Timber Posted April 24, 2015 Share Posted April 24, 2015 Hi, in trying to "draw" a vector outline of something simple, in this case a framing hammer, I've tried the Vector Brush Tool and the Pen tool in Drawing Persona, but my drawings look crude and wavy. No doubt that I need more experience with these tools, figuring how how and when to change the points and curves, and I'd guess work in refining the drawings/points/segments after i've drawn them. I did switch to Pixel Persona and using the Selection Brush Tool, I can get a pretty good looking outline of the object I want to draw, see "matching ants" around hammer in the attached screen shot. However, I cannot figure out how to stroke this selection and save it as a drawing object? Perhaps it's not possible? If it isn't possible, it would be nice if it were, as it seems to capture the shape pretty well, or I'd love to see a detect and convert to vectors tool offered in Affinity Designer. So often I get low rez "logos" from people that want and really need a vector based hi-res logo. If there any suggestions to do this better in the current release of Affinity Designer, please advise. I am using the latest/current Beta release. Again, I'd love to see a tool incorporated in AD to facilitate this work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted April 24, 2015 Staff Share Posted April 24, 2015 Hello Timber, Currently is not possible to convert a selection into a path. I believe this is being worked on a should be available in a future update. The function/tool you're describing - to convert bitmaps in vector objects - is a (automatic) tracing tool. This was already requested by other users, but as explained in other threads it is not something trivial to create/implement. Most of this type of tools aren't good enough to produce quality results. If we are going investing time on one, it must be at least as good as the better ones. Meanwhile here's a thread discussing this subject with some good suggestions that may help you out. Currently i think the best approach to create a shape from your image, is to trace it manually using the Pen Tool. You can find an extensive video tutorial about it on Affinity Review ezine | Feature Focus > Pen Tool (Affinity Review Issue #1, page 39). There's also some video tutorials covering the Pen Tool on our Vimeo channel: Pen Power! Unlock Advanced Curve Editing Tips for an Extra Slick Pen Tool Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas L Posted March 15, 2021 Share Posted March 15, 2021 Hi, I have been looking for the answer of this topic everywhere, and as this discussion dated 2015, has it been any development on selecting an image to be converted to vectors; please? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted March 15, 2021 Share Posted March 15, 2021 49 minutes ago, Thomas L said: Hi, I have been looking for the answer of this topic everywhere, and as this discussion dated 2015, has it been any development on selecting an image to be converted to vectors; please? No there is no automatic build-in bitmap-to vector vectorizer in Affinity Designer, you either have to vectorize it manually (redraw) or use some third party tool for the job, see this thread ... PNG to Vector etc. Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas L Posted March 15, 2021 Share Posted March 15, 2021 (edited) Thank you very much indeed for your directions. With them, I hope to minimise the tedious time I dread having to spend tomorrow... Thank you! Edited March 15, 2021 by Thomas L Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firstdefence Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 While its an acceptable route to trace an image to vector, invariably you spend more time tweaking that trace than if you learned to use the pen tool to draw a clean vector shape. If you view the process of vector art as tedious you will never learn to be good with the pen tool, honing skills using the pen tool will serve you well in the future and the more you do the faster and more accurate you will get. Just bear that in mind for your next project. Quote iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9 (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum) Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas L Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 can't agree more! The commission I am laying out in affinity includes a logo that was physically drawn on paper and ink, then scanned. The image is an intricate black silhouette of a thistle with a ribbon. Of course if future told that this image would be needed in vectors, it would have been created likewise I imagine. I will spend the time to trace if otherwise. For sure projects like those help me to extend my knowledge and practise. Not working against it. firstdefence 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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