Path operations: "Roughen"

[karim]

I'm putting this in Feature Requests as I can't find any hint of it in the App, though I'd love to wrong :)

 

There are a bunch of procedural path-level operations that I am missing from Freehand and other tools, but right now, I'm in desperate need of a "roughen" or "tesselate" tool. Basically a combination of N-subdivide (also missing) and U-V point jitter, so that a path can be "roughened" by a variable amount.

 

While the vector brushes are awesome, and can simulate this effect in some circumstances, there are also many times that an actual procedural adjustment to the path geometry is necessary.

[MattP]

Hi Karim,

 

I think this has been mentioned before, but I'm intending to put in a roughen tool that can be 'rubbed over' an area to roughen it (and likewise a smoothing tool to do the opposite) because I don't like the bold 'roughen the whole path' approach as I never find it makes the right results. Hope this will be okay?

 

Thanks,

Matt

[karim]

That sounds great! I agree that often a more painterly approach is very useful. Occasionally it's still useful to apply a consistent roughen to an entire path, but it seems that could be achieved by setting the roughen brush size to large and swiping over the whole path in one shot.

 

Another one I just realized I can't find that is sorely missed: Path Offset (i.e.: construct a path by scaling along the normals of each control point such that any given point on the new path is parallel to the original path).

[MattP]

Hi Karim,

 

I'll be writing a Contour Tool very soon - but in the meantime you can get around it (mostly) by adding a line to your object then using 'Layer'->'Expand Stroke' to get the offset geometry

 

Thanks,

Matt

[karim]

Contour tool sounds cool... any chance that will also give us "sculpting"-like ability? :D  :D

 

I just found myself yesterday wishing I could sort of "nudge" a path around with a fat "finger", instead of manipulating the control points individually :)

[Peregrin]

Hi Karim,

 

I think this has been mentioned before, but I'm intending to put in a roughen tool that can be 'rubbed over' an area to roughen it (and likewise a smoothing tool to do the opposite) because I don't like the bold 'roughen the whole path' approach as I never find it makes the right results. Hope this will be okay?

 

Thanks,

Matt

That's good to hear; it certainly takes a great weight off my chest knowing that I'll eventually be able to do what I need to do for my work.  My need for this feature isn't urgent, however, so I'll be glad whenever it's added—not worried when, so long as it's implemented eventually.   :)

[dre.]

BUMP +1

It's only been 8 years, surely this has to be near the top of the to-do list???🥱

[vovkasolovev]

BUMP +1

Path operations: "Roughen" was posted on May 5, 2015.

[Bound by Beans]

If ten years of waiting isn’t enough to make you lose hope, then I’m impressed by your optimism.
If you want to get something done now, you’ll have to use other programs. VectorStyler, for example, handles it well.

But you can't constantly jump back and forth between programs, and sometimes you can't even transfer the contents of a complex piece of artwork. I just don't think it's coming to Affinity, so (ex) customer will have to turn to the competitor instead.