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

Affinity Designer: measure line/path length


Recommended Posts

Hi!

 

I am new to Affinity Designer and already have searched the internet to find an answer. The Info I found is that the measurement tool was planned years ago, but nothing to measurements in the newest release.

 

Is there any way to measure the length of a (curved) line in the newest version? I am interested in an exact measurement in physical units (mm).

 

Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanx again, I'll try that. It is essential to be able to measure for my purpose.

 

Is there any chance this feature comes in with upcoming releases?

 

For the purpose of measuring distances correctly, ⌘ (cmd) only makes sense if the curves of the objects are parallel and horizontal or vertical / the two points are lying on an imaginary horizontal/vertical line.

 

Requested since 2014, so perhaps it will launch together with the arrow heads.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...
  • 3 months later...

Hello, my vote for the measure tool. I just need the most basic tool, to measure the distance from two points on canvas. I've seen several workarounds to meause the distance between two points, but the best is to have a tool that could measure distante from point A and point B. Just click/select point A, then point B, get the measure in pixels, inches, centimeters, etc ... done.

Angle measuring could be good to have too.

Regards.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yep v1.6.1 and still waiting for this. It's sound insane, but my current workflow means I design in Affinity and then measure in AI. So I'm paying Adobe to be able to measure my paths... Please add path measurements if only to help me break the last chain from CC subscription sentence. : )

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/7/2018 at 11:11 AM, jmoren said:

I just need the most basic tool, to measure the distance from two points on canvas.

While @Oval's method is very elegant and flexible you can do this quick and dirty by drawing a line between the two points. If the line is not horizontal or vertical you have to rotate it to one of these basic directions. You then can read out the measured length in the transform panel.

I admit, this is definitely not the same as a measuring tool but on the few occasions I do need this it works for me :)

d.

Edit: spelling

Affinity Designer 1 & 2   |   Affinity Photo 1 & 2   |   Affinity Publisher 1 & 2
Affinity Designer 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Photo 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

Windows 11 64-bit - Core i7 - 16GB - Intel HD Graphics 4600 & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
iPad pro 9.7" + Apple Pencil

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Hello,

Just doing other things I have 'discovered' that there is a tool that can solve my problem: the info panel.

Yes, if I just change the ruler to measure in mm (or your favorite unit) and use the info panel, you can see the X and Y values live on the info panel that gives you your position in mm (or any other measure).

Then I noticed that I have also the W:, H:, D: and A: that usually are empty. Ok, so now just select the V tool, click on a starting point and drag to make a selection box, you will see that, over your cursor the W (width) and H (heigh) values just appear on your selection box, in mm (if you are into your canvas you don't see any selection box). On the info panel the W: and H: values also appear but in px, and also the D (diagonal) and A (angle) also appear. This is a really valuable info, because if I create a selection box starting on point A and ending on point B, the D(iagonal) is just the distance between such points. Also I have the angle of the diagonal (A:). The only problem is that, on the panel info, W H and D appear on px, not in mm (or the selected mesaure for the ruler).

How can I change the info panel so the W H D values appear on the correct measuring unit? For me, the tool I need is implemented yet, I just need to see the values on the correct unit.

Notice the atached  image, I drew a box, starting from the outside of my image, so you can see the box, width and height on the main window, also you can see X Y (in mm) W H D (in px) and A(ngle) on the info panel. If I select a box inside the image I can't see any selection box on the main window, but I still see X Y W H D A on the info panel. So, for me, the D(iagonal) is the most interesting data, it's just the distance between two points BUT is measured in pixels, I need to mesaure in mm.

SO => how can I set up the info panel, so the W H D is measured in mm? C'mon Affinity team..., just add it in a future release, all the work is done...

measuring.jpg.755c363bea8bcd7a66be95520cc1fbe7.jpg

Regards,
Javier.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Has been fixed on Beta 1.6.5.123. Now you have a way to measure, in mm, the distance between two points in a image, finally! Great!

But, I forgot to say, that only Photo has the Info panel, so this feature works only in Affinity Photo.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

It's a bit disappointing to find that this feature does not exist as of July 2020.  I have made a nice design for a small building but this final omission makes some of the measurements in estimating quantities hard to do on my plan. Lots of things to like about AD, but using it for 2D small building design isn't one of them.  (I'm designing a small log cabin style building).

Luckily my design is very simple but it it wasn't this would be a hinderance, and I would not attempt a harder design in future. 

I can only assume that this must be a hard requirement to implement as otherwise it would have been met. It does seem strange to me though.  If I am able to set up a grid in ruler units of mm then it seems that all the information is known that would be required to calcuate the length of a line in any orientation. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When discussed as feature requests, please try to clarify what exactly is being requested.

  • "Dimension Tools" should be a toolset for creating live dimension objects. Constructs consisting of witness lines, arrows, and text that updates when its parameters change. (Like in Corel Draw or Canvas.)
  • A "Measure Tool" is often just a rather lame tool that one drags between two points of interest and then presents either some readout on screen or in a dialog or palette somewhere. (Like in Illustrator; in which, by the way, the Line Tool makes a far more useful 'Measure Tool' than the Measure Tool.)
  • Access to any path's actual length (or area, angle, etc.) is yet another thing.

I'm not claiming it's any kind of industry-standard substitute for actual Dimension Objects or for display of path lengths, etc. But for those needing an occasional dimension when drawing to scale, you can use the Point Transform Tool thusly:

image.png.76a64d2bf3a5a3b2ef34f4fe36da4d20.pngimage.png.ecdbe27b75b8968196b6ff99726c3c57.png

image.png.32c88ce868b86e63807305e78b47ac5d.pngimage.png.3d1ff6102b66fc85bb2a53414ef4788e.png

image.png.ebe0935afe4e5a773fdb9a5e1109a78f.pngimage.png.245ae76b38f1e5313576f5f4c705e635.png

image.png.ffe286d1bcfdf71c5983689aa4a1a96b.pngimage.png.be4af0d448c5e08b46fab3cef42bbd7c.png

JET

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/4/2020 at 5:58 AM, johnnyfive said:

I think for most people it's this one. It has been available in Adobe Illustrator for a long time under the Document Info tab.

Yes, yet another example of Illustrator's not being the software to emulate.

I was among those petitioning Adobe for years to provide access, within Illustrator's normal interface,  to the 'secret' programmer's window that could be invoked if you knew the 'Easter egg' shortcut. So Adobe finally added it to the flyout menu of the Document Info panel, which you need to invoke twice to individually turn on the options Selection Only and Objects.

Not exactly an intuitive or elegant GUI implementation.

JET

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/6/2020 at 3:05 AM, JET_Affinity said:

Yes, yet another example of Illustrator's not being the software to emulate.

I was among those petitioning Adobe for years to provide access, within Illustrator's normal interface,  to the 'secret' programmer's window that could be invoked if you knew the 'Easter egg' shortcut. So Adobe finally added it to the flyout menu of the Document Info panel, which you need to invoke twice to individually turn on the options Selection Only and Objects.

Not exactly an intuitive or elegant GUI implementation.

JET

Agreed. Does Affinity have an intuitive or elegant GUI implementation of this yet?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/8/2020 at 4:35 AM, johnnyfive said:

Agreed. Does Affinity have an intuitive or elegant GUI implementation of this yet?

Nope.

But neither does Illustrator. ;-)

That's all I was saying. So it's yet another low-hanging-fruit opportunity to move this software segment out of its decades-old doldrums.

It's much the same with Illustrator's Measure Tool, which is why I never use it. It doesn't reliably abide by snaps, and Illustrator snaps themselves are unreliably too zoom-dependent, even if you have Smart Guides switched on. Illustrator's Line Tool makes a much better 'Measure Tool' because it is more tactile in snapping:

  1. Drag it between two snapping candidates.
  2. Click. Its modal dialog opens right in front of you, telling you the length and angle.
  3. Dismiss the dialog and tap the delete key to remove the 'measure line' if you don't want to use it as part of a poor man's dimension object (which I do by means of a Javascript).

Everything in Illustrator is a workaround.

JET

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.