Designer 3D isometric

[Warrennn]

Hello,

I am using Designer (on a Mac) to do some 3D line drawing. I set the grid to isometric and created 3 mutually perpendicular coordinate axes by selecting each of the three views (top, side and front) and drawing a line along the respective grid lines - all three lines meet at the same point (the origin) and in the viewing plane are about 120 degrees apart.

I then created a circle in (say) the top plane and moved it so that the center was at the origin of the coordinate system,. I attempted to rotate the circle about the three axes, each one coinciding with a coordinate axis.  It worked fine in the top plane (as expected, since it was created in the top plane) but in the other planes the perspective was completely wrong. For example, when I selected the side plane and rotated the circle so that its normal was along the axis created in the side plane, the circle was very distorted. 

Is there any way to do true 3D transformations (like rotations) using the isometric view?

Thanks!

[Pšenda]

Try look in this:

https://affinityspotlight.com/article/how-to-use-the-new-isometric-drawing-tools-in-affinity-designer-17/

[Warrennn]

Thanks, that was a useful link but unfortunately, I am still having problems. I am guessing that there is no answer: Designer is strictly a 2D app and is not intended to construct general 3D objects or to transform the faux-3D objects drawn using the Isometric grid. It is a bit frustrating, since they are almost there - one can create 3D looking objects but not transform them properly, if I am not mistaken.

 

[GarryP]

It’s often difficult to know what someone is doing by a textual explanation alone.
Because of that we can only make a guess as to what you have and what you are trying to achieve with it.
Would you be able to supply a video showing what you are doing, with some timestamped notes at important points of interest?
In the meantime, have you looked at the tutorial videos? https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/designer/desktop/
This one, for example, might be of some use: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/designer/desktop/video/303013089/

[Warrennn]

Thanks for your suggestion, but I have looked at the linked pages and they didn't answer my questions. Here is the drawing I need. This was created in Ashlar Graphite which doesn't work on my new Mac (the company seems to not be doing well, from its website). I would like to duplicate the drawings in Designer.

mag_prec_optical.pdf

The three drawings are for a physics textbook and are illustrating something like nuclear magnetic resonance. The plane of the circles should always be perpendicular to the vector W which is tilted at various angles in the xz plane. I tried this using Designer where the three axes are drawn along lines in each of the three isometric planes: Top, front and side.  It seemed to almost work, but the circle didn't look quite right - it appeared to be distorted. I started with a circle in the top plane and rotated it (together with the W vector) using the transform panel to get the three drawings. The W vector seemed to always be perpendicular to the plane of the circle when I did the rotations but the circle was distorted.

Hope this helps. Again, thanks. The app seems very close to doing what I want - it would be nice to get it to work.

[GarryP]

Thanks for supplying the extra information.

I’m no mathematician so I don’t understand what the diagrams are trying to show me but, from what I can see, the ellipses don’t seem to be aligned to the same planes as the axes. (Even if I was looking at the original text I would probably have trouble figuring out what was going on.) The “R arrow” seems to have some meaning to how the ellipses are drawn but that might just be a coincidence.
The middle one looks close but not quite there, the one on the right looks quite far off, and the one on the left doesn’t seem to be anywhere near. (I’ve attached a screen-grab showing what I got with Designer – two right-hand diagrams only – didn’t bother with details.)

Are you sure that the diagram you are trying to replicate is correctly drawn?
If it is correctly drawn are you sure that you are trying to replicate it correctly?

You might, with some experimentation, be able to do what you want but I have a feeling that you would be better off using software which is designed to do what you want rather than trying to ‘force’ Designer to do something it wasn’t designed (pardon the pun) to do.
Designer is illustration software, not mathematical diagram software.

Having said all of that, someone else may be able to help you better than I can.

[h_d]

12 hours ago, Warrennn said:

I started with a circle in the top plane and rotated it (together with the W vector) using the transform panel

Have you tried the Isometric panel (View - Studio - Isometric)?

 

I chose a 1cm isometric cube grid setting, drew the axes with the pen tool, drew a circle, centred it on my axes, then with the circle selected I set the Current plane to Side and clicked Fit to pane. 

Hope it helps,

H

 

[Warrennn]

GarryP, thank you for your help. Your drawing on the left looks correct. The arrow (W) pointing toward the upper left direction should be perpendicular to the plane of the circle and the circle should cross the vertical axis more or less where you drew it. 

The circle represents the path of the R vector as it "precesses" around the W vector in much way the axis of a gyroscope precesses around the earth's gravity (whose force is vertical). 

I had been formerly using Ashlar Graphite to draw these diagrams but I recently switched to an M1 MacBook Air and Graphite doesn't work on it. I have been using Designer and it works beautifully for all my 2D diagrams and is a pleasure to use. With the introduction of Grid and Snapping Axis panel, I thought I could do something in 3D using Designer. It appears that I really can't. 

h_d, I have been using the isometric grids to attempt my 3D drawing. It works fine when the circle is on the top, front or side planes. When I try to tilt the circle, it doesn't look right for some reason. Thanks for your suggestion.

[Warrennn]

A good example of what I would like to do is to create a cube using the isometric axes and rotate it around each axis (which is along the grid lines in each of the three planes). The rotated cube becomes very distorted as one rotates it - it simply does not look like a cube but some kind of parallelepiped. I thought that possibly the grid scale was different in each plane, but that was not the case. It is a mystery what happens under the rotations I am describing.

I have sent a message to Affinity about this, but haven't received a reply. 

[GarryP]

I have a feeling that you are trying to use the software for a purpose it was not designed to handle.
Designer is a 2D illustration application and the Isometric tools are there to allow for some basic ‘projection’ work but I don’t think they were meant to be anything more than that.
If you really need to work in 3D then an application which can handle 3D ‘properly’ may be a much better choice, for the diagrams at least.
“Hammer for bashing, saw for cutting.”
P.S. Messaging the staff outside of these forums is unlikely to get you a quick answer at the moment, given everything that is going on.

[Pšenda]

12 minutes ago, GarryP said:

Designer is a 2D illustration application and the Isometric tools are there to allow for some basic ‘projection’ work but I don’t think they were meant to be anything more than that.

So I assumed that my reference to the spotlights article would be understood - as an example of what can be expected from an isometric panel and what is its purpose.

[GarryP]

I’m not sure what you mean, but Warrennn said they had looked at the article you gave a link to but it didn’t help them, hence my extra bit of explanation. (The spotlight article, as far as I can tell, doesn’t mention using other software, which is probably what’s needed.)

[firstdefence]

Sketchup might be of use, although a simple task like drawing an arrowed line in sketchup; not layout, is annoying but an arrow component can be created easily and used instead. But, maybe in conjunction with Affinity Designer it might get you so far as you can tilt the circle correctly and specify degrees of tilt etc. I'm a little rusty on sketch to be honest but if I can help I'll try.

[Warrennn]

Again, many thanks for all of your help on this. I think that the app is not intended to draw accurate 3D objects which can be rotated and transformed in other ways.

My first (physics) book was illustrated using an expensive CAD program (Vellum) which I had ,used before I retired - it cost $1500 and was the newest version of a program which had won awards for its ease of use and elegance. As a retiree I was able to get it for $700 but it is not likely to be ported anytime soon to my new Mac and I didn't want to pay an exorbitant fee to get a compatible version (my understanding is that it will be subscription-based; I don't find this to be acceptable). 

Designer is a very elegant and beautiful program and I thought that with the introduction of isometric views that I would be able to use it for 3D. Unfortunately, that was not the case. There is another program, VIaCAD, which is based upon the Vellum drawing engine and costs $200, a reasonable price for a program which would work well for my needs. It is not as pretty as Designer but it does the job and I am familiar with its user interface (almost identical to Vellum's in most important ways).

Thanks again!

[v_kyr]

19 minutes ago, Warrennn said:

My first (physics) book was illustrated using an expensive CAD program (Vellum) which I had ,used before I retired ...

You can tryout FreeCAD, see for example ...

• Basic modeling tutorial
• Creating 3D geometry with FreeCAD
• How do I sketch 3D line geometry in 3D
• etc.

[Warrennn]

Thanks for the suggestion. I will look at it, though I find $200 to be a fair price to pay for ViaCAD, with which I am very familiar.

[Pšenda]

22 hours ago, GarryP said:

I’m not sure what you mean, but Warrennn said they had looked at the article you gave a link to but it didn’t help them, hence my extra bit of explanation. (The spotlight article, as far as I can tell, doesn’t mention using other software, which is probably what’s needed.)

The referenced article should have pointed out that ADe is intended only for the "basic" isometric drawing, not for the "true" 3D drawing and modeling, that the OP apparently expected. If that were the case, Serif would probably have stated it in the Technical specification.

[Warrennn]

I received a response from Affinty and they confirmed that I am unable to do what I want using Designer. It is not that much of a hardship to use one computer running Designer for my 2D drawings and an older computer running a 3D CAD app for the 3D stuff.

Again, thanks for your help.

[GarryP]

Why do you need to use two computers?
Or, to put that another way, what makes you think that you cannot install and use both applications on the same machine?

[Pšenda]

6 minutes ago, GarryP said:

what makes you think that you cannot install and use both applications on the same machine?

 

On 4/18/2021 at 2:08 AM, Warrennn said:

but I recently switched to an M1 MacBook Air and Graphite doesn't work on it.

 

[GarryP]

Thanks for pointing that out but I wanted to try and make sure that Warrennn didn’t assume that they needed two machines.
Graphite may not work on an M1 machine but ViaCAD, or whatever they eventually choose to use, might.
It would be unfortunate if they stuck to using two machines because of some oversight or assumption if they really only needed one.

[Warrennn]

Yes, the problem is that no Ashlar products work on any version of macOS since Mojave, which is 3 years old. As far as I know, the apps are not even 64 bit, which is necessary for the most recent two Mac operating systems. Even though Ashlar has said that it will eventually support current macOS, my sense is that they are on the way out.

I have been playing with viaCAD and am impressed with it. It has the same wonderful "drawing assistant" as the Ashlar products (the developer at Ashlar left the company and went to the people who make viaCAD and took his code with him). The app is much less expensive ($200 for the version I am using) and works well on an M1 Mac using the translator Rosetta2. It is certainly adequate to do what I want. The last time I looked, Ashlar Graphite, which is much less capable than viaCAD, cost $1500. The word is that Ashlar products will henceforth only be available via subscription, which is unacceptable to me.

These products don't have the polish of Designer, but they do work well.

Again, thanks for your help.