[Affinity Designer] Importing brush info (paths) from Illustrator / PDF / SVG result in shapes

[oug]

Hi all! I've been using Affinity for years now and my experiences have been amazing. However, I've been running into an issue since I received some Illustrator files, as I can't seem to properly import them. The use case is as follows:

- I have some paths within Illustrator (line-tool, pen-tool, brush-tool)

- I export these paths as either .AI, .PDF or .SVG

- Importing them into Affinity Designer results in a shape

The line and pen paths import properly. I can manipulate them in Affinity Designer as paths (change bezier handles, change thickness, change stroke etc). However the brush path information is gone and I end up with a shape (in the form of the previous path + thickness), see the attached screenshot for a clear visual, but I really need the path info (for animation / scaling / etc).

I've attached some files for clarification. Is there a way to export / import the brush path info from Illustrator so it is exported as a path? Thanks!

Note: I looked through the forums, but couldn't find a relevant match. There are some topics about similar issues (using Photoshop / Affinity Photo), but I couldn't find a solution. I also can imagine that this question has been asked before. My apologies if this is a double post.

paths.afdesign paths.ai paths.pdf paths.svg

Edited January 16, 2022 by oug

[v_kyr]

Hi and welcome!

1 hour ago, oug said:

- Importing them into Affinity Designer results in a shape

The line and pen paths import properly. I can manipulate them in Affinity Designer as paths (change bezier handles, change thickness, change stroke etc). However the brush path information is gone and I end up with a shape (in the form of the previous path + thickness)

Well when looking at the SVG code from Illustrator you can see that the line is exported as an SVG line type no fill, aka ...

Quote

<line x1="6.18" y1="3.14" x2="6.18" y2="329.13" style="fill:none;stroke:#1d1d1b;stroke-miterlimit:10;stroke-width:10px"/>

... the pen line as a SVG path (curve) with no fill ...

Quote

<path d="M169.18,80.15c50.1,25.27,92.57,53.92,88.54,78.42-5.46,33.22-92.64,35.71-95.59,66.52-3.23,33.7,99,52.87,101.76,96.47,2,31.4-48.49,59.94-86.34,77.54" transform="translate(-77.09 -75.69)" style="fill:none;stroke:#1d1d1b;stroke-miterlimit:10;stroke-width:10px"/>

... and the brush as a SVG path (a closed curve form) with just a style fill setting ...

Quote

<path d="M407,89.06c-14-6.74-29.87-10.63-44.68-4.12a30.75,30.75,0,0,0-14.79,13.31c-3.47,6.53-4.33,14.07-3.4,21.33a59,59,0,0,0,19,35.83A52.77,52.77,0,0,0,401.52,
...
...
4a67.06,67.06,0,0,1,9,3.67c2.36,1.13,5.52.72,6.85-1.79,1.18-2.24.72-5.63-1.8-6.84Z" transform="translate(-77.09 -75.69)" style="fill:#1d1d1b"/>

So the brush is exported as a closed form path which IMO is usually correct for brushes, since those aren't treated as simple line curves/shapes here.

Can't tell if Illustrator offers to export/convert the brush instead as just a center line path representation on export. - However with an autotracer which supports center-line tracing one could convert it into a line path curve representation (like the pen lines here).

[oug]

Thank you for your reply. I am not a 100% certain if I understand you correctly but the 'closed form path' actually results in the 'shape'? If I import the SVG into Illustrator I do retain the full control over the brush-path though (like it is in the original AI file), so Affinity does something different. Is there an 'autotracer' feature in Affinity?

Edited January 16, 2022 by oug

[v_kyr]

No Affinity doesn't have yet any autotracing capabilities, but Illustrator might have for bitmap-to-vector, though I don't know if Illustrator has center-line tracing support (?). - Inkscape has.

[v_kyr]

• How to get a Centerline Trace in Illustrator

[oug]

Thank you again for your input (Vielen Dank!). The problem for me however is that I have these problems within Affinity (I don't own Illustrator). Do I need to:

- center-line every line in the original Illustrator file

- export that individually to SVG

- export the other visuals (fills, other shapes that are actually shapes) from the AI document to SVG

- import both into Affinity Designer

- manually re-apply every 'brush style' to the first SVG (the center-line SVG)

- manually overlay (and re-layer) the second SVG (the 'other' visuals)

Edited January 16, 2022 by oug

[v_kyr]

It depends on what you need and want to do here, AFAI understood you, the Illustrator brush objects are always outlined objects and you want/need just strokes instead (see my previous shown screenshot for the difference between outline and stroke for the brush)?

For the brush example AFAIK Affinity can't autoconvert an outline to stroke in some easy reusable manner, so you would have to find workarounds (other tools) which can possibly do so. Since you don't have Illustrator you might look after Inkscape (which is free) here, which BTW offers tracing (also center line tracing). - Via Inkscape you can overcome with some tricks to convert an outline to a stroke then, which you can then exchange as PDF/SVG or via a clipboard copy as SVG too with Affinity Designer.

• Inkscape - Convert Path to Stroke

 

 

[oug]

Yes I think we are on the same page. Let me try that and I'll update later the upcoming week! Thank you so much for your input