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Is there a Beta for Offset Path Feature?


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8 hours ago, evtonic3 said:

Can you explain what exactly you need it to do that the workaround doesn't do? Where does the workaround (I'm assuming you mean the stroke method) or other method) break down for you?

This is the workaround: 

 

So pretty much, you make a stroke of the width that you actually want between the two lines. Then you expand the stroke. Hit reverse so the stroke color and fill in are flipped. Now you got two lines that are separated by the width of your initial stroke. It seems you can't change it so the seam allowance line is dotted only while maintaining solid line are outer line.

Also I require different width on the sides.

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AffinityBrah,

Quote

It seems you can't change it so the seam allowance line is dotted only while maintaining solid line are outer line. Also I require different width on the sides.

After Expand Stroke and flipping the Fill and Stroke:

  1. Select the black pointer.
  2. Click the Divide button in the control panel.

This releases the compounding of the two paths. Now you have two individual parallel paths that you can style as desired.

JET

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4 hours ago, JET_Affinity said:

AffinityBrah,

After Expand Stroke and flipping the Fill and Stroke:

  1. Select the black pointer.
  2. Click the Divide button in the control panel.

This releases the compounding of the two paths. Now you have two individual parallel paths that you can style as desired.

JET

Wow, thanks. I guess I am still out of luck for having different lengths (seam allowances) on each side correct since it is all based on single stroke thickness. 

The node, cap, align for stroke can be buggy at times as well. Had to restart.

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15 hours ago, AffinityBrah said:

I guess I am still out of luck for having different lengths (seam allowances) on each side correct since it is all based on single stroke thickness.

Not sure I'm understanding the seam allowances, but I suspect that's addressable by keeping in mind:

  • You can set the stroke's alignment to centered, inside, or outside before expanding it. So that should be useful for specifying an offset distance on either side of the base path.
  • After expanding the stroke and releasing the compound as mentioned above, you now have two separate paths. So you can repeat the process for either of those paths:
  1. Give either of them a thick stroke
  2. Set it to centered, inside, or outside
  3. Expand the Stroke
  4. Divide
Quote

The node, cap, align for stroke can be buggy at times as well. Had to restart.

Using Expand Stroke for this is, of course, what I'm confident will be just a temporary workaround until Affinity acquires a proper Offset Path or Contour feature or a more fully-featured implementation of vector Brushes.

It's just an educated guess, but I rather suspect that one reason such features have not yet been added is because the developers are aware of the problem that an inelegant number of nodes are created whenever paths are expanded and Brush paths are converted to outlines. (A problem I've seen in early releases of other programs, too.) I assume they are closely related functions. That's what I sometimes refer to as multiple similar features probably sharing the same  functional "foundation" when impatient users complain about what seems an obvious feature "omission." I'm confident the Affinity devs intend to get the underlying foundations optimized before building a bunch of features onto them, and applaud them for that.

By the same token, for example, I'm confident the devs are aware that the result of Expand Stroke on a closed path results in a compound path, and therefore the Release Compound command should work on them instead of using the Divide Boolean button. But presently, Release Compound is grayed out after using Expand Stroke on a closed path.

Affinity Designer is still very much a work-in-progress. But it's a game-changing bargain for what it already delivers and so far, we're not being charged for significant improvements between integer updates, such as those presently being developed toward the 1.7 release. For the price of the Affinity apps, we're getting a lot of value. So I have no problem cutting the development program some slack as the applications continue toward a more full-featured state.

JET

 

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1 hour ago, JET_Affinity said:

Not sure I'm understanding the seam allowances, but I suspect that's addressable by keeping in mind:

  • You can set the stroke's alignment to centered, inside, or outside before expanding it. So that should be useful for specifying an offset distance on either side of the base path.
  • After expanding the stroke and releasing the compound as mentioned above, you now have two separate paths. So you can repeat the process for either of those paths:
  1. Give either of them a thick stroke
  2. Set it to centered, inside, or outside
  3. Expand the Stroke
  4. Divide

Using Expand Stroke for this is, of course, what I'm confident will be just a temporary workaround until Affinity acquires a proper Offset Path or Contour feature or a more fully-featured implementation of vector Brushes.

It's just an educated guess, but I rather suspect that one reason such features have not yet been added is because the developers are aware of the problem that an inelegant number of nodes are created whenever paths are expanded and Brush paths are converted to outlines. (A problem I've seen in early releases of other programs, too.) I assume they are closely related functions. That's what I sometimes refer to as multiple similar features probably sharing the same  functional "foundation" when impatient users complain about what seems an obvious feature "omission." I'm confident the Affinity devs intend to get the underlying foundations optimized before building a bunch of features onto them, and applaud them for that.

By the same token, for example, I'm confident the devs are aware that the result of Expand Stroke on a closed path results in a compound path, and therefore the Release Compound command should work on them instead of using the Divide Boolean button. But presently, Release Compound is grayed out after using Expand Stroke on a closed path.

Affinity Designer is still very much a work-in-progress. But it's a game-changing bargain for what it already delivers and so far, we're not being charged for significant improvements between integer updates, such as those presently being developed toward the 1.7 release. For the price of the Affinity apps, we're getting a lot of value. So I have no problem cutting the development program some slack as the applications continue toward a more full-featured state.

JET

 

Yeah, still tons of value for the price. What I mean is different gaps between only only two strokes. 

Say I have a rectangle. I want one side to be .25”, one side to  have a .5” gap, and the other to have a 5/8”. For the distance between the two strokes. It is all based on single stroke width, so it is not possible at the moment. Not sure if Adobe has it, never used their Illustrator.

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25 minutes ago, AffinityBrah said:

Say I have a rectangle. I want one side to be .25”, one side to  have a .5” gap, and the other to have a 5/8”. For the distance between the two strokes. It is all based on single stroke width, so it is not possible at the moment. Not sure if Adobe has it, never used their Illustrator.

I am going to show my ignorance here but can you not offset the inner or outer 'rectangle' using the transform studio to achieve what you want? I do understand why you need to have different offsets, I grew up listening to my elders complain about this sort of problem regarding sewing patterns and the material being not quite wide enough, and/or the pattern mismatching.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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Quote

Say I have a rectangle. I want one side to be .25”, one side to  have a .5” gap, and the other to have a 5/8”.

You would just create the offsets by sequentially specifying strokes of those weights, aligning the strokes to the appropriate sides of the path (or just leave them centered and use twice the width). Cut and delete the portions not needed. Clean up the necessary joins at the corners.

You'd similarly have to do multiple offset commands, even in other drawing programs like Illustrator. Typical offset path commands don't let you specify distances from a single path on a per-side basis, because the original path could be of any shape, so a "side" is a matter of interpretation. Illustrator has a feature that lets you set different "stroke widths" wherever you want along a path, but that's more intended for a variable "brushstroke" effect than for something that would maintain, for example, a continuous width along a portion of a curve.

Affinity provides similar "brushstroke" functionality in the Pressure dialog, not directly on-the-path.

JET

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6 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

I am going to show my ignorance here but can you not offset the inner or outer 'rectangle' using the transform studio to achieve what you want? I do understand why you need to have different offsets, I grew up listening to my elders complain about this sort of problem regarding sewing patterns and the material being not quite wide enough, and/or the pattern mismatching.

 

5 hours ago, JET_Affinity said:

You would just create the offsets by sequentially specifying strokes of those weights, aligning the strokes to the appropriate sides of the path (or just leave them centered and use twice the width). Cut and delete the portions not needed. Clean up the necessary joins at the corners.

You'd similarly have to do multiple offset commands, even in other drawing programs like Illustrator. Typical offset path commands don't let you specify distances from a single path on a per-side basis, because the original path could be of any shape, so a "side" is a matter of interpretation. Illustrator has a feature that lets you set different "stroke widths" wherever you want along a path, but that's more intended for a variable "brushstroke" effect than for something that would maintain, for example, a continuous width along a portion of a curve.

Affinity provides similar "brushstroke" functionality in the Pressure dialog, not directly on-the-path.

JET

Oh ok, that is pretty much what I have been doing. Though there was much more efficient way. Or set everything same width. Draw separate line that measures the distance I want and drag the the one side of the outer rectangle so is is appropriate distance by aligning with that line I made.

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