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How can I slice up an object in AD


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Can anybody tell me how I can slice up an in AD?  I've attached a screenshot of a rectangle which I've divided up with wavy lines. When I select a line plus the rectangle and use the 'Divide' or 'Xor' function, what I get is that light area at the top instead of a rectagle divided up into two separate but touching areas.
I may be missing something obvious but I can't work it out. Can anybody help?

Screenshot 2021-05-09 at 14.35.16.png

Using: Mac OSX Monterey on a Mac Mini (late 2014). Wacom Bamboo. Mouse. Pencils. Pens. Other stuff...

 

Kevin McSherry: Creative. Art  :  Illustration  :  Design
The Studio, 17 Aideen Avenue, Terenure, Dublin 6W.  Ireland
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From my knowledge you'll need to merge all lines (can be very small) - expand stroke and the do a Boolean Subtract - then Layer-> Geometry->Divide for individual shapes with a tiny gap in-between. (Easier in Inkscape via Divide.)

 

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Also for a single of those lines, the way is as already mentioned by PixelPest, use expand stroke so the line converts to a closed path and then select the line and other object of interest (the rectangle) and perform the wanted geometrical operation.

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Thank you both, that was very helpful. I just want to add what I just experienced: Initially, I set the stroke of each of those lines to 0. When I expanded the stroke, I got the same unwanted result as before. So I set the stroke to the minimum of 0.1 and then expanded and it worked. Perhaps logically, you can't do this if there's no width to the stroke. Maybe it's another thing I'm doing wrong 😬

This will get me through the project for which I need this function but It would be better to have a 0 width cut. Is that possible?

Thanks again. Kevin

Screenshot 2021-05-10 at 09.25.07.png

Screenshot 2021-05-10 at 09.31.26.png

Using: Mac OSX Monterey on a Mac Mini (late 2014). Wacom Bamboo. Mouse. Pencils. Pens. Other stuff...

 

Kevin McSherry: Creative. Art  :  Illustration  :  Design
The Studio, 17 Aideen Avenue, Terenure, Dublin 6W.  Ireland
+353 (0)86 247 0737   www.mcsherry.ie

160604_35%2Bicon%2Baffinity.jpg

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You can have much finer strokes/gaps by going Preferences->User Preferences->Decimal Places for Unit Type: Pixels=3 (I won't use the max. of 6 as it most likely give calculation errors down the road.

Merge all lines - now enter stroke width: 0,001px, hit enter - it will show "0" but will compute internally with 0,001

go Layer->Expand Stroke and Boolean Subtract + Geometry Separate curves will work.

rounding error at 72k zoom:

72kzoom.png.38479fe97ad7393f84811f865269f856.png

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That's great -thank you PP, I'm very grateful to you. When you say "merge', do you mean the 'add' boolean function where the divide and xor functions are on the top right of the window (I learned from this thread that they're 'boolean functions!).

 

Using: Mac OSX Monterey on a Mac Mini (late 2014). Wacom Bamboo. Mouse. Pencils. Pens. Other stuff...

 

Kevin McSherry: Creative. Art  :  Illustration  :  Design
The Studio, 17 Aideen Avenue, Terenure, Dublin 6W.  Ireland
+353 (0)86 247 0737   www.mcsherry.ie

160604_35%2Bicon%2Baffinity.jpg

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3 minutes ago, kevinmcsherry said:

When you say "merge', do you mean the 'add' boolean function

No - that won' t work with open paths. I believe it's in Layers->Geometry->Merge Curves and have to take place before you add thickness to the strokes via Expand Stroke. Got it so far? (Just on an old iPad right now)

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Yes -I see that now. Great. Thank you for your patience. 👍👍👍

Using: Mac OSX Monterey on a Mac Mini (late 2014). Wacom Bamboo. Mouse. Pencils. Pens. Other stuff...

 

Kevin McSherry: Creative. Art  :  Illustration  :  Design
The Studio, 17 Aideen Avenue, Terenure, Dublin 6W.  Ireland
+353 (0)86 247 0737   www.mcsherry.ie

160604_35%2Bicon%2Baffinity.jpg

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8 hours ago, PixelPest said:

You can have much finer strokes/gaps by going Preferences->User Preferences->Decimal Places for Unit Type: Pixels=3 (I won't use the max. of 6 as it most likely give calculation errors down the road.

The Decimal Places for Unit Type settings have no effect on calculations, which are always done at the maximum available internal precision (the binary equivalent of around 8 decimal places). Those settings only affect the display of numeric values.

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On 5/9/2021 at 3:42 PM, kevinmcsherry said:

how I can slice up an in AD?  I've attached a screenshot of a rectangle which I've divided up with wavy lines.

See

 

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@PixelPest, I wasn't replying to you.
The issue that @kevinmcsherry describes is exactly the same as what my thread was about, and it's an acknowledged bug.
But your "expand stroke" workaround is valid, see

 

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1 minute ago, PixelPest said:

I still think cutting via single/multiple strokes (no shapes) is a feature that's somehow missing.

Of course!
Did someone say anything contrary?!

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Just now, PixelPest said:

Then try with 0,001 and 0,000001 and feel the difference.

I am not sure what you mean by "feel the difference."

But for example, in this narrow line.afdesign file try expanding the 0.000005 px line & subtracting that from the rectangle vs. doing the same thing with a line ten or a hundred times as wide.

The difference is tiny but real.

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12 minutes ago, R C-R said:

"feel the difference."

My experience from the aforelinked thread was that the finer the expanded stroke, the higher the chance that it will introduce zillions of redundant nodes upon dividing the underlying object. But that likely depends on other factors as well. For my object (which was a real object for a graphic I was working on at that time), the sweet spot was 0.001 pt.

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1 hour ago, loukash said:

My experience from the aforelinked thread was that the finer the expanded stroke, the higher the chance that it will introduce zillions of redundant nodes upon dividing the underlying object. But that likely depends on other factors as well. For my object (which was a real object for a graphic I was working on at that time), the sweet spot was 0.001 pt.

My experience is different but be that as it may, my point is the Decimal Places for Unit Type settings do not affect the calculations, just what the app displays in numeric fields.

It is easy enough to show this: for example set it to 0 for pixels, enter 0.4 px for the X value of left edge of a rectangle in the Transform panel & zoom in until you can see where that edge actually is. Or set the dp for degrees to 0, enter 0.5 in the Rotation field of a rectangle & try to set a ruler guide to be flush with any of its edges.

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