Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

Center for rotation and scale


Recommended Posts

Hello!

1) Could you please add a movable 'center' icon for the Move tool, so it is possible to rotate/scale/shear about an arbitrary location?

 

I assume you know what I mean - just like it is in e.g. Photoshop or Illustrator.

In Photoshop, the "Free Transform" tool has a center that can be dragged freely. In Illustrator, you can place the center for the rotation or scale tool with a double click.

CorelDraw has it too (but only for rotation, however).

The Center icon should support snapping, too, of course.

 

 

2) In the Transform panel, Rotation, Size and Shear values are displayed - could you please add the 'Scale' values, too? (in percent, or as scalar values)

Obviously you store a transformation matrix per object, so this should be no problem.

 

 

3) The Center icon should be stored, too, then.

If you tweak the rotation/scale values in the Transform panel (or via Move tool), one would expect the Centre stay where it was, not to reset to the objects' bounding box center after deselecting / selecting.

 

 

Thanks!

Best regards

Eugen

post-33013-0-56825800-1467839040_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1) It's already there, but it isn't shown by default. Please see the attached screenshot.

 

2) What would the 'Scale' value be relative to?

 

3) As far as I can see, it reappears in the same position when you reselect the object after deselecting it. You can double-click it to return it to the centre of the bounding box.

 

post-8358-0-17418600-1467843874_thumb.png

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, Alfred! Very good news!

There's one thing, though:

 

ad 1) The icon you refer to is called "Show Rotation Centre"... what about scaling?

It makes total sense, too, to be able to scale about the centre!

Now, you can only scale about the object's bounding box corner, bbox edge, or bbox centre (holding CTRL during scaling).

 

In other words, the "Rotation Centre" should be the "Centre".

Works that way in Illustrator... (although, unfortunately, AI forgets the rotation/scale center after re-selecting - AD remembers it, yay!!).

 

 

ad 2)

About the Scale X, Scale Y parameters (in addition to Width and Height):

Those would be 1.0, 1.0 in the beginning (or 100%, 100%), relative to how the object was created initially.

If you watch the Transform panel when creating an object, you will notice that it is grayed out until you release the mouse and define the initial size - that's 100% then.

 

 

Allow me to go get a bit technical, since I also work with 3D software (3ds Max, Cinema4D, Rhino, Softimage, ...):

 

although these are 3D programs and Affinity Designer is 2D, they share one common fundamental concept of computer graphics - the Transformation Matrix, or Axis of an object, or Centre. It's a 3x3 or 4x4 grid of real numbers that stores position, rotation, scale, shear.

(I don't know your background, so apologies if I'm telling nothing new...)

 

Data-wise, an object (2D or 3D) is basically a geometry description that stores the object's points etc.

- in 3D, that's often a polygon mesh - points in 3D space plus the information how they are connected by edges, to form polygons.

- in AD, objects are lists of 2D points (Bezier, could also be the mathematically higher ranking B-Splines or NURBS) plus attributes.

 

The point's coordinates are stored relative to the object's centre then - coordinate 0,0 means, the point is at the axis/centre.

 

Now here's the point, so please bear with me:

Basically, there are 2 ways of interactively moving/rotating/scaling an object:

 

a ) the interactive transformation only changes the matrix, keeping it 'live', and everytime the object needs to be drawn to the canvas, all of it's points are multiplied with the matrix, hence it 'jumps' into place.

Has the advantage that you can easily go back to the object's initial state, and that it is unproblematic to make 'parent/child' relationships (in AD: 'Paste Inside' -  look at the Layers).

Small disadvantage: calculations need to be done with every redraw, but with our fast computers, that doesn't matter much.

 

b ) change all the object's points by immediately 'baking' the transformation into them. The matrix will be reset to some inital state - or even no matrix at all is stored with the object (obviously, fortunately, not the case in AD).

Advantage: no calculations need to be done anymore to have the object at the desired place.

 

Now,

I suspect that AD keeps the rotation part of the matrix live, but bakes the scaling. (Cinema4D does it this way, too, in 'Modeling Mode'. In 'Animation Mode', the scaling is stored in the matrix).

 

My suggestion: this should be optional - the scaling part should be kept live, too, if the user chooses to!

Hope it's clear what I mean =}

 

 

Thanks for reading!

Best regards

Eugen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

An ability to scale of a specified center is one of most missing features imo.   In fact I have never felt any necessity to rotate around specified center , only scale.  

 

  You can do so it in Photoshop, Xara, Fusion, Photoline  and in every 3d soft  ever existed.  So I guess it's not something patent restricted or secret know how .    

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

We will add the scale about point soon.

SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer
  • Software engineer  -  Photographer  -  Guitarist  -  Philosopher
  • iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395
  • MacBook (Early 2015), 1.3GHz Core M, Intel HD 5300
  • iPad Pro 10.5", 256GB
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very nice, thanks!!

 

 

Been a while since I was that excited by a new application... At last a software company who wants to do it right, listens to the users, has a transparent roadmap, and is quick in bringing the good stuff... you guys rock!!!

Keep it up, and much success!!

Best regards

Eugen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hope it's clear what I mean =}

 

Yes, very clear. Thanks, Eugen! I'm sure your explanation will be useful for others like me who have little or no experience of 3D software. :)

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

Hi guys!

Congratulations to the 1.5 release!! Already purchased...

 

I really like the way you handle transforms, also when multiple objects are selected... however, please don't forget to add the scale center!

And if you are at it, please think about a clever way how to use the modifier keys (CTRL, SHIFT, ALT) during scaling:

SHIFT contrains proportions.

CTRL scales from the middle of the object.

Then maybe ALT scales from the (to be added) scale center? It might be a good thing to be able to CTRL-scale from the middle anytime, no matter what the scale center is, but then another key would be needed for the scale center.

 

Anyway, I'm sure you will find a good solution.

Best regards

Eugen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
  • 2 months later...
  • 1 year later...

+10 for scale around point.

Affinity programs have so many nice workflows which are better than the competition. Its annoying that when you present the programs to people using other programs these papercuts often cut deeper than the other features impress...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...

The 1.7 beta introduces a new tool - "Point Transform Tool".

It can rotate / scale / translate around any point, and can use all of Affinity's numerous snapping options.

As yet I don't think we can shear about a user defined point - but I'm not sure I can even visualize what that would mean, so I for one probably don't need that function!

Win10 Home x64   |   AMD Ryzen 7 2700X @ 3.7GHz   |   48 GB RAM   |   1TB SSD   |   nVidia GTX 1660   |   Wacom Intuos Pro

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...
  • 1 year later...
On 4/17/2019 at 12:14 PM, Aammppaa said:

The 1.7 beta introduces a new tool - "Point Transform Tool".

It can rotate / scale / translate around any point, and can use all of Affinity's numerous snapping options.

As yet I don't think we can shear about a user defined point - but I'm not sure I can even visualize what that would mean, so I for one probably don't need that function!

Should this be in the OS X version of AD? I can't find the icon the help is suggesting. BTW. Why doesn't Scale just obey the center that I dragged somewhere for rotating? (Feels like the center was forgotten when implementing the Scale function...)

Edit: Ahhhhh I have to press cmd while scaling!!! Thats weird. Would expect the same behavior for Mode and Scale.

Anyway, it works. Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, p10n said:

Should this [Point Transform Tool] be in the OS X version of AD? I can't find it. Help seems to know about it, but I am too stupid to find that icon.

I think that tool's icon fails to appear for many people until they add it to the vertical Tools bar via View > Customise Tools.

 

2 minutes ago, p10n said:

BTW. Why doesn't Scale just obey the center that I dragged somewhere for rotating? (Feels like the center was forgotten when implementing the Scale function...)

It does if you hold down cmd key - see the hints in the status bar at bottom of the app window.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.