bbd10 Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 Not everything can be easily done with AD tools or can not be done at all. For example, try to draw what is shown at the picture below. There are simply limitations of graphical user interface and some patterns require a different approach. Luckily, Affinity Designer can open encapsulated postscript files. Encapsulated postscript allows you manual generation of high-quality graphics. It means that you write a program in Postscript language which subsequently is interpreted by AD. To do this, you should only have so-called programmers text editor. It can be Apple TextEdit, Wrangler or Textastic. There is a problem, though. Before you try to open EPS file in AD, you should check if your program contains no errors. Postscript and Encapsulated Postscript files are interpreted by GhostScript program which can be called from a command line in Terminal window. First, you have to check if you have Ghostscript installed. If not, then you have to install it. In Terminal enter command: gs -version When the command was not found then you can download the latest version of GhostScript from Richard Koch page (http://pages.uoregon.edu/koch/). Locate the GhostScript link with the highest version number and click on it. This will start the download of the GhostScript package installer. How the download actually happens is dependent on your browser and system setup. Once the installer has downloaded, open the folder it was downloaded to. Double click the PKG icon and follow the on-screen instructions. Accept the defaults if you don't know what to change. Once the install process has finished you can check if GhostScript is installed and ready for action by entering gs command again: bash-3.2$ gs -version GPL Ghostscript 9.16 (2015-03-30) Copyright © 2015 Artifex Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Now you can write simple EPS program and check it with GhostScript. Using text editor enter Truchet Pattern program and save it using eps as filename extension. The code for Truchet Pattern is from "A Short Introduction to PostScript" by Peter Fisher: (http://sus.ziti.uni-heidelberg.de/Lehre/Tools1213/PostScript_PeterFischer.pdf) %!PS-Adobe-3.0 EPSF-3.0 %%BoundingBox: 0 0 592 842 %% File name: TruchetPattern.eps %%BeginProlog %%EndProlog 2.835 dup scale 5 4 translate 1 setlinecap 0 0 200 290 rectstroke 100 145 translate /W 10 def /W2 { W 2 div } bind def /DRAWUNIT { gsave translate rotate W2 neg W2 neg W2 0 90 arc stroke W2 W2 W2 180 270 arc stroke grestore } def -95 W 95 { /x exch def -140 W 140 { /y exch def rand 4 mod 90 mul x y DRAWUNIT } for } for showpage %%EOF In Terminal, go to directory where your EPS file was saved and open it with gs program: bash-3.2$ gs TruchetPattern.eps GPL Ghostscript 9.16 (2015-03-30) Copyright © 2015 Artifex Software, Inc. All rights reserved. This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details. Error: /undefined in setroke Operand stack: Execution stack: %interp_exit .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- false 1 %stopped_push 1951 1 3 %oparray_pop 1950 1 3 %oparray_pop --nostringval-- 1934 1 3 %oparray_pop 1820 1 3 %oparray_pop --nostringval-- %errorexec_pop .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- -85 10 95 --nostringval-- %for_pos_int_continue -130 10 140 --nostringval-- %for_pos_int_continue --nostringval-- Dictionary stack: --dict:1181/1684(ro)(G)-- --dict:0/20(G)-- --dict:87/200(L)-- Current allocation mode is local Last OS error: Invalid argument Current file position is 428 GPL Ghostscript 9.16: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1 Here we have syntax error: Error: /undefined in setroke After correcting this error, subsequent GhostScript run result is: bash-3.2$ gs TruchetPattern.eps GPL Ghostscript 9.16 (2015-03-30) Copyright © 2015 Artifex Software, Inc. All rights reserved. This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details. %%BoundingBox: 12 9 583 835 %%HiResBoundingBox: 12.738234 9.903234 582.611748 834.926740 >>showpage, press <return> to continue<< You should press <return> and enter quit command to exit from GhostScript interpreter: GS>quit bash-3.2$ Such created eps file should be visible in Finder, and Preview program can open it without complaining. When you are sure that EPS program is correct, then you can open it in Affinity Designer, select, copy and paste object into your design. TruchetPattern.afdesign TruchetPattern.eps Square.eps Paul Bravery 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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