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AD 1.7 Curves and nodes logic


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Hello!
Please tell me the right way on how to connect two nodes together?
Now I do these steps:
1) Merge curves to one
2) Select nodes to be connected
3) Click Join curves and nothing
4) Click close curve and AD closes curve by the wrong way (see the pic)
After CorelDraw experience, I can't connect two nodes easily in AD and this makes me crazy.
 

curve.jpg

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So, few additional questions:
1) Why it's impossible to join merged curves? Connect function also works a bit strange for merged curves.
2) Why I can't connect two distant nodes into one? Connect A node to B node into one node in position of A or in B or in the middle between them.
3) Why AD does color fill for non-closed curves? Would be fine to switch this on\off. 
 

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I am not sure what you mean by "Merge curves to one," but to get the result you want, don't merge anything. With snapping enabled, move one of the curves so its end node snaps to the end node of the other one. Select both curves, switch to the Node Tool & Click Join. Then click close curve & you are done. The attached join.afdesign demonstrates this & includes the history so you can move the history slider back & forth to see the steps.

BTW, Join Curves in Affinity always joins the 2 nearest nodes, so selecting the nodes you want to join will not work.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Merge curve is a new option in 1.7 Affinity designer. It combines two curves into one.
But anyway, I have the same headache in 1.6 too. Join requires precise positioning one node onto another, close function draws a line between nodes (instead of sense of it's icon - two node into one).

 

 

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Hi, tmvideo,

As someone who used Illustrator some for 20 years, and Corel Draw a lot up to about 10 years ago, when I started doing vector graphics w. Designer, I still had expectations left over from the other apps. I even habitually used some of the keyboard shortcuts from Draw. I eventually got around to trying to not expect things to work in certain ways, and just learn what Designer can do.

To get to your questions.

There isn't any official documentation that I know of for the 1.7 beta. I've been using it some. The only thing I can infer is that merge curves operates somewhat like combine, except it does not create new nodes. I don't know what operation it helps, tho' it must be something that can be reversible.

In Designer, you can only join the ends of open curves. In your example where it says "Bridged," it seems you are trying to join two curves at an intersection. Designer doesn't do that. It joins between 2 free nodes from separate curves. Doesn't make any difference how close the nodes are.

If my inference is correct, Designer tries to form a periphery from various nodes. So criss-crossing lines at node points can't work.

There have been request(s) for an operation that would split a curve segments between selected nodes, but I don't expect that has a high priority. 

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12 minutes ago, gdenby said:

In Designer, you can only join the ends of open curves. In your example where it says "Bridged," it seems you are trying to join two curves at an intersection. Designer doesn't do that. It joins between 2 free nodes from separate curves. Doesn't make any difference how close the nodes are.

Of course, I know that vector nodes are unable to have cross-connections or intersections.
I did work with 2 free nodes from separate curves. It is an example of real graphics where you have many other shapes that can affect on your precision.
But, if you are not 100% precise then the join will perform the connect (bridge) for two nodes. Otherwise, it will join two nodes to one.
This precision placement requires more attention and time. I have to be sure that two selected nodes will be converted (joined) to one node without any hidden (non-visible) bridges between them. Is it clear explanation?

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I like Affinity Designer interface very much! 
But overlapping nodes and color filled non-closed shapes are the problems. How to avoid these? How to correct these at once?
I respect Affinity team for their work and just wanting to point at some issues to make this software better and comfortable.
 

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To clarify what I wrote "It joins between 2 free nodes from separate curves. Doesn't make any difference how close the nodes are"  is that neither near or far makes any difference. Nodes that appear to be on top each other or ones w. do not will be joined w. a line segment. In v 1.6, my best efforts to get a perfect position only work when I'm zoomed in at least 2000%. The 1.7 automatic snapping has worked for me so far.

I've come across 2D apps that do create networks where lines overlap, and or allow 2 areas to share a line. 

I'm supposing that Designer keeps nodes separate is that because there must be a periphery, if one wants to extend what appears to be a single line away from a shape, there need to be 2 nodes that are on top of each other, or near enough at least to exceed the accuracy of display/printing devices.

iMac 27" Retina, c. 2015: OS X 10.11.5: 3.3 GHz I c-5: 32 Gb,  AMD Radeon R9 M290 2048 Mb

iPad 12.9" Retina, iOS 10, 512 Gb, Apple pencil

Huion WH1409 tablet

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3 hours ago, tmvideo said:

Merge curve is a new option in 1.7 Affinity designer. It combines two curves into one.

Yes, but all that really does in the current beta is to create a "(Curves)" layer from two or more curve layers, just like the Add Geometry option does for non-overlapping curves in 1.6 or 1.7, except that it does not close non-overlapping open curves like the Add option does. It does not move or connect the curves, & like in 1.6 the Join Curves option does not work on the curves in a "(Curves)" layer.

That is why I said don't merge anything.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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36 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Yes, but all that really does in the current beta is to create a "(Curves)" layer from two or more curve layers, just like the Add Geometry option does for non-overlapping curves in 1.6 or 1.7, except that it does not close non-overlapping open curves like the Add option does. It does not move or connect the curves, & like in 1.6 the Join Curves option does not work on the curves in a "(Curves)" layer.

That is why I said don't merge anything.

Forget Merge option. It is not matter in this case.
Here is Affinity Designer 1.6.5 and my attempts to join two segments properly (without any hidden lines and overlapping nodes):

 

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1 hour ago, gdenby said:

There isn't any official documentation that I know of for the 1.7 beta. I've been using it some. The only thing I can infer is that merge curves operates somewhat like combine, except it does not create new nodes. I don't know what operation it helps, tho' it must be something that can be reversible.

The help topics for the 1.7 beta are being updated but are not complete or finalized (because it is a beta & thus everything is subject to change before the retail release). In the current Mac build, the only info I could find about merge curves is in the Draw curves and shapes help topic:1270277533_Drawcurvesandshapes.jpg.e0bb57c864af244694114d048d335eb5.jpg

So it is sort of an after-the-fact way of doing what the new Add To Curves Mode does, but in testing for me it creates a "(Curves)" layer as I mentioned above, while the Add To Curves Mode puts each newly drawn curve into the same "(Curve)" layer. Functionally, there seems to be no difference between this multi-curve "(Curve)" layer & a "(Curves)" layer.

2 hours ago, gdenby said:

In Designer, you can only join the ends of open curves. In your example where it says "Bridged," it seems you are trying to join two curves at an intersection. Designer doesn't do that. It joins between 2 free nodes from separate curves. Doesn't make any difference how close the nodes are.

I am not sure what you mean by that last sentence. In 1.6, Designer always joins the two end nodes nearest each other on two open curves, & that does not seem to have changed in the 1.7 beta.

58 minutes ago, gdenby said:

Nodes that appear to be on top each other or ones w. do not will be joined w. a line segment. In v 1.6, my best efforts to get a perfect position only work when I'm zoomed in at least 2000%. The 1.7 automatic snapping has worked for me so far.

For me, as long as the "Snap to object bounding boxes" snapping option is selected in 1.7, for a pair of curves like in the first post of this discussion, zoom level does not matter. I just redid the two curves from my earlier 1.7 uploaded file with zoom set to 40% -- so small it was difficult to move the curve instead of a bounding box handle, & it still worked as expected -- the two end nodes were 100% coincident & joining them produced a single node without a 'bridge' line segment between them.

It still fails for curves where the selection box & bounding box are not the same, like if one of those two half-circle curves is rotated -- snapping only snaps to a line through the box, not an endpoint. :(

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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3 minutes ago, >|< said:

The Layers panel fails to be updated from "(Curve)" to "(Curves)" until something else is done to the document.

Just one of the many reasons AD 1.7 is still in beta, I think.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Auto-Join (SnapAndJoin) option would be more useful. 
Select two curves, take one curve's node, drag it to another curve's node and it will be snapped and joined automatically to the target node.
Hope, it will be implemented soon. Nothing extraordinary, just mix the snap node option and join function at once, one checkbox (SnapAndJoin automatically on\off)
How to ask developers for that?

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