Add/Sub Not working

[Bigbertonc]

Hello all,

really love this product, 

I created a bunch of shapes and then i want to add several, then take away several to make one piece, 

i am using this to cut on a laser and exporting to SVG, 

When i add, it does not remove all inside lines, (even when i convert to curves, or expand stroke, not sure why, even tried as shapes as well, still no dice, gets even wonkier.)

Here is the original file, as core shapes, 

V3-Elevated_9_Support.afdesign

You can see all the labels of layers for Adding and subtracting, 

this file is the saved result when i do the add/sub, 

V3-Elevated_9_Support-Completed.afdesign

i circled the areas that did not work, and show lines when they shouldn't, 

what am i doing wrong?

thanks so much for your help!

FYI, these are the add/subtract buttons i'm talking about, 

berto

[firstdefence]

Not as straight forward as one might think , Saved with history so you can jog back and forth in the history panel. 

V3-Elevated_9_Support correct.afdesign

1. I increased the length of the legs to overlap the top bar, I boolean added them together and then boolean added them to the top bar 
2. All of the notches barring the two at the top of the legs I made longer to overlap the main shape.
3. I selected all of the long notches and boolean added them together to create a single curve then subtracted them from the top bar
   
4. I did the same with the smaller notches selecting all but the two middle ones near the tops of the leg and boolean subtracted them
5. The corner arcs, I selected the node tool and pulled the corners into the main shape so that it overlapped, I selected them all and boolean added them together.
   
6. I then boolean added them to the main shape

[Bigbertonc]

You are amazing!!!!!!!!!!!

I see what you did, totally make sense.... 

I was looking at other forum posts on this, and just could not figure it out, 

So build the basic shape, then once ready to merge it all, make sure you go past the sections to truly get it to subtract/add...

Thank you so much!!! i think i got 40 grey hairs from this!

[R C-R]

8 hours ago, firstdefence said:

Not as straight forward as one might think...

And unless I am missing something or my copy of Affinity Designer is misbehaving, after playing around a bit with the original version, there is also something weird going on with it:

Consider for a minute just the top 9 rectangles, the one wide one + the 6 long verticals + the 2 top short ones. Selecting the wide one & the 6 long verticals (7 total) & then subtracting creates a single curve object, while selecting all 9 & subtracting creates a curveS object. BUT if I first subtract the 7 to get one curve object & then one at a time subtract the 2 top short ones from that curve (after moving the top right short one above the large one), I end up with a single curve object:

This does not work when I try to do the same with the bottom 2 short verticals in the top section of the file -- even when properly stacked I always get a curveS object.

I have no idea why I get this behavior. I checked the positions of each object with the document set to display pixel values at the max 6 decimal place accuracy & every relevant edge seems aligned the same way, with neither any underlap or overlap.

So I would like to know if anybody else sees this same behavior, because if not it probably means there is something out of kilter in my copy of AD. 

Note: I did eventually manage to crash the app while fiddling around with changing the miter joins of some of the rectangles to square off the stroke corners, but I don't think that had anything to do with it.

[Bigbertonc]

R C-R, That is what was happening for me too...

But firstdefence showed the work around to get what i needed, 

adds some extra steps, but it works... but yes, i agree, something is not 100% there... 

thanks!

RR

[firstdefence]

I don't think there is much out of whack @R C-R mine does the same. The differences appears to be the long notches don't actually cut away from the top bar so you still end up with multiple "curves" You can also divide a curves layer but you can't divide a curve layer, this is why I just extended the notches a tad to get around this possibility.

[R C-R]

4 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

I don't think there is much out of whack @R C-R mine does the same.

Well then, it seems like there is something out of whack in the app's handling of boolean subtractions -- if nothing else, it should be consistent regardless of the order of the selections or how many at a time are selected ... right?

[firstdefence]

If the rectangles aren't actually overlapping you will end up will an outer curve and an inner curve which means you have curves. It may look like the notches are in line but maybe they were just enough out to become inner curves. This is why I extended them, it removes the guessing game.

[lepr]

.

[R C-R]

Just now, firstdefence said:

If the rectangles aren't actually overlapping you will end up will an outer curve and an inner curve which means you have curves. It may look like the notches are in line but maybe they were just enough out to become inner curves.

But that does not explain why subtracting the long notches from the wide rectangle & then subtracting the 2 top small notches one at a time from the resulting shape creates a curve object when subtracting all those long notches and the 2 top short ones in one step instead creates a curveS object.

[firstdefence]

4 hours ago, R C-R said:

But that does not explain why subtracting the long notches from the wide rectangle & then subtracting the 2 top small notches one at a time from the resulting shape creates a curve object when subtracting all those long notches and the 2 top short ones in one step instead creates a curveS object.

I get you, but the internal operations are dictating this, to our eyes and the information we are being fed it should work en masse but it doesn't, also if you select all of the top notches and boolean subtract then divide it and subtract again you get a curve layer.

Maybe those set of notches when selected are just askew enough collectively to prevent the boolean subtract from making a curve layer and as can be seen in the results it creates a curves layer, dividing the curves layer and then boolean subtracting again eliminates that skew and so the long notches are removed to create the curve layer.

The solution to all of this is to just lengthen the notch rectangles so they overlap whatever they need to be cut from.

Note: boolean operations pay attention to layer order, so whatever needs to be subtracted would require it to be higher in the layers panel than the curve it is being subtracted from.

[firstdefence]

@Bigbertonc I don't know whether the the arcs are for strength or decorative purposes but if you wanted to create nice arcs there is a quick method I thought up that can get you more aesthetic internal arcs using the pie shape, see quick gif below.

 

 

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, firstdefence said:

see quick gif below.

Where?

[firstdefence]

Just now, R C-R said:

Where?

oops lol on now.