Translate an object about a center without rotating the object

[Ed1W]

I was wondering if anyone could help me out with a problem I run into very frequently. Such as making clock faces.

I use Affinity Designer 2 not for graphic design, but to generate designs that I can export as SVG’s for my Shaper Origin.

When I translate a shape around a center, I do not want the object itself to rotate. What I mean is if I duplicate eight triangles around a center, I want to have the top point of the triangle always face up, (see attached). I get around this by reseting the center point on every object, then rotate the object back to zero. This is time consuming and very easy to bump the object from its intended position. 

Is this something that is possible in Affinity Designer?

Thank you in advance for the time you’ll take answering my questions!

Cheers!

Ed Weaver 

[GarryP]

The only speed increase I can think of would be to double-click on the origin of each layer to reset it and then double-click on the rotation handle of each object to reset the rotation.

That would let you reset the rotations without accidentally nudging the layer positions but it’s not much better or quicker.

Unfortunately using “Transform Objects Separately” (Context Toolbar option of the Move Tool) doesn’t give any advantage when trying to do what you want:

• the origins can’t be reset en masse;
• all of the layers are rotated by the same amount as the newly-given rotation of the ‘transform layer’ (at least I think that’s what’s happening, I didn’t get my calculator out to check);
• the rotation rotates all of the layers about the origin of the ‘transform layer’.

See attached video.

I can't think of a better way to do what you want but someone else might be able to.

[_考槃]

[Ed1W]

Garry, 

Thanks for the input. That's how I've been doing it, but did not know to double click the rotation handle! That works much better.

_考槃

Thank you! I may use this in some cases, but the objects will not be equidistant from the center point.

Cheers!

Ed

[Aammppaa]

19 hours ago, Ed1W said:

but the objects will not be equidistant from the center point

The center point of the triangle is being snapped to the vertices of the regular polygon, which by definition are equidistant from the center of the polygon.

Overlaying an octagon onto your original image shows that the centers all align. (I didn't do it very accurately, but hopefully it proves the point).

What am I misunderstanding?

[thomaso]

23 hours ago, Ed1W said:

I use Affinity Designer 2

Doesn't the V2.2 feature "Move Data Entry" enable you to create a bunch of objects while setting x-y-distance | angle | rotation separately?

https://affinityspotlight.com/article/cool-rotations-and-transforms-in-affinity-22/

[Aammppaa]

12 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Doesn't the V2.2 feature "Move Data Entry" enable you to create a bunch of objects while setting x-y-distance | angle | rotation separately?

Yes... but it will not achieve what the OP is asking, as Angle and Rotation don't do what (I think) you think they do.

Angle and Distance work together to perform a Translation of the object. They are just a different expression of the Horizontal and Vertical offsets.

Rotation rotates the shape about the Transform center, but there is no way to lock the orientation of the object and rotate just its position.

[thomaso]

20 minutes ago, Aammppaa said:

Angle and Rotation don't do what (I think) you think they do.

Angle and Distance work together to perform a Translation of the object. They are just a different expression of the Horizontal and Vertical offsets.

I understand a relationship between Distance & Angle (while angle and x/y aren't related in an identical way) but I indeed would expect Angle (Distance) and Rotation to be fully separate, independent values. Does it mean if you change in this setup dialog the value for rotation then the value for distance and angle get auto-changed?

If yes, it appears odd, especially for this newly coded feature, developed to avoid known limitations of V1 power duplicate. – Was this discussed by V2 users as a possible bug of "Move Data Entry"?

[Aammppaa]

4 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Does it mean if you change in this setup dialog the value for rotation then the value for distance and angle get auto-changed?

No, they are separate.

But the issue remains that the object is rotated, by the Rotation, and can not be un-rotated in any way other than manually, one object at a time.

The new Move Data Entry is really just another interface for the existing Power Duplicate. It can be more convenient at times, and allows for precise numerical entry. But it has all the shortcomings of Power Duplicate, such at the one illustrated in this thread, and that values are relative not absolute.

 

 

 

 

[thomaso]

17 minutes ago, Aammppaa said:

But it has all the shortcomings of Power Duplicate, such at the one illustrated in this thread, and that values are relative not absolute.

Thank you for clarifying + the demo. It appears to work quite different than I expected from its UI.

[ I must admit now I don't understand what Angle actually does since it appears to be independent from Distance and thus there is no object change in the beginning of your video between 0, 30 and 110 degree. Instead I would expect that moving the transform origin + Rotation = 0 + Angle ≠ 0 would cause auto-values for x-y|distance + may achieve the wanted result of this thread. ]

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Aammppaa said:

The new Move Data Entry is really just another interface for the existing Power Duplicate.

It is more than that. It makes it possible to create many different duplicates in one step and change the scale of each duplicate. See for example this post from @Ashfor things that Power Duplicate could not do.

[Aammppaa]

The scale of duplicates could always be changed with Power Duplicate, so this is not new functionality.

I agree that making many duplicates in a single step is much more convenient and more controllable, and it is very useful to be able to interact with the dialog (and the object, and the transform origin) while the output updates in real-time.

But in terms of the final output everything that Move Duplicate does could already be achieved with Power Duplicate.

[R C-R]

Real time interaction cannot be done when using Power Duplicate, so I consider that a major difference. Another major difference is the number of steps added to the history panel. PD would add 50 steps for 50 duplicates; MDE just one. There is also the MDE Previous Settings option which I think has no equivalent in PD.

So it is more than "just another" interface for PD; it is a significantly better & more capable duplication tool.

EDIT: Also don't forget that MDE can be also used to transform single objects without creating duplicates, making it a useful alternative to using the Transform panel, which in some configurations might not be visible.