, v_kyr said:

The SVG/PNG assets of that Github repository would be reusable in AD, the SVGs there have a simpler SVG format and thus can be handled/imported by AD. The PNGs can be reused for building own AD style categories out of them then, they just have to be named accordingly so they can be identified either by name/ID or just visually from a related created styles palette then.

All in all it's just a bit of work to organize, assign and setup those as let's say bitmap styles or vector assets, but once done they would be always reusable later the easy way.

 

yep sure! completely agree!...I believe that for bitmap fills.. styles would be the way to go...After you make sure the pattern actually tessellates properly..I did some experiments with Patterns/Styles/bitmap fills some time ago using a sample of the Camouflage II project...It's a quick efficient process and works reasonably well but I did set the output to 400dpi to get better clarity...easy to do if everything is vector in the first instance. I would restrict adding bitmaps to asset libraries...I reality the patterns would be more useful if they are presented with different options:
a. Vector Pattern in masked rectangle (Assets)
b. Style Bitmap
c. Texture base for brush (I am sure the repeat on these patterns could be further simplified)..but have to be careful of purpose..these are cartographic symbols and adhere to standards including size and scale of line..

 

With the extracted the CS2 files I converted them to AD to get to the patterns..had to remove most of the text and simplify the header/description. Kept as separate pages (7) as combining stalled AD 

[StuartRc]

7 hours ago, Lagarto said:

Thanks, @StuartRc, this is very useful!

I had a look on these and many SVG versions of these are rendered incorrectly in Affinity Designer, but behave fine in Inkscape. But PNG versions (= bitmap) would be workable.

These are the same FDGC based patterns referred by me above and as I assumed, geographic symbols are different in different cultures so these might not be useful for that reason.

Otherwise they work nicely and can also be modified by using adjustments and vector fills:

It would also be easy to create an asset library of these patterns:

UPDATE: Note that to be able to have the patterns as reusable assets, they should be added to the asset library when applied in a vector shape (e.g. rectangle) as a bitmap fill. This way they can be used as clipped pattern fills within any shape. If added as mere bitmaps, they are not useful as the Fill Tool can only use files as its source of bitmaps.

 

Sure....Progress in their use......not sure about using lots of bitmaps in the asset panel...vector would be a better solution there and styles for the bitmaps...a raster brush set would also be useful.

[lacerto]

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[StuartRc]

17 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

One additional shortcoming in using bitmap based patterns is that when used in print jobs, the black will be converted to four-color-black, which is typically something not wanted in these kinds of objects. For some reason this happens in Affinity apps even if the PNG file is in grayscale format. If the whole job is black and white, this could be fixed e.g. with Adobe Acrobat Pro by forcing the black to grayscale, but if the job has also colors, objects using black patterns should be isolated somehow so that they can be converted to grayscale while keeping the color elsewhere ...

Bitmap based patterns make also pretty large files, both as assets and when used as fills in documents.

Be useful to have a vector pattern generator in AD!

'Bitmap based patterns make also pretty large files'...yeah ..I would be inclined to go with vector...the .pngs work well as brushes..just had a go!

[lacerto]

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[StuartRc]

2 hours ago, Lagarto said:

I had a testrun using Designer to create what I suppose is a typical stratigraphic column, to see what it takes to create these kinds of graphics (based on pattern fills) in Designer.

Here is the graph that I used as the model:

---and here is what I created:

 

Since Designer does not support tables, the underlying grid needs to be drawn manually and the text needs to be created as separate text boxes. This probably is not a problem because these kinds of table-like constructions can easily get too complex to be handled as table cells. (And Affinity kind of tables that are available in Publisher, are not advanced enough to allow these kinds of tables so the grid should be drawn manually anyway.)  

As mentioned in this thread, vector based patterns are not supported in Designer and this might be a problem in case you wish or need to use ready-made assets, as they seem to be mostly vector-based and made for apps like Adobe illustrator and Inkscape. I used the bitmap versions of US lithologic patterns (available on Daven Quinn's Github pages) with separate shapes for background colors and this worked well. If you want or need to draw patterns manually, the drawing tools of Designer are advanced enough to allow you to create pattern-like graphics yourself, and the Fill Tool's bitmap fill option allows to use any bitmap based images as repeating, movable, rotatable and scalable graphics to cover any shape you draw.

If you can use ready made bitmap patterns, I noticed a few useful things when working with them:

1) The sediment shapes were created as separate rectangles that were converted to curves and then the separating irregular border lines were shaped and aligned. Before starting to add patterns, a copy of this structure was created so that the original structure can be used for background coloring, and patters applied to copied shapes. 

2) As already mentioned above, if you create assets of bitmap patterns, they need to be applied (with Fill Tool) as bitmap fills on a vector shape. e.g. squares. Then you can drag an asset on the document, as shown here, select the desired pattern, press Ctrl/Cmd + C to copy it on the Clipboard, then select the target shape and press Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + V (or Edit > Paste Style) to have the selected pattern applied to the target object.

3) It is useful to merge (Layer > Geometry > Merge Curves) the shapes that share the same pattern, this way you can adjust (rotate, scale, move, colorize) the pattern simultaneously for all objects where it is applied. One thing worth noting is that when a bitmap pattern is initially applied, it is streched accoring to the object area it is applied. To force unstreched wrapping you need to use the Fill Tool and select a shape with a pattern fill and double click a scaling handle. (BTW: There is a mysterious tip on the status bar that hints that it would be possible to reset to 1:1 scaling for a bitmap fill by applying double click + right mouse button when using the interactive Fill Tool control handles, but I do not even understand how this kind of thing can be done on Windows where right mouse button shows the context menu; the idea of using simultaneous left + right clicks is horrible UI design that I have not seen anywhere else: why not create a toolbar button or menu command if there are no free modifiers left; just double clickingt the handles however restores original undistorted proportions and that is helpful.)

Hopefully this is effective enough to let you use Designer for creating stratigraphic columns. It is not as effective as using Illustrator for these kinds of tasks (as you do not have more versatile, sharper and better print-controllable vector patterns, or such features as the Shape Builder Tool which helps to define fillable areas from areas just separated with a single border line), but probably workable with at least relatively simple constructions.    

Wow fantastic effort...This is a considerable amount of work..I like it...... and achieved some significant results...

After reading your notes there are couple of things that you could consider to make it a bit more efficient

1. With regards to ...The stretching issue with bitmap fills....I am not seeing that at the moment..when 1.8 was released a number of 'weird' issues regarding fill/appearance panel and styles were resolved. If the bitmap import option (dropdown) is set to 'Wrap' it might get rid of it. If I remember correctly I had the same issue when trying to create styles from bitmap fill patterns. Where the style was not remembering how to repeat...So you had to perform/apply adjusted setting each time you applied a style. So before adding the object style to the Style Panel these settings had to be defined.

2. Have you tried setting the colour sequence with the 'Appearance Panel' So a rectangle fill is made up of Colour fill | Pattern Fill/ Stroke. This way you can adjust the colours and set up blend options for a bit more flexibility... You could extend this to styles.

3. Create a style from the final filled object...and then apply non-destructive layer adjustments to that applied style... 

hope this helps!

 

 

[StuartRc]

You have created some viable clean structural diagrams...well done!