Corner Tool + Boolean Operations causes double overlapping nodes

[STGM]

Hello, everyone!

When I round two adjacent nodes of a rectangle with the Corner Tool all the way up and then either 1) expand the stroke, or 2) bake the object's appearance, I get two overlapping nodes where the imaginary anchor points forming the arc would meet to a full stop (I think). I hope I just made it sound clear 🙄 Pic below

This may become a problem when I have to sumbit my work for approval. But what's even worse is that sometimes the shape would subtract what appears to be the end cap of the curve from its own geometry (see pic below). And when you have several artboards full of hundreds of paths each, then that becomes a horror story. It could take me a whole eternity just to clean it up.

 

 

I've played around with all stroke properties, like meter ratio, end cap type, etc. Nothing really solves the problem.

And another thing. Why is Affinity Designer adding extra nodes where there shouldn't be? If you look at the second shape from the left in the screenshot, you'll notice the added node between the top and right one. What the... ?!

So far I've never experienced this with any other vector software, including Illustrator, Inkscape and Vectornator. Before publishing my post I actually checked with both programs to see if I get the same problem. And just to be fair, I also copied and exported the shape directly from Affinity Designer before applying the same actions in Illustrator, Vectornator and Inkscape. No problem there whatsoever. Not even extra nodes being added to simple shapes like the one from my example!

I'm also attaching a demo document for you guys. It's the same one from the screenshot above.

This thing is driving me nuts. Any ideas?

double-overlapping-nodes.afdesign

[prophet]

I can confirm this on Designer 1.10.5 on MacOS 10.14.6

A workaround in this case could be to use the shape's built in corners function (accessed through the Contextual Menu) rather than using the Corner Tool. That does not result in extra nodes for me once the stroke is expanded.

[STGM]

37 minutes ago, prophet said:

I can confirm this on Designer 1.10.5 on MacOS 10.14.6

A workaround in this case could be to use the shape's built in corners function (accessed through the Contextual Menu) rather than using the Corner Tool. That does not result in extra nodes for me once the stroke is expanded.

As far as I'm aware, this option is only available for a select few of the shapes under the Shape Tool. What if my object is any closed path (curve) created with the pen tool, or even a rectangle that had been converted to a curve?

Personally, I think that the Boolean operations in Affinity need major improvement. Here's another example:

 

 

As you can see, once you expand a very simple path like a circle, you get two added nodes in the middle of the segment there. That circle was expanded individually from the shape below it; nothing there to mess with the geometry.

Then I take it one step further. In the example on the far right I used a Boolean operation to unify both expanded objects and I got even more nodes (some are nested just under existing nodes).

Now, someone might say that both shapes in my example follow the exact same outline, and that those added nodes are just the result of the program trying to squeeze two paths that occupy identical mathematical coordinates into one. Well, it doesn't need to be two overlapping paths either. Same thing happens regardless of how close to one another the paths are, or how identical in form they are.

Also, the left side of the final combined shape looks as it should (no added nodes). The right side is a Frankenstein! How come one side of the compound path turns out great and the other doesn't? That's just bad!!!

[Lee_T]

I Think the problem you are experiencing here is down to the way the shape is created, every stroke has a beginning and an end, even on closed shapes.

Additionally, using the corner tool and crossing them over, you are forcing two nodes to occupy the same position and they will not merge, this is by design.

For a "perfect" arch, I would recommend using the Donut tool and converting the result to curves followed by extending out the edges. This should remove the process of overlapping geometry.

It's also worth bearing in mind you can force the position of  the start/end of a curve by creating the shape manually instead of using a quick shape.

Lee