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  • 1 month later...
On 2/17/2020 at 10:21 AM, luvis said:

1. Select object with the node tool and make sure all nodes are selected

2. in the action tool bar, select "convert -> smooth" or "convert -> smart" to convert all the selected nodes. (in my experience convert->smooth has the biggest impact)

3. Now press the "action -> smooth curve"

For me this is next to useless and along with sculpt button, when having the pencil tool selected, If I could ditch them, I would, as they're just taking up space, that is unless they are place holders for proper functioning tools that actually achieve useful results - although simplify paths id available in VectorStyler, it's not much cop, and I've found when I need to simplify paths, the best option for me is to fire up Illustrator CS5 to get decent results

Daz1.png

Mac Pro Cheese-grater (Early 2009) 2.93 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon 48 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC Ram, Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 8GB GDDR5, Ugee 19" Graphics Tablet Monitor Triple boot via OCLP 1.2.1 - Mac OS Monterey 12.7.1, Sonoma 14.1.1 and Mojave 10.14.6

Affinity Publisher, Designer and Photo 1.10.5 - 2.2.1

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  • 1 month later...
On 4/17/2017 at 5:44 AM, MEB said:

Hi Huelo,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

If you select the Node Tool and go to the context toolbar Action section, there's an icon - Smooth Curve (third icon) - that may help a little in some situations, but it doesn't do/clean as much as you'd expect. This has been requested quite a few times and we hope to implement it later in a future version.

I never used illustrator but the simplest and free vectornator for iPad that has this function, so I had the same question, I already tried and actually the "smooth" button, its not very effective.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 2/17/2020 at 10:21 AM, luvis said:

Just in case someone else is looking for a solution to this still. There is still no equivalent to illustrators simplify path but there is one alternative that I have been using lately that works fairly well. You'll have to try it out to see what works for you.

1. Select object with the node tool and make sure all nodes are selected

2. in the action tool bar, select "convert -> smooth" or "convert -> smart" to convert all the selected nodes. (in my experience convert->smooth has the biggest impact)

3. Now press the "action -> smooth curve"

If done in this way it actually removes quite a few unneeded nodes. The only way to customize the outcome is by manually selecting/deselecting nodes and choosing smooth or smart in the convert section.. You can do like MEB mentioned earlier and just use the action -> smooth curve but in my experience it never really changes much unless combined with "convert".

I truly hope a better option comes soon, so *bump* to the devs, simply path is a super useful tool.

Thanks for this ... although is not as straight forward as a dumb "simplify curves" button, it does the job and it can go from super accurate preservation of the original curve, to really simplified and smoothed out.

The secret: It depends on how many times you press the Smooth Curve button... In the experiment i did, i had to press it 3 times, in order to get a great balance between enough nodes removed and shape preservation. You can always undo, it you overdid it... and anyway, never edit your original geometry when you are not sure of the outcome. Always make a sacrifice copy.

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Smooth curve doen't really reduce the anchor points. It just changes their order to make the stroke look smoother. In some parts the number of points is reduced, while new points are generated at other places.

Simplify does something different. It really reduces the number of points. If you go extreme with it, you are left with 2 points (depending on the software you use).

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Adding my bump to this request. Such a simple operation found in all other vector programmes I’ve used. Right now I have to open in (free) Vectornator app, hit one button to apply, then import into Affinity. More often than not I just stay in Vectornator to finish the work!

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  • 2 months later...

+1

Reducing the number of anchor points while maintaining the original shape of path is really a must, I think so. 

Take a look at the perfect example, when I would really like to get rid of the 90% of points..  This is an imported svg sketch of a logo from another app:

image.png.615e50fb7826bed0ce653512f3ed25b8.png

I hope you can see now smoothing the curve is neither the problem nor the solution when we have hundreds of unnecessary points. Now I'm lucky because redrawing the path above with pen tool is not a big deal, but I hope it could illustrate the problem.

Thank you in advance, I really looking forward to this feature!

 

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Noticed earlier in this post that I'd come to the conclusion that firing up Illustrator CS5 was my way of a work-around for this vector essential feature - Now happy to report that VectorStylers simplify paths tool has been greatly improved and does a really decent job, also manually removing nodes in VS tries to maintain the shape:

 

Daz1.png

Mac Pro Cheese-grater (Early 2009) 2.93 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon 48 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC Ram, Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 8GB GDDR5, Ugee 19" Graphics Tablet Monitor Triple boot via OCLP 1.2.1 - Mac OS Monterey 12.7.1, Sonoma 14.1.1 and Mojave 10.14.6

Affinity Publisher, Designer and Photo 1.10.5 - 2.2.1

www.bingercreative.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

Yes, Simplify is seriously needed in Designer, in many cases I have to use another program to significantly reduce the number of nodes. 

 1) You have completely wrecked the layers panel, Serif.

2) I recommend Reddit groups instead of this forum. Not the same few bot-like users replying to everything, a wider representation of users, fewer fanboys, more qualified users. In short, better!

3) I was here to report bugs and submit improvement requests for professional work professionally in a large setup and to bring a lot of knowledge from the world, i.e. professional product development, web- and software development, usability, user experience design and accessibility. I actually know what I am talking about!

BUT! We are phasing out Designer and Affinity in 2022 Q1 - and replacing it with feature complete and algorithmically competent alternatives.
Publisher is unsuitable for serious use, and was never adopted.

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I believe the simplifying path is fundamental functionality in vector app which is surprisingly still missing in Affinity.

Affinity is great when working with clean nodes from scratch with its pen tool.
However, once dealing with complex or dirty node objects, it becomes a deal breaker.

I couldn't even use the pencil tool effectively because of the necessity to manually clean up nodes it produces.
too bad because sculpt option in pencil is nice

Hopefully Serif make this a higher priority.

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+1 requesting a Simplify function for AD.

Opening another program to do this action defeats the purpose in working in AD, at least in my case. So I'm really, really hoping that a basic use option such as this one will find its way into the program sooner rather than later.

P.S. I love all the new features in AD2, keep up the amazing work 👏

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Come on, man /biden

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There is some way to go before you see this feature in a good form in Affinity, is my guess. If you've tried deleting individual nodes in Designer, you know from experience that Affinity isn't good at adjusting the two nodes around so that the resulting line remotely resembles the original curve. That doesn't suggest good algorithms behind it.

That's why I use other vector programs myself when I need to simplify curves down to only the most basic, and one in particular is quite exceptional at preserving the shape of curves when I delete nodes. I am regularly amazed at how few nodes I can get a shape down on in this program.

Related:

The curve will automatically reshape because of the deleted node, but you can retain the curve's original geometry by pressing Option + Backspace instead. This needs to be a node that could be removed with the curve still remaining similar.

 1) You have completely wrecked the layers panel, Serif.

2) I recommend Reddit groups instead of this forum. Not the same few bot-like users replying to everything, a wider representation of users, fewer fanboys, more qualified users. In short, better!

3) I was here to report bugs and submit improvement requests for professional work professionally in a large setup and to bring a lot of knowledge from the world, i.e. professional product development, web- and software development, usability, user experience design and accessibility. I actually know what I am talking about!

BUT! We are phasing out Designer and Affinity in 2022 Q1 - and replacing it with feature complete and algorithmically competent alternatives.
Publisher is unsuitable for serious use, and was never adopted.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I could have used this feature too, but for me there's a very important criteria:

Simplification must be done on a curve angle basis!

That is, most simplify operations today just operate on the entire curve regardless of how sharp parts of the curve are, meaning that corners in a long curve potentially get smoothed.

That's like 90s stuff, so in 2022, I expect a good smoothing algorithm to be able to keep sharp angled parts of the curve sharp, but remove unnecessary points in straighter areas.

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On 12/6/2022 at 5:56 PM, François R said:

and one in particular is quite exceptional at preserving the shape of curves when I delete nodes. I am regularly amazed at how few nodes I can get a shape down on in this program.

Always looking to improve my workflow......... OK..... program name please😀

Daz1.png

Mac Pro Cheese-grater (Early 2009) 2.93 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon 48 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC Ram, Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 8GB GDDR5, Ugee 19" Graphics Tablet Monitor Triple boot via OCLP 1.2.1 - Mac OS Monterey 12.7.1, Sonoma 14.1.1 and Mojave 10.14.6

Affinity Publisher, Designer and Photo 1.10.5 - 2.2.1

www.bingercreative.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

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