Joining curves in designer

[chill59]

I'm struggling to join two curves. Both end points sat on top of each other, both layers highlighted and both paths going in same direction. Click 'join curves' in node tool but nothing happens (curves don't join).

What am I doing wrong?

 

TIA

[Butler To Cats]

Use the node tool. Select both curves (click one, Shift-click the second curve), then join curves button should work fine. (It will use a line to join the two closest end nodes, the points do not have to be directly on top of each other).

[Alfred]

What am I doing wrong?

 

It's hard to say without seeing your file. From your description, it sounds as though it should work OK.

 

Can you attach a sample file that demonstrates the problem?

[chill59]

It seems to be working now. I redrew one of the curves (a straight line actually) and now it joins no problem. Must have been a bit of a bug.

Thanks for help.

[R C-R]

You can only join open curves, so make sure neither of them is a closed shape. This is not always easy to do because there is no indication if a shape is closed or has two open end points on top of each other, so the only way I know to make sure is to try dragging one of the red nodes on each curve & see if a path segment connects it to another node in the original location. Undo each drag & if necessary use the break curve action to open the closed one(s).

[Alfred]

You can only join open curves, so make sure neither of them is a closed shape. This is not always easy to do because there is no indication if a shape is closed or has two open end points on top of each other....

 

That would explain it. The OP solved the problem by redrawing a straight line: the original "straight line" was probably a closed curve, such as might be formed by selecting a straight line and clicking on the 'Close curve' button on the Action toolbar.

[R C-R]

That would explain it. The OP solved the problem by redrawing a straight line: the original "straight line" was probably a closed curve, such as might be formed by selecting a straight line and clicking on the 'Close curve' button on the Action toolbar.

It would be nice if the UI gave some obvious indication of this, like by using a different shape for open end nodes.

[Alfred]

It would be nice if the UI gave some obvious indication of this, like by using a different shape for open end nodes.

 

Yes, it would. As I mentioned in another thread, the Layers tab in Serif DrawPlus clearly indicates "Curve" or "Closed Curve", as appropriate; in addition to something like this, it would be good to have a visual indicator on the canvas itself.

[uncle808us]

I can't get these curves to become one tree.

Close curves.afphoto

[MEB]

Hi uncle808us,

Here's the file fixed:

Close curves_MEB.afphoto

 

With all nodes selected, drag the nodes of one side over the other so the tree three becomes complete (you can deselect the tree now). Then draw a small rectangle (of other shape) inside the tree three area. Add (boolean operation) the tree three and the shape you just created a you will get a clean result (without the line in the middle).

 

[uncle808us]

How'd you do that? Teach a man to fish. 

[MEB]

I explained in the previous post already while you were replying.

[uncle808us]

25 minutes ago, MEB said:

Hi uncle808us,

Here's the file fixed:

Close curves_MEB.afphoto

 

With all nodes selected, drag the nodes of one side over the other so the three becomes complete (you can deselect the three now). Then draw a small rectangle (of other shape) inside the three area. Add (boolean operation) the three and the shape you just created a you will get a clean result (without the line in the middle).

 

Is it three or tree? I'm confused. (nothing new me being confused.)

[MEB]

Oh sorry! It's tree of course 

The same typo "tree" times!!! 

[uncle808us]

Just now, MEB said:

Oh sorry! It's tree of course 

I thought so I can't find the boolean operator in photo .

[MEB]

Go to menu Layer ▸ Geometry ▸ Add.

You can also add the boolean operators to the main toolbar right clicking on it and selecting Customise Toolbar... (you may need to scroll the buttons down a little to see them). There's a group there called Operations similar to what you find in Designer. Just drag them to the main toolbar on top.

This is only needed when you are editing a single shape composed by two (or more paths) rather than two separate shapes. You can also break it in two shapes using Divide then perform an Add operation as usual.

[R C-R]

26 minutes ago, uncle808us said:

I can't get these curves to become one tree.

It isn't obvious but each of the two curves in your Curves (note the plural) layer is a closed shape. (You can see this by temporarily changing the stroke setting from none to any width.) So since the "Join curves" action will not join closed curves, it won't have any effect, even if you use the Divide operation to split the Curves layer into two Curve layers.

 

One simple way to join the two pieces is to use the Divide operation to get two layers & with snapping enabled drag one of them until its straight side aligns with the straight side of the other one. Now select both & use the "Add" operation to combine them into one curve.

 

Note that because of the somewhat buggy nature of the boolean operations, this may produce extra nodes, but for your file it does not.

[uncle808us]

Thanks guys. Solved!

[MacTennis]

After 2 years, just a quick note of thanks for sharing since I had a similar issue. I drew an object and removed nodes on the right half because I liked the left half better. (I removed one half to get the inner nodes closer together.) Duplicated the object and Flipped Horizontal. Brought the two together and drew a rectangle in the middle then selected all 3 layers and used Layer > Geometry > Add.

This might make help those needing symmetrical wine bottles, beer bottles or glasses.

Perfect!

Edited December 18, 2019 by MacTennis
Added clarity

[Lilium Atratum]

I cannot join curves either. I press the join button but nothing happens.

Could it be that because it is formally a single object, just segmented into pieces?

test.afdesign

[Move Along People]

-

[Lilium Atratum]

Found it, thank you.

Also: I used to select just the end points - or at least I thought I did. I was moving one endpoint over another and then drag-select both endpoints. (in hindsight - maybe even with drag-select I was not selecting both endpoints with this)

Turns out I need to first select both curves and only then their end points.

That feedback why things do not work... not so very good...

[tytus 01UNIT]

I have to say that this feature is very annoying to use, I would say that it is not intuitive, but I think I have found all options like join/brake/close... but they "never" work like I want to. Somehow after using vectors for 15 years, I'm having a lot of problems with join/brake/close whatever... Everytime when I download icon in SVG I know it will be a pain to edit. "Erase tool" for vectors was a tool that I always used in illustrator to simply brake expanded strokes / shapes. Now I have to do to many actions to finally make it and I'm never sure how to do it I know it can be that I'm so used to illustrator, but I just can't find a easy way to play with things like in the attachment. (blue lines show where I want to CUT it and get rid off those lines. just to simple select two points/dots and join it. It never works. I have to separate curves and then do "millions" of things to just simply select all, take a "erase tool", cut/erase vector to brake it, and then just clean it up. Something that took me seconds now takes much much longer (depends how complicated is the whole vector).

Plus, a big problem is that I have to research tutorials/forum to finally kind of understand how to do it. It should be intuitive, especially for somebody who jumps to few other vector programs. I understand that there has to be something hard about it, because even in SKETCH it feels weird and it makes it unintuitive.

PS I STILL LOVE AFFINITY

[spinhead]

Resurrecting this again: what if I have two closed loops and want to make them a single object? Say, the outline of a bold/black letter A, and the outline of the counter inside it? Two individual lines, closed, but a single object. Is grouping them the only way to make them behave more or less like a single object?

[Alfred]

40 minutes ago, spinhead said:

Resurrecting this again: what if I have two closed loops and want to make them a single object? Say, the outline of a bold/black letter A, and the outline of the counter inside it? Two individual lines, closed, but a single object. Is grouping them the only way to make them behave more or less like a single object?

Does ‘Xor’ give you the result you’re looking for?