Designer: Is there an easy way to eliminate any and all overlaps in a layer stack?

[Otto Manuel]

Hi,

 I want to send off a file to have a "UV" printing service print a design on a small box. The service provider wants a vector file with a specific layer structure, which seems easy enough to conform too, but they also insist that none of the vector shapes overlap each other and advise that I should subtract all the portions of shapes that are overlapped by more prominently placed layers.

 I am surprised to think that the print machine does not have RIP software to deal with this, but I have very little experience with commercial print technology.

 I am writing to ask if there is some efficient way to subtract layers into a sort of what you see is what is there conformation?

 I tried working by hand while digging through the file and identifying pairs of layers to process with the subtract tool. This process presents all sorts of puzzles to solve and it is mind numbing.

 Am I missing an opportunity to do this more efficiently than a layer by layer process?

 Thank you!

[Otto Manuel]

I have been trying to work with the Divide process but it just seems to create different considerations for the puzzle, and there is still an enormous amount of hand work.

I have been reading a bit about UV printing and I get the impression that the color separations made for these machines and the colorants is much more "hands on" rather than algorithmically processed in a one step RIP automation.

 

[Otto Manuel]

As an experiment I drew a very simple design in Affinity Designer.

The file had 8 layers with shapes that were overlapped. The overlapping was the result of my focus on the display appearance of the illustration rather than the construction of the file.

I worked my way through the layer stack by making duplicates of layers to use as "tops" and then running boolean commands. I did this over and over again until I had a file with no overlapping fill areas. During the process I ran into several instances of phantom strokes being left as artifacts which I had to search out and delete before the  processes would run.

This procedure took about 30 minutes on this very simple illustration. I can not imagine doing this with a complex image.

I am not trying to complain about Designer, I am asking for help in learning if there is a best way to accomplish what I am trying to do.

Thank you!

[Otto Manuel]

It looks like what I have been asking for is something that equates to Adobe Illustrator's Merge function.

I have an Illustrator license but I like drawing in Designer... its a whole lot more fun.

Now that I know I should be searching for a "merge" function I have learned that it has been asked about previously but I guess it's not part of a Designer work flow.

Maybe?

 

[Otto Manuel]

As an experiment I exported my initial Designer illustration, the one with the overlapping shapes on the layers, as an EPS and opened it in Adobe Illustrator.

I selected everything and ran a "Merge" process.

The process worked perfectly and there are no phantom artifacts to worry about.

It was an eye opener and left me disappointed to think that as much as I love drawing in Designer, I am going to have to continue to depend on Illustrator to do things I can not seem to do in Designer.

At least I have a solution at hand.

Thank you.

[loukash]

10 hours ago, Otto Manuel said:

I have been trying to work with the Divide process but it just seems to create different considerations for the puzzle

The boolean operations in Affinity apps have their… well, issues.

5 hours ago, Otto Manuel said:

opened it in Adobe Illustrator.
I selected everything and ran a "Merge" process.

Sadly, this is currently a "valid workaround".

5 hours ago, Otto Manuel said:

It was an eye opener and left me disappointed to think that as much as I love drawing in Designer, I am going to have to continue to depend on Illustrator to do things I can not seem to do in Designer.

I hear you:

Another, er… "option" is to use the VectorStyler app beta (currently still free) as an intermediate "plugin" for advanced vector operations, copying back and forth via the OS clipboard. But VectorStyler has its own set of problems as well; hence it's still "beta".

Vector exchange via clipboard works with Illustrator as well, but there is an Affinity bug (acknowledged and expected to be fixed soon) that converts CMYK vector objects to RGB when copied to clipboard. Copying CMYK from Illustrator back to Affinity should work though.