Designer: Expand stroke is completely broken

[footof]

After the 1.6 update, the expand stroke function that wasn't accurate with rounded rectangles before, now is completely broken (see screenshot of a rounded rectangle, circle, and a cog).

 

Upd. It seems to happen only in certain affinity files, not all of them.

 

Regards,

Anton

[Aammppaa]

I see nothing of the sort on my machine…

 

 

See also my comparison in this thread.

 

 

[Bri-Toon]

Nor with me.

Footof, what are the exact steps you took for that cog tool example, because that looks way off.

[predick]

4 hours ago, Bri-Toon said:

Nor with me.

Footof, what are the exact steps you took for that cog tool example, because that looks way off.

@Aammppaa

 

It depends on Resolution and Size of Artwork, the smaller will get more weird.
I'm the one always found this bugs too.

[Bri-Toon]

Good catch, and at the same time, understandable. What other vector drawing software has a 1,000,000 percent zoom? (Mischief doesn't count.)

[Chris_K]

Hi all

 

This is pretty much he same issue as before that we are aware off, I know this is something on Matt's list he's keen to get properly sorted

 

Chees

[maxaffinity]

Hi, 

Is there any updated on this bug?

Is there a way I can roll back to AD version 1.5?

 

I'm experiencing it when expanding strokes with rectangle shapes with rounded corners and also with circle shapes. I've tried with small shapes and bigger ones.

I'm using AD 1.6. I think this did not happen as much with version 1.5 but I cannot verify that since I can't go back.

 

 

[footof]

On 11/4/2017 at 1:11 AM, Bri-Toon said:

Nor with me.

Footof, what are the exact steps you took for that cog tool example, because that looks way off.

Sorry for late answer. It wasn't anything special. Simple cog, then expand tool.

 

I'm on Affinity 1.6 on Mac

[footof]

I can capture the whole process on video, but it's nothing special really, I just create a document, draw a circle, expand it and get this deformed thing. That's really annoying and it impacts my work because I have to deliver assets for the icons from time to time. Right now I'm importing the assets to Sketch before exporting them.

 

I tried changing shape settings, stroke, snapping, nothing fixes this bug.

[MEB]

Hi footof,

There's no way to fix this on your end. If you scale up your icons a x factor (or start them larger than needed and downscale at the end) expand the stroke and scale them down again (the same factor) it should minimise these effects. This issue is more problematic when dealing with small objects so scaling them up before expanding the strokes should help.

As Chris said above Matt P is well aware of these issues and should provide a fix when possible.

[Bri-Toon]

Footof, it looks like I forgot to submit my reply yesterday, but Predick brought up a good point after my previous confusion. Depending on how far you are zoomed in and the smaller shapes you work with, this problem tends to happen for the time being. If you work with larger space, this should not happen, so make sure you are zoomed out plenty and work with larger shapes if you want to expand them. As Chris_K and MEB have mentioned, expanding small shapes to deform is a known issue, and is planned for correction.

[footof]

Yeah, it kinda helps. Thanks for telling me this technique. Looking forward to the fix, this issue is pretty critical for me as Affinity is my main graphics software at the moment, I don't own any of the Adobe stuff, so I'm very Affinity-dependant.

 

I think at this point I'd prefer a subscription-based Sketch-like model with frequent fixes than your one-purchase-free-forever but rare fixes model (not complaining, Affinity is still my first choice, but how long it took to fix that 1.5 bug with pixel view and shifting artboards?). Just saying, maybe there are enough people out there to make it work. I digress

 

Best,

Anton

[maxaffinity]

I'm still struggling with this. Making a shape bigger to minimize the produced effects is not working for me as there is still deformities when expanding the stroke.

[Bri-Toon]

49 minutes ago, maxaffinity said:

I'm still struggling with this. Making a shape bigger to minimize the produced effects is not working for me as there is still deformities when expanding the stroke.

 

That's strange. Is the shape custom made or is it one of the shape presets? And can you please attach the result?

[Inspirimental]

I am having the same issue on Affinity Designer 1.6.

 

On zoom level of 150% with a border around an object of 10pt, the difference between expanded stroke and normal stroke is hardly noticeable. But the circle in my case is not perfectly circelish  any more. If I am working at a zoom level of 800% with a border around the object of 2pt, the difference is getting more obvious (please check the attached files).

Kind Regards

Tim

[maxaffinity]

@Bri-Toon I'm getting results similar to @Inspirimental with regular shapes (circles, etc..) and before in version 1.5 this was not happening. There was some distortion but it was minimal and in some cases. I'll be trying out the beta release to see it still happening for me.

[Bri-Toon]

I see it. I admit, I'm having a hard time getting the same result, but the problem in the second picture does look more obvious. As we are aware that size makes a difference, I think I am also noticing that stroke size makes a slight difference as well. If I have my stroke to about 5 and expand, I don't get the same result as I would for 0.6.

[Inspirimental]

I think the transformation to a normal path is a little awkward.

Shouldn't the handles and corners after the transformation be perfectly top, left, bottom, right? On the inside and the outside circle? If I draw two circles and subtract them from another, I do get it exactly this way?!

[MEB]

Hi Inspirimental,

We are already aware of these issues. We hope to improve the Expand Stroke command in a future version.

[Inspirimental]

Hi @MEB,

thanks for the information. I'll be patient

 

[Oval]

Yes, we are patient. In 2016/2017 it was “high on the list”.

[Valentín Benavente]

One more issue regarding 'expand stroke': I wrote a text, converted to curves; then added a 1p. stroke. Then applied 'expand stroke'. Result: none... until I double-clicked on each letter individually and applied 'expand stroke', and then it worked. Not a huge issue, but I spent some working time until I found the workaround.

[MEB]

Hi Valentín Benavente,

You can select all letter's layers (inside the group) and apply the Expand Stroke command to all at once. No need to do it one by one.

[Bri-Toon]

1 hour ago, Valentín Benavente said:

One more issue regarding 'expand stroke': I wrote a text, converted to curves; then added a 1p. stroke. Then applied 'expand stroke'. Result: none... until I double-clicked on each letter individually and applied 'expand stroke', and then it worked. Not a huge issue, but I spent some working time until I found the workaround.

The reason nothing happened when you tried expanding the group is because it was a parent layer. The child layers are the actual curves, and that is why those are the ones that ended up expanding.

[Valentín Benavente]

Thanks, MEB;

Point is: Why doesn't 'clicking on the group and applying expand stroke' work? I think it is the more intuitive way. (Although your solution is far more logical than mine, I admit )