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AD - building concentric circles


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Short question for the experts: I'm trying to build concentric circles - preferrably with power duplicate and the transform parameters. Starting of with a circle, setting the center point to the middle of the circle, duplicating the circle and entering a smaller value for height and width (since the radius is no available parameter). When pressing CTRL+J I end up with circles that get closer with each copy instead of equidistant circles. Is there any way to get copied circles with the same amount of reduced radius instead of a percentage reduction (unless using the grid and doing each copy manually)?

Cheers, Timo

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 i7-12700KF, 3.60 GHz, 32GB RAM, SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet, Windows 11 Pro - AP, AD and APublisher V1 and V2
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I think "power duplicate" will do what you want. After cmd+J for the first double - resize it by holding shift+cmd key down to maintain it centered. Then just hit cmd-J to replicate the last 2 steps for every copy to follow.

 

Cheers

P.

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Hi Stephan, thanks for your answer.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough about my difficulties. I do get the circles concentric, but the distance between the circles keeps getting less the smaller the circles get ... I'd like to have equidistant circles. (e.g. radius(new) = radius(old) - 5mm ... not radius(new) = radius(old) * 0,95 ) ... apparently changing values in the transform panel leads to the second version ...

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 i7-12700KF, 3.60 GHz, 32GB RAM, SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet, Windows 11 Pro - AP, AD and APublisher V1 and V2
https://www.timobierbaum.com

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Hi DarkClown,

 

The question has already been asked and "Ctrl / Cmd + J" gives the effect you get.

The normal Copy / Paste gives equal spacing between each circle but requires making the size change on each copy of the circle, which quickly becomes binding for a large number of circles!

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Hi reglico, as you can see there is a workaround to build these equidistand circles ... but it seems you have to construct each circle seperately either with a suitable gridsize or with changing the width and hight of each circle manually ... what seems to be a nightmare when you plan with 50 circles ...

CRM.png.a048d588572393102ac3cc403bfa8af7.png

 i7-12700KF, 3.60 GHz, 32GB RAM, SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet, Windows 11 Pro - AP, AD and APublisher V1 and V2
https://www.timobierbaum.com

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Hi reglico, as you can see there is a workaround to build these equidistand circles ... but it seems you have to construct each circle seperately either with a suitable gridsize or with changing the width and hight of each circle manually ... what seems to be a nightmare when you plan with 50 circles ...

Indeed, it is a nightmare and a big waste of time, I hope we will get a duplication tool that is not proportional.

 

Cordially.

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Thanks everybody for clarifying this ...

Just a little suggestion to serif from my side: Since the transformation panel supports absolut and percentage values it would be no hassle to make a difference between entering absolut values for width and hight (300mm original value, duplicate, 290mm new value and CMD/CTRL J each time reduces by these 10mm difference) or relative values (300mm original value, duplicate, "w=w*0,95" "h=h*0,95" or "0.95%" and CMD/CTRL J reduces by a relative value). Even better would be the option to change the radius as a separate parameter to the transform panel ...  instead of each time changing width and hight.

Just my 2 cents ...

CRM.png.a048d588572393102ac3cc403bfa8af7.png

 i7-12700KF, 3.60 GHz, 32GB RAM, SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet, Windows 11 Pro - AP, AD and APublisher V1 and V2
https://www.timobierbaum.com

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Thanks everybody for clarifying this ...

Just a little suggestion to serif from my side: Since the transformation panel supports absolut and percentage values it would be no hassle to make a difference between entering absolut values for width and hight (300mm original value, duplicate, 290mm new value and CMD/CTRL J each time reduces by these 10mm difference) or relative values (300mm original value, duplicate, "w=w*0,95" "h=h*0,95" or "0.95%" and CMD/CTRL J reduces by a relative value). Even better would be the option to change the radius as a separate parameter to the transform panel ...  instead of each time changing width and hight.

 

Just my 2 cents ...

I absolutely agree with you.

Perhaps we will also get a "Gradient shape" tool like in Serif DrawPlus: making a lot of spaced concentric circles also takes just a few seconds.

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... Even better would be the option to change the radius as a separate parameter to the transform panel ...  instead of each time changing width and hight.

That much at least is easy: just click the link in the transform panel to lock the width & height so changing one changes the other proportionally. Set the anchor point to the center to make each change concentric, & then you can append either w or h with -10 (or whatever constant you want) so for example it shows 300-10 mm, & then hit tab or return to change both w & h by that value.

 

You still have to do this separately for each circle but at least you don't have to set the two parameters individually.

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Perhaps we will also get a "Gradient shape" tool like in Serif DrawPlus: making a lot of spaced concentric circles also takes just a few seconds.

 

A Blend Tool is on the Affinity Designer Feature Roadmap. DrawPlus had a Blend Tool for very many years, but until quite recently (in X5, the third-last version) we could only blend in a straight line. Early versions also offered no control over the position and attributes profiles (so the intermediate shapes were always evenly spaced, with a steady change from one end fill to the other) and there was also no control over the colour transition (so you couldn't do something like the example below). I hope the first iteration of the Blend Tool in AD has plenty of flexibility built in.

 

post-8358-0-19955900-1493719991_thumb.png

 

Talking of dreams: An "Interpolation tool" (Screenshot from Inkscape) would be awesome and perfectly for any kind of these operations:

 

Inkscape's Interpolation Tool has similar limitations to those of the old Blend Tool in DrawPlus. You can use the 'Interpolate style' option so that (instead of only having the paths/strokes interpolated) the fill and opacity are interpolated, but you have no control over the transition profiles.

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Why should I - or why you think I don´t have? 

 

By default DrawPlus will "fade" from one colour to the other, but it also lets you choose to go either the short way or the long way around the colour wheel. As far as I can see, Inkscape only offers the "fade" option. If it's possible in Inkscape to do something like the second and third examples in the attached screenshot, I'd love to know how!

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
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I can do 128 in about 90 seconds.  :P

 

Draw one circle. Stroke=.5 the diameter (this is if you don't want to end up with a hole in the middle. Otherwise it can be less than .5). No fill.

Expand stroke. Add new stroke at 50% of the first one.

Rinse and repeat. New stroke is always half of the previous. One circle becomes 2  becomes 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 (At that point the moiré is really starting to dig in). Expand Stroke makes new layers (for some reason)...the trail can be trashed. If you really want to see whats going on you can turn off fill after each expand... I just did it once at the end.

Boolean divide at the end gives you individual circles if you want.

 

Yeah, expand stroke does create circles with extra points, but hey 128 in 90. 

 

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Yes, a blend tool is severely needed. 

Just a mental exercise here.  :)

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  • 6 years later...

I know this is an old post, but if anyone is trying to do this I made a video on how to do this in Inkscape and then copy and paste it into your Affinity Designer canvas-it will take 10 minutes the first time around- if you've never used Inkscape and have to download it- and about 2 minutes or faster any time thereafter.  The written version and the video.

Edited by Crystal Gillis
time if have Inkscape already
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