True TRIM Tool

[Mithferion]

2 minutes ago, Friksel said:

Just think of it this way instead: if we can do this manually by duplicating a shape and subtract one from the other, it could be automated. As a developer myself for like 20 years, I learned that customers should not think in solutions and how to implement things, because they don't know what Affinity knows. Only their developers could really tell if something is difficult to implement in their system or not. So just ask what you need and want as a user and they decide how they do it. Sometimes things that look difficult and complex to a customer/user are in fact easy to implement or visa versa.

Yes, totally, but maybe in the process of automating that, the architecture of the product might not even support it. I'd like to think the same way, but... we as customers cannot be sure.

Best regards!

[Friksel]

1 minute ago, Mithferion said:

Yes, totally, but maybe in the process of automating that, the architecture of the product might not even support it. I'd like to think the same way, but... we as customers cannot be sure.

Best regards!

We agree on that!

[RichardM]

Hello

Hey, thanks guys....   The trick was to convert to curves and play in the Pixel Persona... Easy pPeasy...  Good Bye Xara!!!

In fact to punch holes or trim, I simply used Subtract or Divide.

Mithferion .. I tried that before and all I got was a Crop Frame and an object that moved about inside it. I could not make head or tale of how to actually achieve anything by it... It would be good if it was as simple as that for me, but it does not seem to work.  I don't know whether my version is buggy on my Windows machine and will try it on OSX.. Thanks for the advice. I will keep trying.

[Mithferion]

1 hour ago, RichardM said:

Mithferion .. I tried that before and all I got was a Crop Frame and an object that moved about inside it. I could not make head or tale of how to actually achieve anything by it... It would be good if it was as simple as that for me, but it does not seem to work.  I don't know whether my version is buggy on my Windows machine and will try it on OSX.. Thanks for the advice. I will keep trying.

The second set of Screenshots show how you can easily Mask any image by dragging it below/inside the Vector Shape you want it to look like. Aster you mask the image, you can simply Rasterize.

Maybe you could share some Screenshots of where you get stuck.

Best regards!

[duncancreamer]

I've read this thread and I too am having a problem figuring out how to do a thing that I feel Affinity should be able to do: I want a shape to not just mask another shape, but to crop each line that intersects with it. 

1. Imagine 10 horizontal lines equidistant apart and of the same length.

2. Now mask it with a circle. You now have a circle of 10 lines. The to and bottom will be the shortest as they are mostly masked off by the circle. The middle is the longest. 

3. This looks right, but the problem happens when this type of masked file is brought to a Cricut machine (or other plotter). If the circle doesn't actually cut and remove the lines not revealed by the circle, the Cricut will still cut them. So in this example, what I want as an end product is ten cut lines that start small, get wider and then get small again. (A cut version of what is visually represented with the mask.) But what I will get is 10 lines of equal length cut, and then cut again by the circle, leaving loose bits of paper. 

I'm just using a simple example here, that could be done in other ways quite easily. I could just draw each line to begin and end on the circle edge and not do any masking or complicated boolean operations. This is fine for simple illustrations but becomes unmanageable on anything even a little complicated.

So this is what I want Affinity to do. Is it possible? 

circle lines.svg

[fde101]

On 1/26/2020 at 12:59 PM, duncancreamer said:

So this is what I want Affinity to do. Is it possible? 

Chances are that Design Space doesn't understand the way that masks work in Designer and is separating the shapes.  Do the lines appear to be the same length in Design Space?  If not, and it looks correct on the screen, I would report that to Cricut as a bug in Design Space.  I haven't gone through this exercise with my own Cricut but you have me curious now...

 

To actually cut the lines in Designer instead of just masking them, try this:

1. Create the circle and lines as you already were, but do not make the circle a mask for the lines - just keep the circle and lines as separate layers, positioning them where you want them to be.
2. Make a copy of the circle and move it away - set it aside for now, you will need it later, but don't leave it overlapping the lines.
3. Select the original circle and the lines.
4. Click the "..." button at the top of the screen and choose the Divide command under Geometry:  the circle and lines will all be chopped up at the places where they intersect
5. Delete the parts you don't need - just keep the lines in the middle
6. Use the copy of the circle to replace the one that got chopped up

[duncancreamer]

Thanks for the detailed reply. This would be a fine workaround for a single circle. But it gets impossibly complex with anything more detailed. 

 

This image of my Gramps is what I’m trying to get the Cricut to draw. (Sorry for the potato quality)

 

You can see it’s prohibitively difficult to do it in any way that’s not automatic. 

[RichardM]

This sort of behavior has been bugging me ever since I bought Designer.

You advised .. "Click the "..." button at the top of the screen and choose the Divide command under Geometry:  the circle and lines will all be chopped up at the places where they intersect."   So I tried this. 

Drew a circle, several lines... now waht ..?

I am not using an iPad so no  "..." button.

However, Right-click or  Layer menu/Geometry submenu > Click on Divide > horizontal lines are cut out/disappear!!

If I move the circle to the top and repeat, nothing happens!

What is so aggravation about this is that this can be done in about 3 clicks with Xara, the programme I left to come over to Designer!

Attached the file of what I have tried to do..

What's wrong?

 

On another topic, has anybody else notice that Designer has become a bit unstable or slow in response?

whatsWrong.afdesign

[kaosartist]

On 1/26/2020 at 9:59 AM, duncancreamer said:

I've read this thread and I too am having a problem figuring out how to do a thing that I feel Affinity should be able to do: I want a shape to not just mask another shape, but to crop each line that intersects with it. 

1. Imagine 10 horizontal lines equidistant apart and of the same length.

2. Now mask it with a circle. You now have a circle of 10 lines. The to and bottom will be the shortest as they are mostly masked off by the circle. The middle is the longest. 

3. This looks right, but the problem happens when this type of masked file is brought to a Cricut machine (or other plotter). If the circle doesn't actually cut and remove the lines not revealed by the circle, the Cricut will still cut them. So in this example, what I want as an end product is ten cut lines that start small, get wider and then get small again. (A cut version of what is visually represented with the mask.) But what I will get is 10 lines of equal length cut, and then cut again by the circle, leaving loose bits of paper. 

I'm just using a simple example here, that could be done in other ways quite easily. I could just draw each line to begin and end on the circle edge and not do any masking or complicated boolean operations. This is fine for simple illustrations but becomes unmanageable on anything even a little complicated.

So this is what I want Affinity to do. Is it possible? 

circle lines.svg

Yes, this is very frustrating, considering that Affinity Photo for iOS out strips Photoshop 10-fold. It’s a simple request but has fallen on ceaf ears. I have emailed about this. Obviously posted about this. And still no avail. It’s a pretty bummer thing. 

When I emailed Affinity they gave some fluff but hey, as an extra bonus told me that they were working on a bitmap to vector solution. That’s not here either. 

On the forums all we get is a rash of Affinity supporters with their creative work-a-rounds (which do work) but these solutions are a nightmare for any seasoned production artist or for a design project that has a lot of detail. What’s missing from the forum end is a huge “YES that’s right! How did Affinity miss this? Affinity please make this happen?”. The problem with not seeing that kind of response from other users is Affinity developers think; “well if 80% of the users are cool with not having this feature and it’s just one or two users bitching then we don’t need to spend effort or time into that”. 

It’s really tough. Affinity Photo is down right AWESOME!!!!!! Why are the developers of Designer not has highly motivated to put out an AWESOME Illustrator replacement as the Photo developers were in making their Photoshop replacement?  

Over the months of not seeing these basic features, I am amazed how much I have gotten done. Though I will tell you I absolutely dread any project that would require a complicated “True-Trim” function. I am now 100% desktop, laptop free now. Everything I do is on iPad Pro. For my design and vector needs Affinity Designer is the ONLY game in town. It be long before I keep pushing Affinity to not just do better, but to be AWESOME. We all know it can be done. There is no excuse.They Made Affinity Photo.

[fde101]

9 hours ago, RichardM said:

I am not using an iPad so no  "..." button.

I posted instructions for the iPad because this thread is in an iPad-specific section of the forum.  Another option besides the two you listed is that the Divide button is on the main toolbar by default in the desktop versions of the program, assuming you didn't customize the toolbar and remove that.

I don't disagree that an option to apply the clipping to a layer and its children, reducing them to one equivalent vector layer instead of a clipped set of layers, would be a nice addition to the current toolset.  I did play with this a while on my Mac last night and couldn't figure out a way to do this currently on the desktop version, so I would assume the iPad is lacking this feature also (I have the iPad version but am more familiar with the Mac version).

 

6 hours ago, kaosartist said:

Why are the developers of Designer not has highly motivated to put out an AWESOME Illustrator replacement as the Photo developers were in making their Photoshop replacement?

They are mostly the same developers when it comes to features like these.  They only have so much bandwidth and are more interested in doing the things they are doing as well as they can do them than in piling on features that don't work as well because they rushed to get them in.  These things are not as easy to do as you might assume and it will take time to develop these capabilities.  The team at Serif needs to prioritize those tasks and in some cases there are prerequisites that must be met before certain things can be done.

 

6 hours ago, kaosartist said:

well if 80% of the users are cool with not having this feature

They are probably more in touch with reality than to assume that 80% of their user base even knows the forums exist much less that they would be posting on them.