Create a bunch of lines then cut them all off to even them and shear them?

[Jber]

Hello Everyone;

I'm coming over from Adobe Illustrator having talked my company into switching to Affinity Designer.  We design (or re-create) antique gauges for vehicles and the only designing I ever do is very specific.  I know exactly how to do this in Illustrator, but I need to learn how or if it's even possible to do this in Designer.  I have a dial/gauge that has a series of "hash/tick" marks that go around the dial in a rounded rectangle pattern.  The original hash marks were hand drawn and to recreate them digitally we want them to line up, be the same size and all be sheared/slanted on the top and bottom edges.  Ordinarily I would create the marks longer than needed by using the line tool and then draw a rounded rectangle for the top end and another for the bottom end with a stroke only, gather the entire thing up inside a bounding box and choose "divide" to slice through the tops and bottoms which would give me hash lines of all the same size that are sheared off at both ends.  I would then clean up the lines by deleting the cut off tops and ends.

With Affinity, I've drawn the hash marks using the pen tool and created the rounded rectangles for the ends of the hash marks and that is as far as I can go.  I've tried several methods and nothing seems to work.  I even tried to convert to curves and "divide" also "subtract" and tried merging curves... nothing is working.  I have a drawing showing the original dial and how the hash marks need to be created and my drawing of the hash marks.  If anyone can help me with this I would really appreciate it.

Thanks,

J. Bernard

Edited June 2, 2023 by Jber
spelling errors

[carl123]

You could use a rounded rectangle to clip/mask the hash/tick marks to only show the areas you want shown

Example file attached

If you had uploaded your Affinity document, I could have shown you on that but I had to vectorise your jpg file so it may not correspond exactly to your Affinity document

 

 

clipping-example.afdesign

[firstdefence]

Made and saved with history so you can scroll back and forth in the history panel to see what was done. You were on the right track, I just used guides to frame everything out and worked from there, I centred on the top centre mark but the hand hole is actually offset so the hand sits to the right of the marks; is that how it should be or is that just a consequence of how the image was taken?  Had to hand position each mark as there is obviously some sort of scale going off with the marks that duplicating will not work accurately.

Marks on custom dial.afdesign

[Circulus]

Or use the shapebuilder like:
 

 

 

[Jber]

8 hours ago, firstdefence said:

Made and saved with history so you can scroll back and forth in the history panel to see what was done. You were on the right track, I just used guides to frame everything out and worked from there, I centred on the top centre mark but the hand hole is actually offset so the hand sits to the right of the marks; is that how it should be or is that just a consequence of how the image was taken?  Had to hand position each mark as there is obviously some sort of scale going off with the marks that duplicating will not work accurately.

Marks on custom dial.afdesign

Hello and thank you very much.  Your history panel tells me that this is very close to what I'm used to doing and yet I have tried it several times, following your history step by step but as soon as I subtract the rectangles, I move the group of hash marks up into the curve and everything disappears.  I know I'm missing something small but for the life of me I cannot figure this out and I feel so silly, I've been at this for hours.  I'm attaching my actual working file if you wouldn't mind taking a look? I really appreciate the help.

5 Dial Set.afdesign

[Jber]

7 hours ago, Return said:

Or use the shapebuilder like:
 

 

Hello, thank you for your effort and time, I appreciate it. But I'm not sure since I haven't much experience with the shape builder.  I need to end up with a series of hash marks place around a dial and those marks are different stroke weights and also need to end up so that if needed, just one of the many can be moved and edited.  Is this something that I would be able to do with the shape builder?

[Jber]

11 hours ago, carl123 said:

You could use a rounded rectangle to clip/mask the hash/tick marks to only show the areas you want shown

Example file attached

If you had uploaded your Affinity document, I could have shown you on that but I had to vectorise your jpg file so it may not correspond exactly to your Affinity document

Hello and thank you for trying to help me.  I don't know but I don't think clipping and masking would get me the end result that I need which is a number of hash marks around a dial that are all have same slant are sheared and are able to be individually edited.  I don't think I could manipulate individual marks within a mask? am I wrong? I'm honestly not sure.

 

clipping-example.afdesign 291.29 kB · 7 downloads

 

[markw]

As suggested by carl123 earlier I would go with clipping/masking the tick marks.
The attached file has History saved with it so you can move though it to see the steps.
Each tick mark can still be individually adjusted later if needed.
Dial Marks.afdesign

[Old Bruce]

15 hours ago, Jber said:

With Affinity, I've drawn the hash marks using the pen tool and created the rounded rectangles for the ends of the hash marks and that is as far as I can go. ...

For the hash marks I would use the cog Tool (22 teeth/cogs). Mask out the middle and outer edges with rectangles.

I notice the 75 and 80 hash marks don't line up horizontally in your jpeg. Is that necessary? If yes then the Cog Tool won't work.

[v_kyr]

For much more complex scaled and labeled gauges (with many more different tick marks & numbered label text) I would then use instead a programming approach, which will also be much more precise here too. - See therefor some older threads about similar themes ...

 

[firstdefence]

2 hours ago, Jber said:

Hello and thank you very much.  Your history panel tells me that this is very close to what I'm used to doing and yet I have tried it several times, following your history step by step but as soon as I subtract the rectangles, I move the group of hash marks up into the curve and everything disappears.  I know I'm missing something small but for the life of me I cannot figure this out and I feel so silly, I've been at this for hours.  I'm attaching my actual working file if you wouldn't mind taking a look? I really appreciate the help.

5 Dial Set.afdesign 7.84 MB · 0 downloads

@Jber I see where you have made a mistake. Make sure the smaller rectangle is above the larger rectangle in the layers panel and then do a boolean/Geometry subtract, once that's done you should be able to place the tick marks into the resultant "square donut" and the ticks should appear as you expect.

[BlueLiner]

3 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

For the hash marks I would use the cog Tool (22 teeth/cogs). Mask out the middle and outer edges with rectangles.

I notice the 75 and 80 hash marks don't line up horizontally in your jpeg. Is that necessary? If yes then the Cog Tool won't work.

I 2nd the cog tool. It is perfect for clock faces, compasses, or circular analog gauges. The beauty is you an change # of teeth for however many hash marks you need with no worries about copying around a circle. Here's a great tutorial, not mine so props to 2dgameartguru:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye54WkgSdnE

 

[firstdefence]

The cog tool is fine if the marks are equidistant but not if the marks are using a scale and or asymmetrical as in this case.

[BlueLiner]

Presumably he is making gauges here, not screen artwork. The gauge arm still then has to rotate in a circular arc. Elliptical would be odd for a vintage car. I would use two cogs, one for the large, one for the small, and mask accordingly, or convert to curves and edit nodes.

[firstdefence]

8 hours ago, BlueLiner said:

Presumably he is making gauges here, not screen artwork. The gauge arm still then has to rotate in a circular arc. Elliptical would be odd for a vintage car. I would use two cogs, one for the large, one for the small, and mask accordingly, or convert to curves and edit nodes.

I presumed the gauge was asymmetrical but when overlaying the cog teeth I think the asymmetry is actually an illusion borne of the fact the marks are accommodating the numbers, so the number 80 is pushing the mark down making it look like it's out of alignment and although the cog marks don't line up, they are not a million miles away and they are quite close in degree. I get the use of the cog and it works great on symmetry faces but regardless of my preceding comment, the cog does not work in this instance, although it's not far off.

I wonder how accurate these dials actually were and more so at top end speeds?

[Jber]

6 hours ago, firstdefence said:

I presumed the gauge was asymmetrical but when overlaying the cog teeth I think the asymmetry is actually an illusion borne of the fact the marks are accommodating the numbers, so the number 80 is pushing the mark down making it look like it's out of alignment and although the cog marks don't line up, they are not a million miles away and they are quite close in degree. I get the use of the cog and it works great on symmetry faces but regardless of my preceding comment, the cog does not work in this instance, although it's not far off.

I wonder how accurate these dials actually were and more so at top end speeds?

The screwed up symmetry is the nemeses of my work, the other is finding suitable fonts.  These gauges/dials are NEVER symmetrical and I usually end up drawing them, or in illustrator using the transform panel with a formula to create them and then using rotation to put them in antique spacing.  The pointed does actually end up being pretty darn accurate which is surprising.  Thank you for your help.

[Jber]

18 hours ago, firstdefence said:

@Jber I see where you have made a mistake. Make sure the smaller rectangle is above the larger rectangle in the layers panel and then do a boolean/Geometry subtract, once that's done you should be able to place the tick marks into the resultant "square donut" and the ticks should appear as you expect.

Ah ha! I knew it had to be something simple that my brain refused to see.  Thank you so much.  I will try this as soon as I can.  Im very thankful for this forum and all the help the members are giving.  I was rather frustrated.

[Jber]

19 hours ago, firstdefence said:

@Jber I see where you have made a mistake. Make sure the smaller rectangle is above the larger rectangle in the layers panel and then do a boolean/Geometry subtract, once that's done you should be able to place the tick marks into the resultant "square donut" and the ticks should appear as you expect.

Thank you!! it worked perfectly.  In case there is any interest, this set is from a 1939 International truck and yes, they are indeed actual gauges that the company I work for fully restores, including re-creating any of the artwork digitally and as closely as possible to satisfy the judges of the many competitions the vehicles are entered into. 

I am very grateful and I'm sure that as I learn Affinity Designer, I will be back into this forum.  I always exhaust YouTube and other sources before asking for help and that includes trying to read through this large forum.  There really isn't much out there regarding the type of design work that I do.  It's a very narrow field that I work in so it makes sense.

 

[Jber]

16 hours ago, BlueLiner said:

I 2nd the cog tool. It is perfect for clock faces, compasses, or circular analog gauges. The beauty is you an change # of teeth for however many hash marks you need with no worries about copying around a circle. Here's a great tutorial, not mine so props to 2dgameartguru:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye54WkgSdnE

 

Thank you very much.  I'm interested in learning what the cog tool can do and although I've watched a few videos on it,  and it seems too symmetrical for these old gauges.

[Jber]

22 hours ago, markw said:

As suggested by carl123 earlier I would go with clipping/masking the tick marks.
The attached file has History saved with it so you can move though it to see the steps.
Each tick mark can still be individually adjusted later if needed.
Dial Marks.afdesign

Thank you, I appreciate the help and I will give it a try.  I'm happy to learn how to do this using clip/mask in Affinity.

[Jber]

21 hours ago, v_kyr said:

For much more complex scaled and labeled gauges (with many more different tick marks & numbered label text) I would then use instead a programming approach, which will also be much more precise here too. - See therefor some older threads about similar themes ...

 

That is extremely impressive.