Subtracting from vector polygons

[Robertson668]

I have 3 vector octagons that I need to trim sections out of, I have created white lines where I want to delete (Picture #1).

Placing another shape over the polygon and hitting the subtract button turns it into a weird bulging shape. The same with add. (Picture #2).

I have tried compounding layers but the inner black octagons dissapear when I do that, even through they show in layers. The subtract button works easily on simpler shapes.

How do I delete the white lines from the black polygons?

[v_kyr]

Welcome to the forum!

Do you wanted to get that result, or something else instead via geom. subtract?

• Aff-Pic-02.afdesign

 

 

[Robertson668]

Yes! that's the result I want, I've tried Geometry - subtract, but can't get it to work.

How do you do that?

Thanks!

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[Robertson668]

lacerto, thank you for that! After an hour of playing I finally managed to do it, quite how I am not sure. I followed your instructions for the 3 lines that go across and that worked. For the small lines it did not. For those if I expanded them they had no fill and only subtracted the outline. If I did not expand them it subtracted the whole shape. As of now I am not really sure how I did it, I tried so many things I have lost track of what worked. And now I have to try it again with a different pattern. Thank you!

[v_kyr]

9 hours ago, Robertson668 said:

How do you do that?

I did it the way lacerto already showed above, though with ADe V1 instead.

Another alternative way and in cases where you have all initially only as a bitmap is, to fill the transparent area you've shown above (let's say with APh) also with the same white as the crossing lines, so you have a 2 color B&W bitmap image. Then throw that bitmap image through a tracer/vectorizer in order to get a plain 2 colored vector representation of it, which you save as PDF/SVG and afterwards open/import into ADe. Now in ADe you remove/delete the white vector layer and make the doc again transparent. - The result (what will be left over) will be just the layer with the black line cutted polygons as vectors on a transparent background!

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[v_kyr]

Here's how the alternative procedure looks like after tracing the whole from a bitmap image into vectors. I've used the SuperVectorizer tracer under MacOS.

The PDF outputfile the tracer generated from an "Aff-Pic-02.jpg" bitmap image as an PDF is saved here as "Aff-Pic-02_vectorized.pdf" and just opened in ADe v1.

• The white filled "Aff-Pic-02.jpg" bitmap image looks like this black on a white background ...
  

 

The PDF the tracer generated ...

• Aff-Pic-02_vectorized.pdf

 

And here's a short screencast what to do in ADe with the then opened "Aff-Pic-02_vectorized.pdf" PDF file ...

• Aff-Pic-02_vectorized.afdesign