Modify Skew field to make isometric image creation simple

[cchris]

Freehand's skew tool made isometric illustrations easy to create. Unfortunately, Affinity Designer uses the same skewing field as Adobe Illustrator, which makes creating isometric images difficult when compared to how quickly it could be done in FreeHand. It's frustrating because Designer is the first tool I've come across that comes close to fully replacing FreeHand,

 

I hope the skew tool can be modified by adding horizontal and vertical settings so the skew can be applied with more control.

 

In Freehand, I'd do the following to create an isometric cube:
 

For left side of imaginary cube, skew: 0 deg. h / -30 deg. v

 

For right side of cube, skew: 0 deg. h / 30 deg. v

 

For top of cube, scale: 100% h / 58% v (approx), then skew: -60 h / 30

v or 60 h / -30 v depending on your drawing

 

If it helps, I've attached a PDF section showing how I did isometric illustrations in Freehand.

Guide to isometric-2.pdf

[AshTeriyaki]

+1 It'd be great to get some pre baked isometric transforms

[00Ghz]

+1

[GCVigilante]

+1

[Ben]

You can already achieve this through using skew and rotation.  

 

Scale height by 0.865

Left side = 330 rot, 30 shear

Right side = 30 rot, -30 shear
Top = 30 rot, 30 shear or 330 rot, -30 shear

 

However, I am currently adding to snapping and grid functions that will enable you to create or transform objects into grid positions.  If using an isometric grid, that will give you the result you want.  Using these methods will also be numerically precise.