Working between iPad and PC and artboards

[golfortennis]

Tried some searching but not sure I'm even using the right terminology.  Noob at this so please be gentle.

My first stab at a yardage book for golf course was not too bad.  What I did was snip an image from google earth pro, fit it into the artboard, trace around the fairways and greens, etc., and when I had all my info on the artboard, I would uncheck the photo, and so rather than seeing the terrain, you would simply see the lines. Before and after, done on PC.

 

 

 

As you can see, the lines were not very well drawn(using a mouse has proven difficult).  So Affinity had a 50% off sale, so I got the iPad edition as well, so I could trace with a stylus.  That part has worked out better, and I am using icloud to transfer between the two. But the sizing doesn't seem to want to be as flexible, and it is very easy to delete everything when I go to remove the underlying picture.  

For reference, I built a set of 40 artboards with common size, laid out so I can print out a flip up book on both sides.  Ideally I would bring in the image from the ipad and be able to work as easily in the PC program as if I had never used the iPad.  For example, I have an artboard much larger than the actual image I used for tracing, and any modification of the image size hides parts of what I want to show, rather than shrinking the image to fit. 

Do I need to be taking more care about sizing the artboard in the iPad before starting to trace?  Does any of what I have described make sense?  Thank you for any info.

 

 

 

[Dan C]

Hi @golfortennis,

12 hours ago, golfortennis said:

For example, I have an artboard much larger than the actual image I used for tracing, and any modification of the image size hides parts of what I want to show, rather than shrinking the image to fit

Are you able to provide a sample document of the file you created on iPad, and a sample of the .afdesign file you are adding this document to (with multiple artboards)?

I believe this should be possible, but I'm having a little trouble visualising the documents from your description.

Many thanks in advance!

[golfortennis]

1 hour ago, Dan C said:

Hi @golfortennis,

Are you able to provide a sample document of the file you created on iPad, and a sample of the .afdesign file you are adding this document to (with multiple artboards)?

I believe this should be possible, but I'm having a little trouble visualising the documents from your description.

Many thanks in advance!

 

Thanks Dan C, I'm having difficulty getting them into the size limits.

One thing that did occur to me, and I don't know if this matters, but initially I was using the snip tool on the PC to get my image, and was not needing to crop.  On the iPad, I would do the home button/power button on the Google Earth image, and then I would crop in Affinity before tracing.  Should that matter?

[Dan C]

The size of the screenshot will not matter - as you are tracing the image using Vector tools, which can be infinitely scaled.

As requested, are you able to provide a copy of your Designer documents so I can better understand your workflow?

[golfortennis]

2 hours ago, Dan C said:

The size of the screenshot will not matter - as you are tracing the image using Vector tools, which can be infinitely scaled.

As requested, are you able to provide a copy of your Designer documents so I can better understand your workflow?

OK, I must have been looking at the wrong thing for sizing.  The layout tab is as mentioned,  the sarnia2 file is a file that was, as described, screenshot on Ipad from Google Earth, cropped in Affinity on Ipad, traced, then saved to icloud.

I will fully admit I may be asking questions about multiple steps all at once...but I don't know what I don't know.

 

Final Update Artboard layout.afdesign sarnia2.afdesign

[Dan C]

No problem at all, many thanks for providing these for me!

I would recommend the following:

• Open your Artboard Layout document
• Use File > Place and select your .afdesign file
• Drag this onto your Artboard, filling the artboard as best possible.
  From here, there are a few options:

1. Leave the Artboard larger than the placed document, so there is white 'space' around the document
2. Reduce the size of the Artboard, to match the placed document
3. Scale the placed document non-proportionally, so that it fits the artboard, but no longer represents the exact shape of the course (I suspect this is not an option you'd want).
   
   I chose option 2, which consisted of the following:

• Select the placed .afdesign file on the Artboard and take note of the X & Y size in the Transform Studio
• Now, select the Artboard itself, and apply the same X & Y values to in the Transform Panel
• Move the Placed document to be central on the newly sized artboard, as required.

I've created a screen recording of this behaviour below -

Is this what you were hoping to achieve?

[golfortennis]

42 minutes ago, Dan C said:

No problem at all, many thanks for providing these for me!

I would recommend the following:

• Open your Artboard Layout document
• Use File > Place and select your .afdesign file
• Drag this onto your Artboard, filling the artboard as best possible.
  From here, there are a few options:

1. Leave the Artboard larger than the placed document, so there is white 'space' around the document
2. Reduce the size of the Artboard, to match the placed document
3. Scale the placed document non-proportionally, so that it fits the artboard, but no longer represents the exact shape of the course (I suspect this is not an option you'd want).
   
   I chose option 2, which consisted of the following:

• Select the placed .afdesign file on the Artboard and take note of the X & Y size in the Transform Studio
• Now, select the Artboard itself, and apply the same X & Y values to in the Transform Panel
• Move the Placed document to be central on the newly sized artboard, as required.

I've created a screen recording of this behaviour below -

Is this what you were hoping to achieve?

Thank you for this.  It's pretty close.  If clicking off the checkmark leaves my vector tracings(but removes the green grass etc, , then yes it would.  I would actually say #2 is my least favorable option, only because sometimes the images require more space depending on the design, and that I am looking for a consistent size as these would be then cut down for a booklet shape. I would also be adding other information that would fill in the space.  #3 is not as much of an issue, because I will be putting yardages in, so a proper scale is not crucial, as long as I have the measurements pretty close.

But this is great, thank you so much.  I will report back with success or failure. 

 

 

[golfortennis]

Ok, so I tried the placing.  I get the image there.  FWIW, like you, when I place it, in the layers it shows "Embedded design", whereas my original file simply shows it as Hole17.PNG(Image).  I can toggle the checkmark to bring in the image traced or not.

If you go to about 8:12 to about 9:30, he explains what it is I am trying to do.  Hopefully that will make sense.  

[golfortennis]

1 hour ago, Dan C said:

No problem at all, many thanks for providing these for me!

I would recommend the following:

• Open your Artboard Layout document
• Use File > Place and select your .afdesign file
• Drag this onto your Artboard, filling the artboard as best possible.
  From here, there are a few options:

1. Leave the Artboard larger than the placed document, so there is white 'space' around the document
2. Reduce the size of the Artboard, to match the placed document
3. Scale the placed document non-proportionally, so that it fits the artboard, but no longer represents the exact shape of the course (I suspect this is not an option you'd want).
   
   I chose option 2, which consisted of the following:

• Select the placed .afdesign file on the Artboard and take note of the X & Y size in the Transform Studio
• Now, select the Artboard itself, and apply the same X & Y values to in the Transform Panel
• Move the Placed document to be central on the newly sized artboard, as required.

I've created a screen recording of this behaviour below -

Is this what you were hoping to achieve?

forgot to quote for notification purposes.  Please see post above.

[Dan C]

Thanks for letting me know!

It's certainly possible to either hide the image layer, or add more Curves to your placed .afdesign file, after adding it to your layout document on desktop.

Embedded documents can be edited at any time, as a separate document, allowing you to make these changes - to do this, select the Embedded document on your Artboard, then either double-click on the Layer Thumbnail in the Layers studio, or select Edit Document on the Context Toolbar.

This will open the placed document in a separate window for editing, where you can 'hide' the image layer, close this embedded document view and you should find these changes update in your layout document -

I hope this helps

[golfortennis]

10 hours ago, Dan C said:

Thanks for letting me know!

It's certainly possible to either hide the image layer, or add more Curves to your placed .afdesign file, after adding it to your layout document on desktop.

Embedded documents can be edited at any time, as a separate document, allowing you to make these changes - to do this, select the Embedded document on your Artboard, then either double-click on the Layer Thumbnail in the Layers studio, or select Edit Document on the Context Toolbar.

This will open the placed document in a separate window for editing, where you can 'hide' the image layer, close this embedded document view and you should find these changes update in your layout document -

I hope this helps

 

This appears to be the trick, although user error may remain an issue.