Curve/Brush 'Separation' clarification needed.

[Junkbox]

Forgive me if I don't use the correct vocabulary, as I am a recent convert to Affinity (Windows). 

In CorelDraw one can take a brush stroke, or artistic media as it is referred to and 'break it apart' effectively separating the original path from the rendered brush thus leaving behind two independent entities. I do this often when using brush strokes for fine tuning so as to have node level control to the 'outside' of the object without the restraint of editing the path only. I'm adding some screenshots here to demonstrate because A. I'm sure I'm missing something obvious and B. It's difficult to explain (which is why I'm sure my google searches haven't yielded a proper response).

So lets start with a simple calligraphy stroke. Notice it's just 2 nodes and behaves like any path when edited at the node level except in so far as the effect itself is adjusted along with the path.

 

Now in Corel, in order to make the shape itself editable at the node level (independent of the original path) it is necessary to 'break apart the artistic media (brush).

 

Leaving this:

 

Both of which are now editable at the node level. The original path and the rendered path or stroke object itself. Difference being I am able to edit the nodes from the *outside* of the remnant:

 

 

Result being I have the original path which I can then reapply another stroke (if desired) as well as a 'shape' preserving which parts of the rendered object are needed by tweaking the shape itself. 

 

 

 

Again I know my vocabulary is certainly off,  but that is the concept and I can't imagine the process or at least the end result is not achievable with Affinity. 

 

Any pointers are greatly appreciated. 

 

 

Namaste.

-mk

[MEB]

Hi @Junkbox,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
The closest you have in Affinity Designer is the Expand Stroke function (menu Layer > Expand Stroke) but it doesn't keep the original path. Note that currently most vector brushes in Designer (except the first two from the Pens category) are not true vector based brushes but raster textures stretched or repeated along a vector path (depending how the brush was set up). These cannot be expanded as they are raster based.

Strokes with a Pressure Profile applied (see the Stroke Panel on bottom) can be expanded so they become editable shapes.

[Junkbox]

Thank you for the reply. Sorry for the delay.

I think I understand what you're saying. The brushes are technically raster being rendered as nodes for temporary manipulation. Such is the magic of Affinity and the main reason Affinity caught my eye in the first place, dual view vector/raster. From what you're saying, this is essentially a 'one way' emulation. My first thought to accomplish the above after your reply was to export a brush stroke the way I want it to pdf or any other vector then dump it into Corel and see what happened. As you stated, and regardless of settings for export in AD the output was indeed rasterized. It should be noted that with no rasterization  selected in the export dialog, the result was simply a path with the rasterization (effect) taken off the brush...fair enough. So the output when imported into Corel looked like this as normal pdf export from AD:

 

This logically (now) didn't import as true vector. It's OK though because I was planning on having to use Corel anyway to get the node level access from a true vector export as required above. Barring that, and from reading a previous post regarding the inability to directly trace bitmaps in AD, I would have to trace it in Corel if raster was the only option given your original reply. 

So for posterity I'm gonna post this for any other former Corel users making the transition. The tracing portion could of course be done with any number of tracing programs.

With the above export in Corel I simply traced the bitmap (I could have refined the trace settings but for the purpose of demonstration I kept it simple)

Leaving these behind:

 

Which I have to 'Ungroup' and 'Convert to Curves' 

Then I just copy the vector and paste into AD allowing node level editing to the entire object independent of path:

This may seem like a lengthy work around, but really it's not. I was going to have to keep Corel around anyway (any old version is fine) if only for PowerTrace. 

 

Anyhow, I don't expect every variation of every software to behave the same, otherwise we could make things simple for everyone and all chime in to go Orwell style and create 'UniDes' Version X software.

 

Thanks again for the clarification, and the hard work. I'm really enjoying the software.

 

Namaste

-mk