Quickly trace outline of a vector

[Andrew 916535]

Hello,

I am fairly new to Designer and am trying to create an outline of a vector so that I can use it as a separate cutting path for a laser cutter. Is there a fast way to create an outline of the outside edge without tracing it with the pen tool?

I tried using the Pixel persona, creating a selection but I dont see a way to turn the selection into a curve.

Thanks

Andrew

[lepr]

Hi and welcome to the forums.

Several suggestions could be made but they would likely be based on wrong assumptions or guesses about the structure of your document.

You'll get the quickest and most appropriate help if you attach an example Affinity document.

[Andrew 916535]

Hello,

I cant share the file I am working on but to illustrate what I am trying to do I took a screenshot of an example vector art file.

• Lets assume that when I click on this vector file I see it is composed of multiple curves and many many nodes.
• All I really need is an outline of the outside of this file.

I know I can create an outline manually by tracing it with the pen tool but it seems to me that there has got to be a better way. For example if I were to treat this as an image I could create selection by selecting either the image in the center or the white background and then add a stroke to the selection. But since this is a vector and I really need a curve so that I can use it with my laser cutter I am wondering if there is a more efficient way of doing this rather than tracing the outside border of the image?

Does that help?

Please note this is a free vector download from Freepik which is why I am including more of the screen in the screenshot.

 

[v_kyr]

22 minutes ago, Andrew Hydle said:

But since this is a vector and I really need a curve so that I can use it with my laser cutter I am wondering if there is a more efficient way of doing this rather than tracing the outside border of the image?

Depends on how your laser cutter needs this as a vector. Basically you can vectorize such an image with any vectorizer into a b&w or grayscale image, others do support good color quantisation too, so you could trace/the whole here. - And in case the vectorized result gives much more instead of a simple outline shape, you then can remove unneaded curves/nodes easily in ADe.

To give you an idea of how a common vectorizer can trace that ...

 

... for an overview of a few bitmap-to-vector tracers look at ...

You can try out some of them listed there for your outline purposes!

 

[Old Bruce]

31 minutes ago, Andrew Hydle said:

• Lets assume that when I click on this vector file I see it is composed of multiple curves and many many nodes.
• All I really need is an outline of the outside of this file.

So thousands of curves...

This may work. Select the hand and doughnut and duplicate all the layers. Group this Duplicate and move to the top of the layers in the layers panel, just good housekeeping. Expand the Group and start adding all the layers together until you wind up with the Hand+Doughnut as one Curve. Now you can use the stroke panel to add an appropriately thick stroke of the proper colour and give the fill a clear no colour fill.

[David in Яuislip]

Bottom layer of that eps should be what you're after
Image on the right is done by selecting all of the layers and doing a Boolean add, it's similar but has the bumpy bit bottom left

[Andrew 916535]

v_kyr, thanks for the really awsome response but I am looking for something a bit more simple. The image is already a vector so I just need an outline around it as a separate curve.

Old Bruce, I tried that but seem to be missing something. Here is a better example with a vector. I have one layer that is grouped showing the original vector. The second layer is the copy where I added the layers together. When I do that it still shows as a bunch of nodes and not as a single curve so I must be missing something.

Test.afdesign

[Hangman]

How about this...

[Andrew 916535]

Hangman! That is it! I new there had to be an easy way! Thank you so much for the step through!

Thank you everyone for your time and support!

[lepr]

Designer 2 gives us a new tool that solves this in about 2 seconds.

1. Select the root Layer
2. Press S to activate Shape Builder Tool
3. Marquee select everything except the white background rectangle that covers the page
4. Click the 'Create a new shape...'  Action button in context toolbar - it looks like an intersecting circle and square 

You will now have a silhouette of the design placed at top of layers stack.

Edited March 24, 2023 by ,,,

[Hangman]

Hi Andrew,

That's no problem at all, glad that's what you were looking for, hopefully the same process will apply to your work file as well but if not (e.g., because it's constructed differenly) then just let us know and I'm sure we can find a solution for you...

[Andrew 916535]

Seriously, thanks again! I have been loving the Affinity products so far but most short tutorials are in Illustrator which I am avoiding like the plague! Actually, cancelled my Adobe subscription to just use Affinity Photo / Capture One. Was really amazing how quickly everyone here was able to help me out!

[lepr]

@Alfred I'm on yet another ignore list!

[Hangman]

@,,, There's always numerous different ways to achieve the same end goal, I think time taken for both methods is roughly the same... See, I'm not ignoring you... 😜

[lepr]

5 minutes ago, Hangman said:

@,,, There's always numerous different ways to achieve the same end goal, I think time taken for both methods is roughly the same... See, I'm not ignoring you... 😜

Time taken has nothing to do with being ignored by the OP.

Anyway, Shape Builder Tool is by far the quickest and easiest way for the donut example. Here's a video to prove it (and I was going slow so people could see the buttons I was clicking):

 

 

[Hangman]

@,,,, I don't think it's a competition and I'm pretty sure the OP isn't ignoring you, your solution is equally good if not better... the OP didn't specify if they were using V1 or V2 so I thought it better to provide a solution that worked for both just in case...

[lepr]

8 minutes ago, Hangman said:

@,,,, I don't think it's a competition and I'm pretty sure the OP isn't ignoring you, your solution is equally good if not better...

You are misrepresenting my message by talking about a competition. I was simply stating a fact - Shape Builder Tool method is fastest and easiest.

[Hangman]

25 minutes ago, ,,, said:

You are misrepresenting my message by talking about a competition. I was simply stating a fact - Shape Builder Tool method is fastest and easiest.

If using V2 I agree but that isn't a given as the OP doesn't say which version they're using, my assumption as a new user is V2 as well but either way, it's always good to have multiple solutions right and maybe it’s helpful to have a solution for V1 users as well who happen upon this post...

[lepr]

5 minutes ago, Hangman said:

If using V2 I agree but that isn't a given as the OP doesn't say which version they're using...

The OP is a brand new member of the forum today. There's an extremely high probability that they have v2.

Anybody would think you're sore about something. (Yes, I wasn't happy about being ignored by the person for whom I posted a solution.)

 

[Andrew 916535]

Hey now there guys. Yes, I do have V2 but I actually took all of the suggestions and created some notes for myself that way I have multiple ways to do this. All the suggestions were completely helpful!