Concentric ovals

[Mr Lucky]

Please excuse me if I  have the wrong terminology , but I need to get two or more concentric oval shape , one smaller and one larger. This is what I tried

• Create an ellipse
• Duplicate the shape
• Enlarge by shift, hold and drag.

It makes it larger with same aspect ratio but this is not what I want as the distance between the two is obviously wider at the left and right than at top and bottom.

 

So what I want is that distance to be equal all round.

To do this I then tried the transform box, remove the aspect ratio link and add the same number of pixels to with and height. However this looks wrong because the distance between top and sides are now equal, the diagonal distance are not:

Is anyone please able to tell me how to get the distance between the two the same all round, as in concentric circles?

 

[GarryP]

If you are a Windows user then the Centrics functionality (and others) of this free little app might be useful:

 

[Mr Lucky]

1 minute ago, GarryP said:

If you are a Windows user then the Centrics functionality (and others) of this free little app might be useful:

Thanks but I don't have windows. Surely there is an easy way to do this in Affinity.

[Pšenda]

One ellipse with Fill color and Inside stroke?

Or Expand stroke and Separate Curves.

[Mr Lucky]

4 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

One ellipse with Fill color and Inside stroke?

This will not work as I need the two (or more ovals)

4 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Or Expand stroke and Separate Curves.

I can see how that would give me what I want initially, but I may need to resize as the design develops, text sizes etc.

On of the tings I'm doing is making text track along the top of one oval (outside) and along the bottom of the other inside. If I change font or size of font then small adjustments need to be made to the ovals. But this is not the only reason as the design is going to need other ovals of different size, but all need to be the same shape.

If I expand the stroke, I don't easily have an oval the same size as the inside of the expanded stroke. (Yes I can subtract, copy, undo and paste.

 

However I assumed there would just be a simp0le easy way to revise an oval and keep the basic shape just a different size.

[GarryP]

In Designer (you don’t say which applications(s) you have) there’s always the Contour Tool, but in this particular case it’s best to work from Inside first to Outside with that tool as the result can sometimes be a bit unusual the other way around.

Make a duplicate of the layer before using that tool if you don’t want the original to ‘disappear’ and "Bake" the appearance before repeating the process.

Unfortunately there are some problems with the Contour Tool which can cause strange effects and ‘squared nodes’ but those have been reported.

6 minutes ago, Mr Lucky said:

However I assumed there would just be a simp0le easy way to revise an oval and keep the basic shape just a different size.

That’s where the problem is, I think. You’re not just keeping the same “basic shape” but you’re trying to create a new shape with different geometry (looks similar but is different) and that’s where things start to go ‘wrong’.

[GarryP]

If you can’t get what you want, if you can give me the dimensions of the outer oval and tell me how many ovals you want in total I can give you an SVG containing something you can use (but I cannot guarantee that the result is ‘geometrically perfect’).

[Mr Lucky]

Thanks Garry. I think my question is answered with a "no such tool in Affinity, but there are workarounds"

I'm just very surprised there isn't a straightforward solution.

[GarryP]

41 minutes ago, Mr Lucky said:

I'm just very surprised there isn't a straightforward solution.

Given the massive number of possible functionalities and sub-functionalities – each with a multitude of settings, modes, modifiers and user personalisation, which all have to work nicely together – that millions of disparate users might want from the software covering so many different artistic/technical requirements, paired with the limited resources that Serif have to design, experiment, code, refactor, update, test, document and build the software suite of three applications across three operating systems with a practically unlimited number of possible software/hardware/configuration variations, then I’m not surprised at all that a lot of things have not been implemented yet.

[George-Frazee]

I'm not following why the contour tool isn't getting you what you want? Or is the issue that you need dozens of ellipses and the contour tool is impractical. If that's the case then you need something that does procedural generation, which isn't (yet? 🫣) built into Designer. 

[Mr Lucky]

3 hours ago, GarryP said:

Unfortunately there are some problems with the Contour Tool which can cause strange effects and ‘squared nodes’ but those have been reported.

 

1 hour ago, George-Frazee said:

I'm not following why the contour tool isn't getting you what you want?

See the quote above

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, Mr Lucky said:

I think my question is answered with a "no such tool in Affinity, but there are workarounds"

I'm just very surprised there isn't a straightforward solution.

It's not a tool but a workflow: Add the wanted increase of the width in the Transform Panel as an absolute numerical value with the 'chain' unlinked and use the same value for the height.

Alternatively, if you prefer to increase by dragging: Drag either with or height with the CMD key pressed (mac) to increase from the centre. Note the value difference and add that to the other dimension.