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Thank you guys for all the great replies! I've had a busy day but look forward to watching the videos posted this evening.

 

I did recreate the design from scratch because it was a very simple design. I made a template so I can easily help my wife with these monograms she frequently does. That said, more intricate designs would be more time consuming to recreate from scratch so having more robust transform & alignment tool panels in the future would be welcomed.

 

Until that happens, I appreciate all the great solutions. Hopefully this thread helps others as it has helped me.

 

Chad

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JimmyJack,

 

Really like the very clever method shown in your video!

 

By the way, when I first tried to view it, for some reason it would skip & stutter & there was no audio, so I was unable to understand what you were doing. But a few hours later, I tried it again & it played perfectly.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.0 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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But for now....

 

1) I have a different option other than CMD-J worth mentioning (imho).

Regarding that option (which I like a lot!), have you tried using the "Bake Corners" option of the Corner Tool to the final result? Out of curiosity I tried that just to see what would happen & I was surprised to see more nodes appear than expected.

 

Sometimes, some of the circles would have 4 evenly spaced nodes, while a few would have an extra 5th one between two of the evenly spaced ones, while the remainder would have 8 evenly spaced nodes. (see screenshot "baked corners 1")

 

More troubling, other times most or all the circles ended up with 6 nodes, with two opposing pairs of very closely spaced ones instead of a single one in each position. (See screenshot "baked corners 2")

 

I did not do a lot of testing but from what I can tell, the number of "extra" nodes & which circles get them depends at least partially on how many sides I start with, & oddly enough the 6 node result occurs only with the second, more precise method you used to align the small square to the square star shape.

 

I would be interested in knowing if you or anybody else sees the same thing, or if maybe I'm just doing something wrong & not following your procedure correctly.

 

In passing, I will add something that you probably already know: this method can also be used to create a few more evenly spaced shapes besides circles by changing the corner type in the Corner Tool in the last of your steps. Using the Cutout corner type will make crosses, the concave type will make 4 point stars or 'fat' crosses, & so on. If you cut the 'parent' square star so that the remaining shapes are rectangles  instead of squares, you can also get a few other possibly useful shapes like lozenges or several kinds of irregular hexagons.

 

Overall, it is a very useful technique, adaptable to several other uses. Thanks so much for sharing it with us!

post-3524-0-51016500-1464358636_thumb.png

post-3524-0-04734200-1464358645_thumb.png

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.0 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Regarding that option (which I like a lot!), have you tried using the "Bake Corners" option of the Corner Tool to the final result? Out of curiosity I tried that just to see what would happen & I was surprised to see more nodes appear than expected.

 

Sometimes, some of the circles would have 4 evenly spaced nodes, while a few would have an extra 5th one between two of the evenly spaced ones, while the remainder would have 8 evenly spaced nodes. (see screenshot "baked corners 1")

 

More troubling, other times most or all the circles ended up with 6 nodes, with two opposing pairs of very closely spaced ones instead of a single one in each position. (See screenshot "baked corners 2")

 

I did not do a lot of testing but from what I can tell, the number of "extra" nodes & which circles get them depends at least partially on how many sides I start with, & oddly enough the 6 node result occurs only with the second, more precise method you used to align the small square to the square star shape.

 

I would be interested in knowing if you or anybody else sees the same thing, or if maybe I'm just doing something wrong & not following your procedure correctly.

 

In passing, I will add something that you probably already know: this method can also be used to create a few more evenly spaced shapes besides circles by changing the corner type in the Corner Tool in the last of your steps. Using the Cutout corner type will make crosses, the concave type will make 4 point stars or 'fat' crosses, & so on. If you cut the 'parent' square star so that the remaining shapes are rectangles  instead of squares, you can also get a few other possibly useful shapes like lozenges or several kinds of irregular hexagons.

 

Overall, it is a very useful technique, adaptable to several other uses. Thanks so much for sharing it with us!

 

 

Glad you all like it.

 

A-B-C: Thar she blows!!  :D

 

R C-R: re: all of the above....

You aren't doing anything wrong, and yes I have seen this behavior. I believe a couple things are going on... neither of which are good. 

 

Extra nodes: Baking, I believe, is part and parcel with Expand Stroke.... which, sadly, we all know is very, um, troubled... (big problem #1). This is opposed to Convert to Curves command, which seems to be fine. Go figure. I think it might have something to do with the angle of the square when using the corner tool and or baking.... but I can't recreate reliably.

 

But it gets worse.....

 

Try making a perfect/level square. Do the corner tool maneuver. You end up with a perfect circle with four nodes right? Wrong. You get eight nodes.... pairs on top of each other. This actually kind of makes sense if you think about what the tool is doing. But at the point where the moving corners have reached their max shouldn't they become one? Maybe , maybe not.

 

But this brings us to big problem #2. Coincident points in AD. Okay, so what do you do? There is nothing.

Try deleting one.... the curve distorts. They're already on the same curve so neither of the "join" options do anything. So you might say... pull them apart add a node, break that node shift click select those, delete... grab an end point and drag snap to the other and that will join the curves (or any variation of all that). First of all that is the most insane workflow ever, and the result still distorts the curve.

This desperately needs to be addressed. 

I would prefer an automatic join if two points are dragged on top of each other... (but I can understand that this may not always be desired either. And that special circumstances could make that action a messy prospect..... a "T" junction for example). At the very least there needs to be an option to merge coincident points... by selection or globally.

 

Sorry to say, these two issues alone really make it hard for me to take Designer all that seriously (there's a big rant just under the surface here  :o, but for now I'll just stuff it back down....  ^_^).

 

Another (semi-related) TIP:

A GREAT way to get an individual circle with multiple (more than 4) equally spaced nodes is to use the polygon tool. Use "X" number of sides and push the curve setting out to 100%, expand. 

The same sort of thinking can be used to get perfect midpoints on other shapes too.... Use the star tool with no indent etc....

Experiment!

 

Cheers.

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I wonder how you guys handle same amount but different diameter of the circles without adding a stroke then?

In JimmyJack's video, at about the 1:20 mark, he explains that the Cutout setting on the square circle shape (the red control point he moves up & down) will determine the diameter of the circles. So if you use his method, that should do what you are asking about, assuming I understand your question correctly.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.0 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Yes - good point. I didn´t explore the "Square Star Tool" that much it seems.  :D

(Having it non-destructive would be a cool addition of course or the ability to scale/transform selected objects independently)

 

Cheers

P.

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More troubling, other times most or all the circles ended up with 6 nodes, with two opposing pairs of very closely spaced ones instead of a single one in each position. (See screenshot "baked corners 2")

Mmmh - I got well "node-spreaded" circles with this method:

post-28670-0-98993500-1464442770_thumb.jpg

 

Cheers

P.

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  • 2 years later...
On 5/25/2016 at 8:50 PM, MEB said:

Here's a video showing an easy and precise way to do it. I've placed 67 circles around a circle in this example but you can use whatever number you want.

Place the expression (360/67) in the Rotation input field in the Transform panel to ensure you get a precise result (not the value in degrees).

I'm new to Designer and this particular post interests me. However, my question is does the video have audio as well? When I view it there is no sound at all, and I know my audio works fine. I like the video but it is only partially useful without audio. 

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2 hours ago, MEB said:

Hi Trudge,
Welcome to Affinity Forums :)
That video has no sound and it's also outdated. You can now use an external rotation centre to rotate the circle around a circumference. I will try to record a new clip in a moment and post here if nobody does it before i can get into this.

Hey back, and thank you for the quick response. I will go over the video again and work out as much as I can. Looking forward to the new one. I must say I am impressed with the thought and design of Designer and the solid following of users in the forum.

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