"Follow lines" with Pen Tool

[Morten_Hjort]

I'm redrawing a packaging file in the box.png so it matches the old (Old.ong). Its easy to draw the various shapes for the straight parts, but now I've encountered the rounded angle. I'm not used to use the Pen Tool, so maybe there's a smart way to snap the Pen Tools line to such a line like this? 

[v_kyr]

Switch to the node tool and bend the line, you can also use a node point's handles or insert additional points/nodes in order to bend it better.

• About lines, curves and shapes

• Edit vector curves and shapes

• Cornering shapes

[gdenby]

Hi, Morten_Hjort,

Did you mean you are starting from a .png? I can't find a reference for an .ong file type.

And, which image are you trying to dupe? The first at the top, which has dimension marks, or, the next one. w. most of the lines in a reddish tone.? They seem to have different curved shapes.

The pen tool can't snap to a pixel representation. Recreating the curved shapes might work better if you started w. approximate shapes, such as ellipses or rounded rectangles, and adjusted those w. the node tool when converted to curves. There are some small asymmetrical curves that will probably need to be made w. rough approximations w. the pen tool, and carefully adjusted.

What I could do for a portion.

Approximation.afdesign

 

[Morten_Hjort]

1 hour ago, gdenby said:

Hi, Morten_Hjort,

Did you mean you are starting from a .png? I can't find a reference for an .ong file type.

And, which image are you trying to dupe? The first at the top, which has dimension marks, or, the next one. w. most of the lines in a reddish tone.? They seem to have different curved shapes.

The pen tool can't snap to a pixel representation. Recreating the curved shapes might work better if you started w. approximate shapes, such as ellipses or rounded rectangles, and adjusted those w. the node tool when converted to curves. There are some small asymmetrical curves that will probably need to be made w. rough approximations w. the pen tool, and carefully adjusted.

What I could do for a portion.

Approximation.afdesign

 

No nothing is pixels. Its all shapes (incl the red lines), but you're only seeing some exports in PNG. Seems this forum doesn't show filenames so its not easy to figure out  Its the middle picture where I want to draw a line that connects to another curve (the red one). Did you make your version manually? I've added the afdesign-file here

V2-boks.afdesign

[Morten_Hjort]

1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

Switch to the node tool and bend the line, you can also use a node point's handles or insert additional points/nodes in order to bend it better.

• About lines, curves and shapes

• Edit vector curves and shapes

• Cornering shapes

Thanks, but IMO thats a plan b to do it manually. I'm hoping I'm able to "snap" it to the existing curve if possbile (?).

[Pšenda]

17 minutes ago, Morten_Hjort said:

I'm hoping I'm able to "snap" it to the existing curve if possbile (?).

Snap to object geometry?

https://affinity.help/designer/en-US.lproj/pages/DesignAids/snapping.html

Or Snap to geometry of selected curves. 

https://affinity.help/designer/en-US.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_node.html

[gdenby]

Hello, again,

Thanks for posting the afdesign file.

The lines you are working on seem to be on the "base" layer, which is locked. The elements can't be selected for joining with themselves unless one works in the outline mode.

Of you want to add a vertical line, thats not hard if snapping is on.

There will be a yellow dot that indicates when the pen is over the line segment.

If you want add that line, or modify the existing shape, there are other more complex issues. The existing lines would need to be broken at the junction points, and then rejoined into new shapes. The problem is that the v. 1.6 release does not lock into the break point(s) when adding the node point for making the break. It is only done manually/visually, and is always slightly inaccurate. (Mind, like about 1000th of a point.) The 1.7 beta give a signal marker that indicates when the new node is being placed at the intersection of the various lines.

Also, in this particular instance, its more complex, because all the lines are unjoined. There is existing curve line, A & B, and one would need to break both, and join sections A1 + "new" + B1, and A2 + "new copy" + B2. Hope this clarifies things.