Best way to make gauge display?

[ladlon]

Hi.  I'm currently building some 'text' elements to map onto a 3D model I have built, and one of the things I need to create the text for is a typical VU type meter.

The display would essentially be a hollow half circle line (or a unfilled rectangle, bent into a curve), filled with regular tick marks.  I've attached a sample image, as it's really hard to explain in words!

Not really sure what's the best way to build something like that in Affinity Design.  I have to explore it a bit more, but I don't recall anything where I could build this 'straight', then curve it... nor am I really familiar with anything that would allow me to create a series of tick marks (like using some radial array or something like that)... So, I'm kind of at a loss, currently.  I'm sure there's at least one easy way to create this, but I'm just not familiar with any tools that seem suitable for this, currently.

Anyone out there who can point me to an Affinity Design tool that can be usef for this sort of thing?

I'll keep exploring the tools, in the meantime....

LATER ADDITION: About the only thing I can currently think of, is creating a curved line, and setting the stroke to be dotted, and that could then serve as a visual guide to then manually build/place the tick marks.  But, I'm sure there's a better/easier method... so, any suggestions, please let me know!

[Alfred]

I think the Cog Tool might repay some close scrutiny.

[ladlon]

Hi, Alfred.  Thanks for the response.

Yup, the cog tool shows promise, but it doesn't allow you to control the number of cogs, unless I'm missing something.

That said, there's no reason why I couldn't use several cog objects, each rotated slightly, to create more ticks.  This is just to generate a PNG texture map image, so a 'clean and efficient' Affinity Design project file is not really of huge importance.

Looks like it will work.  Thanks for the great tip!

(Affinity Design really needs some sort of Bend tool!)

[toltec]

I would start with the segment shape tool.

4 minutes ago, ladlon said:

Yup, the cog tool shows promise, but it doesn't allow you to control the number of cogs, unless I'm missing something.

One man's tooth, is another man's cog 

 

[ladlon]

Hi, toltec...

(Facepalm)...  Oops!  I didn't notice that!  I was so focused on the gizmo tools, that I didn't notice the stuff at the top.

I'll look into the segment tool, too.  Thanks.

[gdenby]

Note, you can type in any number of cog teeth, not just what the slider allows.

[ladlon]

Yep, I've been typing in the amounts.  Thanks.

[Guest]

Hello, Iadlon,

You can use the "Ring" tool and insert lines from the center of the ring.

In my example I have a 120° ring. I drew a line from the center of the ring to the side representing the 300, put its center of rotation at the center of the circle and used "Ctrl/CMD + J" by typing in the Studio 120/31 transformation window. I then grouped all the lines and did "Ctrl + X", selected the ring and inserted the lines inside it.

For the thickest divisions I repeated the operation without inserting, I just opened the line at the edge of the ring.

For the text I drew a circle whose center corresponds to that of the ring and I transformed it into a text plot. After typing the text I set the height of the baseline and the spacing of the different blocks.

PS:
I just realized that I was wrong in the number of lines, I did not correct, the principle remains valid.

[ladlon]

Hi, reglico.  Cool...

The closest thing I could find online (before hitting these forums) was vids where people did a similar manual radial pattern thing (duplicating and rotating.  I wasn't sure if the same could be done with an object where the centerpoint was far outside the shape itself.

Hrmm... I'm wondering.  Could you not create a single instance of one of those 'boxes' (two tick marks), and then use a similar manual rotation array technique to create the bar?

As I figured, there's a few ways to tackle this.

I'm going to continue tinkering over here.

Thanks for all the ideas, guys.

[gdenby]

Yes, you can. If you click on the rotation center widget in the context bar, looks like a target icon, the rotation center can be moved to the center outside the shape.  When you have an item selected like a thin rectangle, one can then duplicate the shape, duplicate it, rotate, and then repeat duplicate till the arc of the rectangles is what you want.

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, ladlon said:

Could you not create a single instance of one of those 'boxes' (two tick marks), and then use a similar manual rotation array technique to create the bar?

You can do this with the "ring" tool. Draw the ring with the starting angle at 89° and the end angle at 90° to get a box of 1° (or with the values you want). Then press "Ctrl +J", type 360/360 (for a box of 1°), press "Enter" then "Ctrl + J" as many times as you wish to have "boxes".

[ladlon]

All good!

I'm already half-way finished... using a combination of the techniques you guys suggested.  Going very well.

Now, I just have to pray that my 3D model VU needle's rotational arc matches that of the decal...  (I'll put a dot on the center point of the graphic, and that should serve as the rotational axis location of the 3D needle.

(I'd still love to see a bend tool in Designer... .  Being able to distort any (complex) shape with a curve, like you currently can with (only) text, would be awesome.)

 

[R C-R]

I don't know if it matters for your project but traditional VU meters do not have linear scales. I have a couple of vintage Honeywell ones in a box somewhere that look similar to this one on eBay. A web image search on "Honeywell VU meter" should turn up many more examples, including many from other manufacturers in various styles. Almost all have scales going from -20 to +3, with -20 a bit above meter zero & with 0 to +3 in red.

If you are going to animate the pointer & you are going for very high realism, 'real' VU meters have carefully controlled ballistics (which is why they are so expensive) -- the attack (value increasing) is very fast & the decay (value decreasing) is significantly slower.

[ladlon]

Hi, R C-R.  Thanks for that important point!

The meter is actually for an old electroshock therapy control panel.  That sample image I attached is from a similar machine, so I pretty much replicated it for mine.

The weird thing, is that the OTHER gauge (there's 2 different ones) appears to have been 'modified' from it's original version (they literally wrote new markings and values on it)... but I ended up just replicating the original.

It's going to be a very quick (1 second) 'needle jumping' type of animation... extreme closeup kind of deal.

This is for a documentary about a famous Canadian bank robber/prisoner, and so I built full 3D CGI sets of the jail cells/block, a bank, solitary confinement, and this odd 'torture' room... along with the full 'suitcase' eletroshock control panel.

I finished and applied the meter graphics onto the backplates of the 3D gauges, and it looks great.

Thanks again for that point (luckily not an issue in my case), and thanks again to everyone else here who chimed in.  Very much appreciated!