equivalent of expand appearance in illustrator

[RobT]

Im trying to migrate from Illustrator where my typical workflow involves creating a shape, making a pattern brush, applying that to a circle, say - and then expanding the object so it's a complex vector object rather than just a circle with a visual effect on the stroke. I can then fill in the centre with a boolean operation (Pathfinder).

I'm trying to recreate this in AD - I created a design and saved a png, created a new textured image brush from this, applied it to a circle. However when I click Layer>Expand stroke, nothing seems to happen. I'm expecting a vector object with lots of nodes/points but it's still just a circle.

Am I missing something? Thanks for any help.

[telemax]

Hi and Welcome to the Affinity Forums!

A shape created with a pattern brush (brush applied to a circle) is a raster object, so you can't "expand appearance".

To elaborate, vector brushes in AD, are textures that follow a vector path.

[RobT]

Thanks - so is there anyway I can create shapes like this in purely vector terms? (Like illustrator's pattern brush?)

[telemax]

No. And this "True Vector Brush" feature is often requested by users.