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Bearing in my that we are not doing "proper" 3D, what dimensioning tools would be expect?  They essentially have to work in 2D, but can reference grid axis.  I have some ideas in my head, but I just want to see what other people are thinking.

 

I'm not saying when this will happen, just that I can start thinking about it, and make a note of things.

 

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So, if we are talking axonometric (isometric, dimetric, etc) projection wouldn't we want foreshortened dims? Then of course dia of circles, that kind of thing.

At a minimum at least be able to pull dimension off of a line, circle or between two points. For 2D, like creating label artwork, this is an easy one if drawing at true dimensions. For 3d stuff you might need to be able to change the value manually. See CorelDraw for how they do things. I have attached a drawing from CorelDraw. The dimensions are connected to the elements meaning, if I change the hight of the box the dimension will adjust accordingly.

Also, if you want to get fancy, take a look at IsoDraw by PTC.

DimensionExample_CorelDRAW2017.jpg

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ok - I'm going to ask that we have a clear separation of terminology.  I think we have people talking about two different sets of features - size markings, and shape extrusion.

 

So, what terminology do people see as "correct" for both these features?

 

Both will get looked at, but are very different (again, no time frames though).

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Hi befehr,

By shape extrusion i believe Ben refers to "extract/read" the true dimension from the shapes, so when you change/edit the shape the dimension value that is displayed is updated and not to 3D extrusion (there's no plans to add any kind of 3D support to Affinity Designer as far as i know).

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Frank referenced extrusion in Astute Graphics and SketchUp.....  so, we are talking about pseudo shape extrusion, making a shape look 3D.

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As MEB says, no plans to add anything proper 3D.  But, the example Frank made of cloning and joining shapes to provide a 3-dimensional extrusion - that might be something we can do, but the result would still be 2D shapes.

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Just now, Ben said:

As MEB says, no plans to add anything proper 3D.  But, the example Frank made of cloning and joining shapes to provide a 3-dimensional extrusion - that might be something we can do, but the result would still be 2D shapes.

Right, and this is something that Isodraw does very well. Still 2D, but you can "extrude" a shape, such as a circle, to either a cylinder or a hole. You also have the options of adding threads to either the inside or outside. AND, it will set up thick and thin lines for you.

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7 minutes ago, Ben said:

As MEB says, no plans to add anything proper 3D.  But, the example Frank made of cloning and joining shapes to provide a 3-dimensional extrusion - that might be something we can do, but the result would still be 2D shapes.

 

Seems i'm the one confused here! So you are really talking about shape extrusion to create fake 3D "volumes"!

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I think some people are talking about size labels, and others are taking about "making things have dimensions" (extrude a shape).

 

Either way - both involved features.

 

As for Isodraw - is it all pure 2D? The example videos seem to suggest they deal with 3D CAD sources, and the tools seem to be plane aware.

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IsoDraw, so yeah. It is a stand alone technical illustration program but does have capabilities to import 3D cad data. PTC sells the whole package, XML editing, drawing, Content Management, etc. They try to integrate all of that together.

Corel Technical Graphic Suite is similar (different from CorelDraw Graphics Suite).

https://www.coreldraw.com/en/product/technical-suite/#features

Here is a video of IsoDraw in action. It's in German but I think you'll get the idea (unless you speak German than never mind). The first part is drawing straight up in the program, later they show importing models.

 

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I'm hoping that this video just has a low frame rate - otherwise that is one sloooooow app.

 

Also, it appears heavily dependant on 3D at various stages.  We won't be going there.  Designer is primarily intended as an illustration tool.  We have no intention of adding any handling of 3D content or input.  The axonometric features I'm currently working on are just smoke and mirrors on top our existing 2D functionality.  They don't pad out our existing document data in any way to reference or link to some form of plane aware extra information (other than our grid description which is isolated from the actual curves data, shapes, etc).

 

It's all a bit hard to explain.  Basically, if I can add a feature without having to embellish our existing document objects to know about 3D, then no problem.  If a feature requires that objects would need to remember extra information, then we'll have to think very carefully about it.

If it can all be done in the Tool, then that is still ok.  What I want is for someone who doesn't deal with 2.5D to be able to open a document and treat it as 2D, but for people that want to use 2.5D, they can, but the underlying objects are essentially no different - it's down to what tools they use to draw and edit.

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Dimensioning = adding size markings have been requested before and it would indeed be useful for technical illustrators. Even if they were stupid labels without true connection to actual size (or drawing scale).

 

Pseudo 3D would indeed be wonderful too. I loved Adobe Dimensions software. When they rolled it to Illustrator it never seemed to work as nice. Just simple turns of path plane and shape extrusions – it opened a whole new world.

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Just for clarity to anyone who may not be acquainted with axonometric drawing: I'm not talking at all about 3D modeling. If I want to model things in 3D, I use a 3D modeling program.

But axonometric is a 2D drawing construction method. That's why it's entirely appropriate for any modern, mainstream, general-purpose, 2D commercial illustration program.

The foundational principle of axonometric drawing is that direct measures are made along the three drawing axes (using correctly-proportioned scales). Measures for object edges which are not parallel to the axes (what I'll call off-axis measures) are transferred from measures made along the axes. (At least that was the case in the days of drawing "on the board.")

The screenshots below are from DrawPlus 8. Page rulers are set to inches.

On the left, the hexagon is drawn in the flat. The simple, straightforward dimension tool in DrawPlus was used to add the dimensions. The distance across the flats of the hexagon is 3 inchs.

On the right, a copy of the hexagon was sent to what DrawPlus calls the "Top Plane" grid. Now, by default, when you set DrawPllus's grids to isometric, the grid increments are foreshortened (as they should be). That is, a "one inch" measure along the grid lines is actually .8165 inch.

But note that when the same Dimension Tool is used to create a dimension on the Top Plane, it still shows a measure of 3 inches. In other words, the Dimension Tool is automatically taking into consideration the foreshortened scale of the axonometric plane. That is exactly the way you would want a dimension tool to work in Affinity.

Moreover, note that even the off-axis measure of one of the flats is also labeled correctly even though it, too, is foreshortened and is not parallel to any of the isometric axes. The Dimension Tool correctly labels the flat 1.73 inches in both drawings. Again, this is what you want.

Now, just that much functionality is far beyond what any of Affinity Designer's direct competitors offer. Even ACD Canvas (historically Deneba Canvas)--a venerable program which I love, and which is nowadays explicitly marketed toward technical illustration--provides nothing like that. The axonometric grids feature of Serif DrawPlus is very much like that of far more expensive Corel Technical Designer.

This is basic functionality for axonometric drawing; support for which should have been commonplace in mainstream drawing programs decades ago. But it wasn't. So DrawPlus was ahead of its time in this regard.

So the next step: Those dimension objects in DrawPlus are not "live linked" to the paths they were snapped to while drawing them, as they are in some programs which provide dimension tools. That is, if I drag the width handle of the hexagon's bounding box, the 3 inch dimension object does not automatically follow and update its value. That kind of linking between the dimension object and the path does exist, however, if the dimension object was snapped to bounding box handles when it was created.

But even when the dimension object was not snapped to bounding box handles, its value is at least "live" in connection to its own bounds. So, for example, I can grab the right end handle of the 3 in dimension object and snap it to the end of one of the flats (second screenshot), and its updated value still respects the angular foreshortening of the grid. (Note its value is the same as the other one originally created to measure one of the flats.) This, to me, is practically just as well. If I change the shape of a path that is already "on" one of the axonometric planes, it is not onerous to then drag the handles of a dimension object that is already on that plane. So long as the dimension objects which are created on one of the axo planes properly reflect the foreshortening of that plane, we're good.

I'm not saying DrawPlus is perfect. When creating dimension objects, the Dimension Tool seems to respect snapping to bounding box handles, but not actual snapping to nodes. I would certainly expect Affinity's implementation to fully respect node snapping (and any other snapping candidates the user has turned on).

Another important element (just so I can rest assured it isn't overlooked): Even moderately serious axonometric drawing inevitably involves not just "simple rotation" (rotation of an object edge measure on one of the axo planes; in other words, rotation about one axis), but also "compound rotation" (rotation about two axes). Both simple and compound rotation are where elliptical protractors come in.

Thankfully, Affinity already provides elliptical protractors:

  • Live ellipse objects also serve as arcs. Start and End angles are provided.
  • Disproportionally scaling a live ellipse object correctly scales its angles only in the direction of the minor diameter. That is, if you...:
  1. Draw a 1 in circle.
  2. Clone the circle and drag it straight downward.
  3. Scale the copy vertically 57.74% (to make it an isometric ellipse).
  4. Set the Start and End angles of the top circle.
  5. Set the Start and End angles of the ellipse to the same values.

...then you will see that the Start and End angles of both the circle and the ellipse are aligned horizontally. That is, a vertical line drawn downward from the circle's End angle will intersect the End angle of the ellipse. (The circle effectively represents a "top view" of the ellipse.) This is exactly the way you want ellipse angles to work. (There are drawing programs which don't work this way, and it renders the angular functionality useless for illustration, as opposed to trivial flat-on-the-page design work.)

So Affinity's live ellipse objects already serve just fine as elliptical protractors for axonometric drawing, and can correctly construct both simple and compound rotations. That functionality must not be broken when a live ellipse is "sent to" one of the axonometric planes. This specific thing was broken in DrawPlus at one time, but I believe it was fixed after it was brought to Serif's attention.

JET

Serif_Dimensions.PNG

Serif_Dimensions_2.PNG

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...do you think you can consider adding a callout-like tool?

Regarding callouts:

One of the things I applaud about Affinity is the energy toward keeping the program as elegant as possible. A large part of that is avoiding tool glut (separate dedicated tools for every little specific use), and carefully designing features to serve as many uses as possible.

Especially in a general-purpose illustration program, the proper place to provide for things like callouts (and leader-lines, thrust lines, hidden lines, ghosts, etc.) is a carefully built and thorough Graphic Styles feature.

Affinity still lacks a "path ends" feature. I take that as a hopeful indication that the Team has ideas in mind beyond the mediocre standard-fare arrowheads feature. A well thought out path ends feature can address that and much more.

Also, drawing standards vary widely. Some clients (military branches, for example), specify arrowheads on callouts; others don't. Whenever I have the choice, I do not use arrowheads on callouts because in my experience (both in engineering and technical communications, and behind a parts counter) I find them to create unnecessarily distracting visual "blobs" which actually make it more difficult to find the item looked for.

A well-built graphics styles feature set (which allows multiple strokes and fills, stored Symbols for path ends, positioning of path ends relative to the endpoint of the path, and separate settings for each end) allows an illustrator to build as many style libraries as needed for vertical-application uses.

Canvas, for example, includes style libraries for various established drafting standards. That's fine for its specifically technical marketing focus. But much as I like it, Canvas does suffer from a bit of tool glut.

In a general purpose illustration program, an auto-expanding text object grouped with a styled two segment path can serve as a suitable callout object. Individual users can create special purpose Style libraries for their own purposes or to share.

Connector capability, on the other hand, could be very useful not just for technical drawing and not just for the common decision tree graph or org chart, but for many other things. But even here, I'm not convinced its interface has to follow conventional wisdom as a separate "tool" or a separate kind of object. Why can't connections just be an attribute setting for the end node of any open path? 

JET

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Just a thought. 

You know, we all love what everyone at Serif has accomplished so far and want Affinity to succeed (or continue to succeed) and want it to to be everything for everyone.  Unrealistic for sure, but I can dream :)

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Sounds neat, but also sounds very niche. Why don’t you just do this kind of stuff in CAD?

Dimension tools are certainly not just for drafting.

If you're referring to isometric drawing in general, well...you're right on cue, I'll give you that. ;) There are many misconceptions about isometric drawing, but that's probably the largest.

Consider: How is explicit support for 2D parallel perspective any less appropriate for a general purpose 2D drawing program than is support for 2D converging perspective? Doesn't the existence of 3D modeling render vanishing point perspective obsolete? I mean, by comparison it's not very realistic. (And as most commonly used, not very rigorous, either.)  Should Adobe not have given Illustrator its Perspective Grid feature (a copy of the almost identical feature which FreeHand introduced years before Adobe's acquisition of Macromedia)?

It's one of those chicken-and-egg things: Do most mainstream drawing programs ignore isometric drawing because there is no demand, or is demand limited to those with experience because there is no express support for it in mainstream drawing programs?

First, in most any city in proximity to a military facility, there are typically a number of private firms, small and large, to which government awards contract work on technical publications. It's a decent size industry in itself. Guess what they do? In many cases, they use mainstream drawing programs to clean up or update 2D drawings exported from CAE systems, or create such drawings from scratch, using working drawings as source material reference. Fact is, the vector line art exports from even high-end CAE software is seldom very pristine.

Industry often does the same thing in-house. That's why programs like Corel Technical Designer and IsoDraw exist. They are basically 2D vector drawing programs, but have accessory extensions (involving costly license fees) which can just open a 3D model and rotate it into the desired viewpoint before exporting it as something ready to be worked on in the 2D drawing environment.

But moreover, contrary to popular misconception, use of isometric drawing (just one variant of axonometric) is not limited to mechanical engineering environs. And commercial illustrators who don't care to add it to their repertoire are missing out on opportunity (and enjoyment).

The dramatically exaggerated converging perspective view of the proposed trade show booth will help sell Management on the design concept. But a few isometric drawings will far better serve the trade show crew to get it built, assembled, and in place on time.

The photo realistic renderings on the box cover of Lego, Lincoln Logs, and Tinker Toy kits will help sell them initially. But the equally colorful isometric step-by-step instructions inside are what ensures success and adds value to the product.

TV ads of the latest, greatest roller coaster will convince the family that they have to go this weekend. But the cartoony yet proportionally-accurate bird's-eye-view theme park map will help them find the coaster amid all the other attractions.

How many of a freelance illustrator's clients for identity graphics or placement ads and brochures are small-to-medium product manufacturers? (A good many in my experience, and they have been delighted to find out I can also produce their products' assembly instructions and exploded parts breakdowns.) Fully rendered axonometric phantom cutaways can intuitively show a product's functional advantages, and show equal detail throughout the depth.

And the list goes on. I sense a long overdue awakening of interest in isometric drawing (and a mass of confusion) within the commercial illustration community, despite the historic neglect of the big-name software vendors. This is going to be an important advantage of Affinity Designer.

JET

 

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Taking another look at Ben's second sneak peek video on rotating in a plane, I wonder if this would work for something like having a picture on a billboard. I say that because a billboard would consist of multiple elements. So my guess for that approach would be to make different angled square shapes inside the billboard square shape, and then place other shapes inside the smaller squares for rotating. Then just hide the stroke of the smaller squares.

 

I admit, I don't usually use a grid, but I should get in the habit of that assuming that is how objects will snap in. Usually, I would just wing it.

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I really hope that you will focus on things that are core features that entire industries can use. Things like the "save for web" panel in Illustrator and Photoshop is an essential tool all web designers need. Having the pop open dialogs for all my palettes is another awesome feature that will be hard to live without. The colors, shapes, layers, character, etc. palettes take up a lot of room when I am not using them in this program. Adobe may suck in so many ways now, but their pop open palette interface is excellent. I can have 20 palettes in what looks similar to my toolbar with small icons and clicking an icon pops open just the one I need just when I need it and leave my screen uncluttered when I am focusing on drawing. Having smart guides that outline each shape when I mouse over them is very useful, a lot nicer than holding down option while I click to drill down (though, that is nice too for other reasons). These are the things that will make this program shine, not fancy bloat.

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On 29/01/2018 at 8:25 AM, Buck Manhands said:

I can have 20 palettes in what looks similar to my toolbar with small icons and clicking an icon pops open just the one I need just when I need it and leave my screen uncluttered when I am focusing on drawing.

 

Have you tried detaching the Studio panels in Affinity? You can collapse a floating panel to leave only its title bar displayed, and if you dock multiple panels together you can collapse the group and then expand only the panel you want to use.

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On ‎1‎/‎28‎/‎2018 at 9:54 AM, Bri-Toon said:

Taking another look at Ben's second sneak peek video on rotating in a plane, I wonder if this would work for something like having a picture on a billboard. I say that because a billboard would consist of multiple elements. So my guess for that approach would be to make different angled square shapes inside the billboard square shape, and then place other shapes inside the smaller squares for rotating. Then just hide the stroke of the smaller squares.

 

I admit, I don't usually use a grid, but I should get in the habit of that assuming that is how objects will snap in. Usually, I would just wing it.

I'm not quite following your description. Maybe post a sketch.

But it sounds like you may be thinking that the preview demo of rotating a star shape amounts to rotating a whole extruded three-dimensional shape (like one of the triangular tubes in a billboard, which rotate to display three different advertisements every few seconds).

If that's what you're talking about, no. The demonstration is of a star shaped path being rotated on one of the three axo planes (the horizontal one). If that star shaped path is going to be used as the horizontal face of star shaped extrusion, rotating the star on the horizontal plane is not going to automatically also rotate the drawings of its vertically extruded sides. (That is, rotating the star is not going to "rotate" the three perpendicular grids together, as if they are a 3D object.)

The feature as demonstrated would, however, help you to correctly construct various views of such a mechanism rotated to as many different positions about the vertical axis as you want.

It's a 2D drawing program, and axonometric drawing is a 2D method for constructing correctly-proportioned 3D parallel perspective (orthographic) views. The three grids are just three 2D grids that span the whole view. They are not an actual 3D cube object that is being rotated when a shape drawn on one of the planes they represent is rotated (although an intuitive interface for their setup could be designed to work that way). But the three grids can be set up to be in proper proportion to each other so as to serve as a 3D coordinate system (and will no doubt be able to automate that proportional linking, as the grids dialog already does).

I assume we will be able to store as many user-defined presets as we want (as one can do in DrawPlus, Technical Designer, etc.) One of the common misconceptions about axonometric drawing is that isometric, dimetric, and trimetric orientations are just arbitrarily derived sets of angles and scales, and have nothing to do with each other. Much of that misconception stems from the limitations of the pre-computer analog tools. A full range of isometric-specific templates, protractors, etc., was (and still is) readily available, while templates for dimetric and trimetric were very few and far between. (Necessarily so, because there are theoretically infinitely many dimetric and trimetric orientations, so manufacturing physical templates for all of them would be unfeasible.) So dependence upon physical drawing tools implied that isometric, dimetric, and trimetric are arbitrary, unrelated systems.

But they are not. Fact is, correctly done isometric, dimetric, and trimetric coordinate systems (axis triads) can actually be used together within the same drawing, when it's expedient to do so. And in software, there's nothing preventing doing so. And it's not nearly as complicated as it may sound to the as-yet uninitiated.

So back to my interpretation of your billboard mechanism question, you could, for example, set up a trio of grid presets to facilitate drawing on (or parallel to) each of the three sides of an extruded triangle. (Think of the billboard structures which support three different whole billboards arranged in a triangle, each one facing a different road at an interchange.)

JET

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That's correct.

 

The tools are strictly 2D - there is no true 3D awareness involved.  So, it is not possible to rotate between planes - only to rotate on-plane.  So, you cannot, for example, rotate between the top plane and the side plane.

 

Whether I come up with any tools to provide such transforms is another matter.  Given that there is no persisted reference to the plane in which a shape lives, it would not be possible to iteratively transform objects between planes.  Any cross-planar tool would have to behave like other deforming tools, whereby once applied the intermediate steps are effectively lost, and you are left with a simple object.  It'd also be up to the user to indicate in some way which plane the original shape exists in, and again indicate the destination plane (somehow).

The transform tool does this by assuming the current displayed grid plane.  If your shape is drawn relative to a plane different to the current one, the tool doesn't know that, and the transform is applied according to the current plane.  This will create some interesting yet undesired effects to your object.

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No, I understand that this is a 2D program and that there cannot be rotation on multiple planes. That is understood. I did say different angled, but that wasn't the right word to use since the squares would actually be on the same angle. I will explain what I meant.

 

Billboard.thumb.png.3182e0b554b69822ec514042c13388db.png

 

Here is a very simplified example, but here is a giant square shape of a billboard. If the goal is to decorate it and add shapes inside for rotation, it wouldn't work in this case. So what I was saying is to have the giant square just serve as a placeholder, and add smaller squares inside that one for the rotation of the star shapes. The stars will rotate as long as they are in single shapes and can snap in place. Then just set the stroke of the smaller squares to none to give the impression that the stars are snapped to the larger square.

 

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