Mapping overlapping ways in a parallel manner

[Pbj]

Hey!

I am working on a map project and am trying to map different routes, which overlap to some extent. I created the routes from gpx files with a gis software and exported them as vector data for further use in affinity.

Is there a clever workflow to show all the overlapping routes in a shifted but parallel way without editing all the vertices of the lines manually? 

The picture shows a quick manual edit of two routes and hopefully shows what the problem is I'm sturgglin with. The routes overlap and I am trying to show both.

 

Any help is appreciated!

Greetings

[GarryP]

If you only want single-colour curves then an Outer Shadow Effect may be of use – left of my attached video where I have added two effects at the same time.

If you want multiple-colour curves then, only in Designer, the Appearance Panel, with Symbols and a Recolour Adjustment may be of use – right of my attached video.

In the video there is some ‘tearing’ but that can be overcome by some zooming.

In both cases the output will be rasterised because of the use of Effects and Adjustments.

Note: In my examples I have used the Corner Tool to make some of the corners, which is why the curve bends in strange ways sometimes.

If you can tell us more about why you want to do this then further, maybe better, suggestions may follow.

[Pbj]

24 minutes ago, GarryP said:

If you only want single-colour curves then an Outer Shadow Effect may be of use – left of my attached video where I have added two effects at the same time.

If you want multiple-colour curves then, only in Designer, the Appearance Panel, with Symbols and a Recolour Adjustment may be of use – right of my attached video.

In the video there is some ‘tearing’ but that can be overcome by some zooming.

In both cases the output will be rasterised because of the use of Effects and Adjustments.

Note: In my examples I have used the Corner Tool to make some of the corners, which is why the curve bends in strange ways sometimes.

If you can tell us more about why you want to do this then further, maybe better, suggestions may follow.

Thanks a lot for your answer! I am trying to draw a hiking map with suggested routes. The goal is to make every route completely visible. Right now a lot of information is lost, because I have a lot of areas where up to three routes overlap and therefore only the top one is visible.

The shadow approach is interesting, however when the routes have a certain angle, the shadow won't be visible because it is hidden behind the line(Does this make sense?) and the shadow lines have not a fixed offset. I'd like to prevent this.

[NotMyFault]

In case of exactly 3 routes, you may choose

• one as primary
• a secondary, shifted up/right 45 degrees by 1,5 stroke width
• a tertiary, shifted down/left 225 degrees

This should show all three paths except when crossing.

[GarryP]

Thanks for the extra information.

I don’t know if what you want to do is possible without some manual work as the software has no ‘automatic routing’ capabilities.
In other words, it can’t keep one curve from overlapping another curve because it has no concept of ‘overlapping’ in this sense, it’s just a bunch of curves.

Do your routes need to be a coloured curve within a thicker white curve?
If not, then maybe my attached image could be a possibility.
Each curve will need to be manually, separately, modified, but, for the most part, you can see all of the routes.

[Pbj]

1 hour ago, GarryP said:

Thanks for the extra information.

I don’t know if what you want to do is possible without some manual work as the software has no ‘automatic routing’ capabilities.
In other words, it can’t keep one curve from overlapping another curve because it has no concept of ‘overlapping’ in this sense, it’s just a bunch of curves.

Do your routes need to be a coloured curve within a thicker white curve?
If not, then maybe my attached image could be a possibility.
Each curve will need to be manually, separately, modified, but, for the most part, you can see all of the routes.

Thanks Gary!

So you achieved this by just modifying the line thickness? 

The problem I see here is that even if there is no overlap the yellow line for example stays smaller then the other lines and therefore I imagine there could be visibility problems in a unsteady background 

But this brings me to another idea:  Is it possible to cut the lines at the points where they begin and end to overlap and only style the sections that are affected by overlaps?

1 hour ago, NotMyFault said:

 

I will have a look at this, thanks

Quote

 

 

[GarryP]

58 minutes ago, Pbj said:

So you achieved this by just modifying the line thickness? 

All I did was draw the original curve, duplicate it a couple of times, give each curve a different thickness and colour, and then modified the paths.

59 minutes ago, Pbj said:

The problem I see here is that even if there is no overlap the yellow line for example stays smaller then the other lines and therefore I imagine there could be visibility problems in a unsteady background

I’m not sure what you mean by an “unsteady background” and I don’t know what the map background will look like.
Maybe choosing more-appropriate colours will help, or using different line thicknesses.

59 minutes ago, Pbj said:

Is it possible to cut the lines at the points where they begin and end to overlap and only style the sections that are affected by overlaps?

I don’t know what you mean by “only style the sections that are affected by overlaps”.
Can you give more details and, if possible, give a visual example of the problem and/or what you are trying to achieve?

The more information we have the better we can help you, otherwise we’re just guessing and it will take you longer to get an answer that works for you.

[Pbj]

20 minutes ago, GarryP said:

All I did was draw the original curve, duplicate it a couple of times, give each curve a different thickness and colour, and then modified the paths.

I’m not sure what you mean by an “unsteady background” and I don’t know what the map background will look like.
Maybe choosing more-appropriate colours will help, or using different line thicknesses.

I don’t know what you mean by “only style the sections that are affected by overlaps”.
Can you give more details and, if possible, give a visual example of the problem and/or what you are trying to achieve?

The more information we have the better we can help you, otherwise we’re just guessing and it will take you longer to get an answer that works for you.

Thanks for your patience and excuse the confusion.

With "unsteady background" I meant that the map shows nature feaures in the background and there are a lot of changes in contrast and color.

 

I made a simplified example.

The "affected segements" are only the line segements, which overlap at least one other line. 

Would it be possible to cut the lines manually at the points specified in the example below and style the remaining line with for example two colors? Or can a line by default only have one color?

[GarryP]

Thanks for the extra information.

If your routes are mostly the same, but there are some detours, then you could just add the detour routes separately in different colours.
In my attached example, the main route is shown in dotted white, with blue and magenta detours.
(I don’t know if I prefer the dotted lines or the plain ones so I’ve shown a mix.)

As for your question about lines with more than one colour, that’s possible (I think) but it would need more work.
I’ll have a bit of a think and see what I can come up with.

 

[GarryP]

It just struck me that this problem sounds similar to the problem that transit diagram creators have, e.g. https://tfl.gov.uk/maps/track/tube
There was someone in the forums https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/profile/91574-transitdiagrams/ who was drawing really nice transit diagrams but they haven’t been as active in the forums recently as they once were.
Maybe you could see if they can offer any advice, if you ask them nicely.

[Pbj]

Thanks for all the input Garry.

In the meantime i figured out how to make multi color lines. It's really easy and can be done with the appearance panel. 

This is the outcome:

I think I can work with that!

I just have to manually cut the lines at the points where they begin to overlap. Any suggestions on how to cut the lines?

I'm pretty new to deisgner and I just can not figure it out.

[GarryP]

I don’t know what you mean by “cut the lines”.

If you can give us various examples of junctions, and show us a mock-up of what you want to get with each, then we will have a better idea of what we’re working with.

Specifically we need you to tell/show us exactly what you want in each case – otherwise all we can give is (possibly?) vague suggestions.

I think you may need to do some (lots of?) manual clipping/masking, but without more details I can’t say.

Remember that you’re in the realms of trying to do something that the application wasn’t designed to let you do so there are times when you may need to deploy some manual tricks which, even when used, might not work every time.

[R C-R]

On 5/4/2023 at 9:58 AM, Pbj said:

I just have to manually cut the lines at the points where they begin to overlap. Any suggestions on how to cut the lines?

Assuming you are using AD V2, have you tried using the Knife Tool for that?

[thomaso]

@Pbj, since this thread meanwhile mentions various options for line creation may be this one is interesting, too. It auto-copies nodes from one curve to another. Therefore you select both curves and then select the nodes of the curve you want to get adjusted while the number of nodes should be equal in the wanted area of the curves. Move any of the selected nodes onto one of the other curve … and wait a moment.

[NotMyFault]

On 5/4/2023 at 3:58 PM, Pbj said:

Any suggestions on how to cut the lines?

Use the node tool, and „break curve“.

https://affinity.help/designer2/en-US.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_node.html

 

[NotMyFault]

And below is the file to create brushes in tricolor brushes

 

tricolor brush.afdesign

[Pbj]

20 hours ago, thomaso said:

@Pbj, since this thread meanwhile mentions various options for line creation may be this one is interesting, too. It auto-copies nodes from one curve to another. Therefore you select both curves and then select the nodes of the curve you want to get adjusted while the number of nodes should be equal in the wanted area of the curves. Move any of the selected nodes onto one of the other curve … and wait a moment.

 

Wow, didn't know this feature existed. This will really come in handy. Thanks a lot

8 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

Use the node tool, and „break curve“.

https://affinity.help/designer2/en-US.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_node.html

 

This worked!

8 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

And below is the file to create brushes in tricolor brushes

 

tricolor brush.afdesign 45.71 kB · 1 download

You are fantastic, thank you :)

[Mr. Sam]

Looks like it has been mentioned, but I would just create a brush with whatever colors you want, then use the pen tool as needed. Make sure you have no fill and stroke selected to use the brush you have created. Trent has a good tutorial on this @ 7:30 of this VIDEO HERE. I bet this will help solve your problem. Make as many brushes as needed.

[Pbj]

On 5/6/2023 at 1:56 AM, thomaso said:

@Pbj, since this thread meanwhile mentions various options for line creation may be this one is interesting, too. It auto-copies nodes from one curve to another. Therefore you select both curves and then select the nodes of the curve you want to get adjusted while the number of nodes should be equal in the wanted area of the curves. Move any of the selected nodes onto one of the other curve … and wait a moment.

 

I am diggin out this thread because I am recently looking for a way to snap linesto other lines just like @thomaso wonderfully explained in the quoted post. Is it possible to snap the lines not directly on the other lines but next to it so they are not eoverlapping?

[Old Bruce]

1 minute ago, Pbj said:

I am diggin out this thread because I am recently looking for a way to snap linesto other lines just like @thomaso wonderfully explained in the quoted post. Is it possible to snap the lines not directly on the other lines but next to it so they are not eoverlapping?

Not to my knowledge. I am not sure how this would be implemented, is the "next to" to the left/right/top/bottom of the original?

[Pbj]

1 minute ago, Old Bruce said:

Not to my knowledge. I am not sure how this would be implemented, is the "next to" to the left/right/top/bottom of the original?

A good question. Has a line even left/right/top/bottom? I mean the line only has a certain width and I want to snap an other line to its contour edges. 

[Old Bruce]

If you have a closed shape and are using Designer then you can use the Appearance panel to add a second stroke and have it aligned to the outside.

If you have an open shape then you'll need to close it and use a mask to hide the bit you don't want.

 

Here is the file for designer v2.  double line.afdesign

 

[Pbj]

6 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

If you have a closed shape and are using Designer then you can use the Appearance panel to add a second stroke and have it aligned to the outside.

If you have an open shape then you'll need to close it and use a mask to hide the bit you don't want.

 

Here is the file for designer v2.  double line.afdesign

 

Tahnks this looks really ineresting! Unfoirtunately I am not quite sure how to add the mask.

[Old Bruce]

1 minute ago, Pbj said:

I am not quite sure how to add the mask.

I use the Pen tool and make a shape that covers the area I want to show (I know that is weird, cover the area you want shown, counter-intuitiveness on steroids.) Then using the Layers panel I drag that shape over the tiny thumbnail of the shape I want to mask/clip.

[Pbj]

18 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I use the Pen tool and make a shape that covers the area I want to show (I know that is weird, cover the area you want shown, counter-intuitiveness on steroids.) Then using the Layers panel I drag that shape over the tiny thumbnail of the shape I want to mask/clip.

got it! this is super useful, thanks a lot.