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Hi!

Just a quick one but I can't seem to work it out!

 

I have star that I want to split into 24 parts. I have drawn the star with 12 lines over the top of it (see attached) but i can't work out what pathfinder tool to use.

 

Could anyone ahem be a star and shed some light on it?

 

Thanks

 

Martin

 

 

 

post-27434-0-31684500-1455700816_thumb.png

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  • Staff

Welcome to the forum studio martin :)

 

Try the following:

 

1. Select the Lines and go to Layer > Expand stroke

2. Select the Lines and Star shape and go to Layer > Geometry > Divide 

3. Select the Star shape and go to Layer > Geometry > Divide to break the object apart

 

We do have plans to add a Knife tool in the future tho to make this easier :)

 

Hope this helps!

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There may be an easier way to do it but using the Geometry operations (Layer menu > Geometry or with the toolbar icons) will do what you want ... maybe.

 

The basic idea is to add the lines together into one shape & subtract that from the star. The problem is add doesn't work on lines, just on shapes. So what you can do is use Layer > Expand Stroke to convert the lines into shapes, then add them together. Make sure the resulting single shape is on the layer above the star, select both shapes & use subtract to split the star.

 

The "maybe" part comes into it because expanding the lines into shapes gives them thickness, so that thickness is subtracted from the star, leaving gaps between the pieces. That may be what you want, but if not you can minimize but not completely eliminate the gaps by setting the stroke of the lines to a very small value before you expand them (like 0.1 pixel).

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Leigh,

 

Our methods are similar but by using Divide there is a lot of clean up to do afterwards (assuming the expanded lines are no longer wanted). The add then subtract method avoids that.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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  • Staff

Hi studio martin,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Instead of a line use the side of a rectangle rotated around the center of the star (using Power Duplicate) to divide it in pieces.

Then select all rectangles and the star and press Divide from the main toolbar (menu Layer ▸ Geometry ▸ Divide).

Finally drag a marquee selection to pick just the star pieces from the center of the rotated rectangles.

 

This will generate a star without gaps on the divisions (other than the antialiasing picking the background color on the boundaries).

See screenshot for reference.

 

post-59-0-92791000-1455710508_thumb.png

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"Finally drag a marquee selection to pick just the star pieces from the center of the rotated rectangles."

 

That seems easier said than done. I may be missing something but when I try this method I get extra curves in the area of the divided star, including lines & duplicates of some of the star pieces.

 

It all would be so much easier if, even before we get a knife tool, the divide operation would work on lines.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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  • 1 month later...

I've been struggling with this for a couple of hours so time to ask here...

 

I want half a circle (open - a line) - not a D shape. When I apply divide to a rectangle and a circle I get a D shape. I now want to get rid of the straight bit. Convert to curves won't let me delete the line segment I want to.

 

Any ideas chaps?

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This is standard for Boolean operations.

You have to break the curve and delete the excess (the vertical part).

To make arcs with the ellipse tool like many other vector editors have by default would be nice,  or a dedicated arc-tool.  :D

 

Cheers

P.

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  • Staff

Hi David Edge,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

There's no need for boolean operations. Draw your circle then convert it to curves pressing the Convert to Curves button in the context toolbar. Change to the Node Tool, select the top node and press the Break Curve button from the Action section in the context toolbar. Repeat for the bottom node. Now you have two open half. Select on of them and press delete.

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Hi David Edge,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

There's no need for boolean operations. Draw your circle then convert it to curves pressing the Convert to Curves button in the context toolbar. Change to the Node Tool, select the top node and press the Break Curve button from the Action section in the context toolbar. Repeat for the bottom node. Now you have two open half. Select on of them and press delete.

As far as I can tell you just need to break the curve at one point, marquee select and delete the broken (now 2) points.

 

Cheers

P.

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Thanks everyone

 

I've got it now. I did eventually find reference to break curve, but it's not easy to find because it's only a small icon, not on any menu I could find and not mentioned in the first two hits in the help system either!

 

Anyway, sorted and sanity restored!

 

Thanks again

 

d.

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As far as I can tell you just need to break the curve at one point, marquee select and delete the broken (now 2) points.

 

Cheers

P.

Yes, in this particular case that will also work because you need to delete two segments. For a regular path done with the Pen tool you have to select and brake two nodes to delete just the segment you want.

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I can´t confirm, but I didn´t want to stress the topic: Draw a circle with 4 points by closing the circle with the fourth point connected to the first - select one of the four points - go break curve - marquee select the broken point/s and hit delete - left with a "C"-shape. No? At least here it´s working this way.  :D

 

Cheers

P.

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  • 1 year later...

For what it's worth, I followed the instructions by PixelPest and it worked as I was expecting.  My needs were based on creating a logo and I needed to be able to have a vector image that I could scale for different uses.  Attached is the final result in PNG form, but it was a lot of breaks and joins to create the shape I was after.  Looking back - really felt like it was a "DOH!" moment, but to be hones, this kind of thing was what kept me out of Adobe Illustrator for the longest time.  However [pause for dramatic effect] it was incredibly easy with Designer - why I spent so much time fighting pixels in Photoshop for so long is beyond me at this point.

CDI-Logo.png

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