Technical Drawing with Affinity Designer

[Zebenelli]

Hello,

up to now I was a Serif DRaw Plus X8 user and as a DIY carpenter I was very satisfied with it`s capability to create simple technical drawings and semi-automatic dimensioning with line, arrows a.s.o.. Currently I`m testing Affinity Designer and don`t find a similar tool for dimensioning. Maybe it is hidden somewhere in the toolboxes - I hope so ;-)  If Yes where can I find this feature.
Any help is appreciated

Zebenelli

[Gabe]

Hi @Zebenelli

Welcome to the forums. 

I'm afraid we do not have a measuring tool in Affinity Designer. It's been asked before on the forums and we hope to get it implemented in future releases, but we have no ETA for this. 

moved to feature requests. 

Thanks,

Gabe. 

[Zebenelli]

 thank you for answering promtly. Is it realistic to hope it will come within this year or will it be a neverending story?

Regards

Zebeneiil

[Gabe]

I'm afraid we have got no fixed release date for this feature. Sory

[Zbigg]

Id  put the cat among pigeons once again /re: fresh discussion about AFPublisher ))) - sorry, cant resists that.

and ask AF management team:

did you or do you consider compete also on other, neighbouring fields of graphics creation like CAD drawing and/or Sketchup?

Just asking, dont get mad ;-))

[Gabe]

There are no plans for a 3D software as of yet. It might happen one day, but not anywhere in the near future.

[thegary]

something like CADTOOLS  for illustrator would be fantastic.

 

Gary

 

[JET_Affinity]

Quote

something like CADTOOLS  for illustrator would be fantastic.

A gargantuan "vertical purpose" plug-in piled on top of the most cluttered, scattered, and cumbersome Bezier drawing interface on the planet? No thank you.

I'm all for technical drawing support. That's my pet desire for Affinity Designer, too. But 2D drafting and axonometric drawing are not rocket science, and it's way past time to take them out of the conceptual confines of the mechanical engineering department (i.e., vertical market). There's no reason the full functionality needed can't be cleanly integrated into the standard feature set of a welcoming, unintimidating, elegantly designed  interface for mainstream general-purpose Bezier-based drawing without overtly screaming "Drafting Mode!" at the beginning user or the stylistically-versatile expert illustrator.

And that's more of what I hope (and suspect) the Affinity dev team has in mind.

JET

[tnoll]

Plus one for technical drawing support ie dimensioning and working to scale. Cannot do technical drawing!!!

[Bentleg]

Hi 

This is somthing that id definatley be intrested in, as a former technical illustrator (isodraw) i would love to see some basic isometric drawing tool's implemented.

simple 2D shape extrusion for starters (im a new user on affinity so dont shoot me if its already in use)

[JET_Affinity]

(im a new user on affinity so dont shoot me if its already in use)

Not shooting you, but welcoming you as a fellow axonometric illustrator: Important enhancements relative to the subject have been previewed in the "sneak peek" thread for version 1.7.

JET

[Ernest Moorey]

I have Serif Drawplus 8 and if Serif are no longer producing drawing software I need another program to move on to. If Affinity Designer does not have drawing dimensioning tools, this is no use to me. I have tried Autocad, but this will take about 10 years to learn and I do not have time for this. I am also trying TurboCad, but this will also take a long time to get used to. Does anyone know anything about Corel, which I used many years ago, Corel Draw 11. 

Does anyone have any suggestions.

With kind regards,

Ernest

 

[DangerDraper]

Hi Ernest, don't be scared of autoCAD. Recent(ish) changes to support 2d parametric modelling make it heaps easier for 2D plan/elevation drawing. The constraints interface still isn't as good as others (Creo is my fav) but it means that you're less likely to waste time after a mistake.

The iso grid in AD is a godsend but unfortunately doesn't have the dimensioning that you'd desire.

If your work is just going to be 2D: try MS Visio. But if you're needing to draft/design in the Z... I'd try Google SketchUp or Fusion 360. Both have free versions and decent online support

[Ernest Moorey]

Oops! I seem to have got lost in my reply to 'Danger Draper. I was saying that I use a very complex electronic CAD system, Pulsonix, which I have had for over 13 years and there are huge complexities with this, but it is a very good system and has spice analysis in with it. I use DrawPlus 8 for my simple mechanical drawings for our own manufactured parts and i think that my best option is to continue to use this as all the others will take time to learn. Two problems i have to live with in DP8 is that the border always has to be cut before I can draw within the limits and the text function is terrible, giving a huge blodge when any text is written. I have to take a piece of previous text which was there originally and edit that. If I can live with that, I think that the DP8 will have to continue. If anyone has any thoughts on that I will be grateful to hear your ideas. In the meantime, thank you 'DangerDraper'. With kind regards, Ernest.

[DangerDraper]

Np Earnest. MS Visio should work for the simple mech drawings if you're sticking to plan & evaluation. Wouldn't dare trying ortho or axon drawings with it.

You could also look at EAGLE for the PCB stuff (apologies if you already have) as I found it an easier learning curve than pulsonix when I dabbled in some custom pcb's a few years ago.

I think I still have an AI template somewhere for PCB work that had vector brushes setup for traces, pots, etc. 

Damn I really wish affinity would add true vector brush capability to AD.

[firemaking101]

I Have Been Waiting Now For 2 Years for This Feature!

I Came From Corel To DrawPlus in 2014, but had to go back to Corel after Affinity Designer came out.
Corel is a magnificent drawing program for architectural scale technical drawing, but they just went to yearly subscription where you cannot buy the product at all -
so I'm back again and sad to see that Affinity isn't interested in increasing their sales market to a niche group: People who vector-draw scale renderings!

I draw artist conceptions for landscape sculpture and architectural features that have to be pretty precise to scale; plus I design a lot of logos, signs and marketing materials - so I prefer to stay in one program for it all.
I really fell in love with the Serif products and dumped Corel when I came upon DrawPlus. For close to 6 years, DrawPlus and PagePlus right next to it gave me everything I wanted. 

I wish Affinity would put some time into putting the scale back into Designer. After a lot of searching on the internet for an option to Corel, I'm not finding anything, so back I go - at least for another year! I hope to be back here again.

[AnaliseThis]

On 6/1/2020 at 10:05 PM, Ernest Moorey said:

Oops! I seem to have got lost in my reply to 'Danger Draper. I was saying that I use a very complex electronic CAD system, Pulsonix, which I have had for over 13 years and there are huge complexities with this, but it is a very good system and has spice analysis in with it. I use DrawPlus 8 for my simple mechanical drawings for our own manufactured parts and i think that my best option is to continue to use this as all the others will take time to learn. Two problems i have to live with in DP8 is that the border always has to be cut before I can draw within the limits and the text function is terrible, giving a huge blodge when any text is written. I have to take a piece of previous text which was there originally and edit that. If I can live with that, I think that the DP8 will have to continue. If anyone has any thoughts on that I will be grateful to hear your ideas. In the meantime, thank you 'DangerDraper'. With kind regards, Ernest.

Ernest,

 

Not the response you were looking for but the text in DP8 is "blodge" as you put it because you probably have an outline switched on.  Text in DP8 inherits both a fill and an outline. Switch off the outline or change the size of the outline to zero and your text will look normal.

[AnaliseThis]

I too would like to see dimension capabilities added to Designer.

[JET_Affinity]

On ‎9‎/‎5‎/‎2020 at 6:37 PM, firemaking101 said:

Corel is a magnificent drawing program for architectural scale technical drawing, but they just went to yearly subscription where you cannot buy the product at all

Lest anyone be misled, this is not true. Corel offers both subscription and perpetual licensing; customer's choice. Corel should be commended (and supported) for not forcing a take-it-or-leave-it rental-only license scheme.

I despise software rental schemes as much as anyone, and will not pay them. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater by spreading erroneous information. So far, Corel is still one of the 'good guys.'

JET

[Kuttyjoe]

Subscriptions are the future, like it or not.  The path is set.  Any company that can figure out a way to get people to subscribe to their products is absolutely going to do so.  Corel has been working towards a complete subscription model as fast as they could get there since the day Adobe started it's subscription model.  Don't be surprised if in the next year or two Corel announces that it's subscription service has been so overwhelmingly popular that they've decided to remove the perpetual license, and that they can't survive with the old model.

[JET_Affinity]

5 hours ago, Kuttyjoe said:

Subscriptions are the future, like it or not.  The path is set.  Any company that can figure out a way to get people to subscribe to their products is absolutely going to do so.  Corel has been working towards a complete subscription model as fast as they could get there since the day Adobe started it's subscription model.  Don't be surprised if in the next year or two Corel announces that it's subscription service has been so overwhelmingly popular that they've decided to remove the perpetual license, and that they can't survive with the old model.

Bah. One guy's opinion.

Quote

Don't be surprised if in the next year or two Corel announces…that they've decided to remove the perpetual license.

Don't worry. I won't be surprised. I also won't be surprised if it doesn't. If it does, I'll stop buying it, just as I did with Adobe, as soon as it made that announcement. If it doesn't, I'll continue updating my perpetual license. Simple as that.

As it is, Corel is getting a significant portion of the money I no longer pay Adobe.

JET

 

[MickJ]

In the same boat,  use Corel for scale drawing, just acquired Designer and would very much like to see/be able to draw to scale. 

[v_kyr]

Well there are better specific tools for such technical drawing demands, like for example ...

• LibreCAD
• QCAD
• FreeCAD (for 3D modelling)
• ... etc...

[AnaliseThis]

v_kyr,

Sure there are programs for everything but why not have scale drawing in software that replaced software that had scale drawing capabilities.
DrawPlus could now arguable be called an inferior package because Serif have developed Affinity Designer, but Designer still lacks some of the basic features that were available in DrawPlus, like scale drawing and a dimension tool that displayed the length of a line when drawn from point A to point B.  All magic stuff missing from Designer.

[MickJ]

Thanks for the reply @v_kyr   I don't want all that cad stuff,  simple floor plans, garden plans and simple components will do me, draw to scale & print - I will be a happy boy.