Full Version: Moi + Affinity : Moi for 2D workflows

Show messages:  1-10  11-30  31-50  51-70  71-90

Buongiorno Marco, und Guten Morgen Stefan,

Interesting tips, thanks!

Stefan, regarding bitmap to vector conversion I'm a long-time Vector Magic user (the stand-alone application, not the online version), and I'm quite content with it. But I'll try the free trial version of Super Vectorizer.

Here's a link to Vector Magic: https://vectormagic.com . I have the feeling that its development has stalled for years now. The coder only seems to maintain compatibility with new OS versions.

Another tool I love to use is Photozoom Pro. It enlarges bitmaps in a smart, almost vector-like way. Photozoom Pro has saved my ass quite a few times when clients demanded a super high-res rendering that would have required many hours and would have caused RAM problems.

Here's the link to Photozoom Pro: http://www.benvista.com/photozoompro/

And another tip: XnConvert (free). I use it a lot for quick and easy batch conversions, like mass image size changes to lots of images at once.

XnConvert link: https://www.xnview.com/en/xnconvert/

Have a nice day!

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Post Scriptum:

I've just checked out Super Vectorizer 2, and judging by my tests, Vector Magic's results are better. So if you don't know it yet, and if you need to vectorize images every once in a while, it's definitely worth checking out ( https://vectormagic.com ).

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Hi Metin!

@You : "...Interesting tips, thanks!..."

You're welcome! I really appreciate that this thread it's getting more and more interesting :)

@You : "...Stefan, regarding bitmap to vector conversion..."

Thanks a lot for these suggestion! I didn't know these tools and certainly I will give them a try soon. Thanks.

Meanwhile I'm thinking about some new short but useful (I hope) tutorials involving Moi and Designer.

A sort of some "tips and tricks tuts".

Anyway, just for information, some days ago Serif has released two new beta versions of the upcoming Photo and Designer : 1.6.x...

These are the urls to download :

Designer : https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/47946-affinity-designer-customer-beta-16085/

Photo : https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/47947-affinity-photo-customer-beta-16085/

Have a nice day.

We'll catch up.

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Hi everyone!

I wanted to make a shorter video but...I couldn't :)
Too many things to show!

This time.....GLOBES AND STARS!

This is the video tutorial : http://take.ms/GFX4h

From this :




To this!




This time I've used two custom commands : Randomize and RemoveDuplicates

You can get them here : http://take.ms/H4YwM


Hope you like it.


Ciao!

We'll catch up.

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Cool, thanks Marco! Also for the Affinity beta links!

Have a nice weekend everyone,

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Hi Metin.

You're welcome!

Regarding the new betas of Affinity suite for what I've seen it should be a minor upgrade with a lots of bug fixes an maybe some new features,
but I'm not sure about this point.

I asked to Affinity team about some very important missing feature in Designer and they told me that this is in their roadmap.
Their plan it's to include new substantial features during all 1.X period or when 2.X will be released.

Anyway...I will test this new betas.

P.S. In the Affinity forum they say : "...it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.6 may not open in 1.5..."

The say "MAY". For what I've tested so far all files are compatible but anyway it's good to know that could be some incompatibility.

Ciao!

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Hi Marco,

Thanks for the additional info. Maybe I'll wait for the official release after all. Right now I'm too busy enjoying my exploration of 3D Coat anyway. :)

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Hi Metin.

@You : "...Maybe I'll wait for the official release after all..."

I think I'll do so!

Cheers.

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Hi everyone!

I'm back with a new quick and dirt tutorial about Moi with Affinity Designer

This time...."Dot circles vector image"!

Here's the video : http://take.ms/A2zPf



For this tutorial I have used a simple but very useful external tool : Halftoner 1.7
These are the links :
Zip file : http://jasondorie.com/downloads/HalftonerV1.7.zip
Home page : http://jasondorie.com/page_cnc.html



We'll catch up.

Ciao!

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Hi Marco,

nice looking tiger!

Here is one more abstract image from me, done with MoI (lot's of trimming and joining)
and the help of Vector Raster and Art Text 3. Have to explore this workflow a bit more.

Good thing is that with Art Text 3 you can generate really quick poster sized images,
without loosing sharpness etc.

Best regards
Stefan

Image Attachments:
me.jpg  me_abstract.jpg 

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Hi STEFAN.

Thanks a lot for sharing!

Very interesting for Mac users.

If you want to remain within Moi without using any external tool you can use the great Max's "HeightMap" commands!

It generates curves (or point) from an input b&w or greyscale image.

Although the resulting curves needs to be a tweaked a little bit with the "rebuild" command to make them "lighter" ,
before export them to PDF, for importing into Affinity Designer or any other vector graphic software.

You can get the Max's command here : http://take.ms/e2vSN
N.B. In windows you need to run Moi in Administrator mode in order to make HeightMap works.

This is a brief video I made : http://take.ms/fVOE0




Ciao!

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Hi Marco,

Max's Script, in this case, is IMHO not good, because it gives you jaggies!

I use for this task the super cool free Zsurf4 in combination with Photoshop,
which runs also under Wine, for OS X users :-)

Best regards
Stefan

Image Attachments:
ZSURF4.jpg 

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Hi STEFAN.

Oh yeah...ZSurf is very useful and in many cases is the right choice!

I have used it sometimes in the past with good results.

Thanks.

But because here I'm trying always to find "old and new" workflows for Moi and Affinity I'm more interested in playing with curves rather than surfaces.

Anyway, you're right. In many cases ZSurf generates surfaces with a good smoothness, and the Iso curves that I can extract are better than those
generated from "HeightMap" script.

Ciao!

Stay tuned for new stuff involving Moi and Affinity :)

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Hi Marco and all,

just took your tiger drawing into Art Text 3. I really like what one can do with it. :-)



P.S. i added also one Penrose tiling image, done with MoI and Art Text 3, to the MoI Gallery.

Best regards
Stefan

Image Attachments:
tiger.png 

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Hi Stefan!

Very nice!


@You "...your tiger drawing..."

As I said in my original post the tiger is not mine. I get it in Freepik.com
(https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/animals-tribal-tattoo-collection_1168322.htm#term=tiger&page=1&position=5)

Thanks for sharing!

Stay tuned...I hope to upgrade soon my scripts for 2D Workflows. (bug fixing)

Ciao!

---

P.S. I only tweaked the tiger a little bit with Affinity Designer to make some cleanup, then I exported it in PNG and then I have used the png for
my 2D Workflow tutorial (original post : http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=8629.39)

Ciao!

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Thanks for the info Marco!

I overlooked that the original image was from there...

Best regards
Stefan

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Hi Michael.

I'm pretty sure that you already answered me a long time ago, about this question, but I don't remember where is your answer.
I've searched trough the forum by I didn't find what I'm looking for.

The question is this :

If we simply take into account the "speed of execution" factor, can we state that the code executed inside a the "hmtl" page of a command
or inside a script placed into the "scripts" folder, is faster (and many times faster) the the execution of "js code" present in the "js" counterpart of command's html ?

I ask you this because I have in mind to turn the next version of my "script for 2D workflow" from "script" into "command" just in order to
handle more easily the various working mode of that scripts.

For what I've experienced and learned I've seen that the "js" code executed inside the Hml file of command is much more faster that the counterpart executed into the "js" file of the command :

For example consider the "ScaleIndividual" commands that Max wrote times ago :

1) the original version of Max Smirnov :
get it at https://drive.google.com/open?id=1waO3TgOQSUl2ZIBJ8adixPz5Qes_ja21

2) A version that I have modified and that do the main task into the "js" code inside the Html file of the command :
get it at https://drive.google.com/open?id=1N6qWe_lzyJA-aTOrmESLRPhzky_XHhoB


Why the 2nd version, is much more faster than the first (to make a good test you have to select many objects, I tested with hundreds) ?


This is the code of the original version of ScaleIndividual.js and ScaleIndividual.htm :

#include "GetObjects.js"
#include "WaitForDialogDone.js"

function ScaleObject( obj, factor )
{
	var center = obj.getBoundingBox().center;
	var list = moi.geometryDatabase.createObjectList();
	list.addObject( obj );

	var factory = moi.command.createFactory( 'scale' );
	factory.setInput( 0, list );
	factory.setInput( 1, center );
	factory.setInput( 2, factor );
	factory.commit();
}

function DoIndividualScale()
{
	var objectpicker = moi.ui.createObjectPicker();
	if ( !GetObjects( objectpicker ) )
		return;
		
	var objects = objectpicker.objects;
		
	moi.ui.beginUIUpdate();
	moi.ui.hideUI( 'SelectPrompt' );
	moi.ui.showUI( 'OptionsPrompt' );
	moi.ui.showUI( 'options' );
	moi.ui.endUIUpdate();
	
	if ( !WaitForDialogDone() )
		return;
		
	var scalefactor = moi.ui.commandUI.factor.value;
		
	for ( var i = 0; i < objects.length; ++i )
	{
		var obj = objects.item(i);
		ScaleObject( obj, scalefactor );
	}
}

DoIndividualScale();

<html>
	<body class="commandbody">
		<div class="commandheader">
			<div id="SelectPrompt" class="commandprompt">Select objects to scale</div>
			<div id="OptionsPrompt" class="hiddencommandprompt">Scale options</div>
		</div>
		
		<div id="options" class="hiddencommandoptions">
			<table>
				<tr>
					<td>Scale factor:</td>
					<td><moi:NumericInput id="factor"/></td>
				</tr>		
			</table>
		</div>

		<moi:CommandDoneCancel />
	</body>
</html>

And this is the code of my modified version of ScaleIndividualMainThread.js and ScaleIndividualMainThread.htm :

#include "GetObjects.js"
#include "WaitForDialogDone.js"

function DoIndividualScaleInit() {
	var objectpicker = moi.ui.createObjectPicker();
	if ( !GetObjects( objectpicker ) )
		return;
		
	var objects = objectpicker.objects;
		
	moi.ui.beginUIUpdate();
	moi.ui.hideUI( 'SelectPrompt' );
	moi.ui.showUI( 'OptionsPrompt' );
	moi.ui.showUI( 'options' );
	moi.ui.endUIUpdate();
	
	if ( !WaitForDialogDone() )
		return;
	
	moi.ui.commandUI.DoIndividualScale(objects);
}

DoIndividualScaleInit();

<html>
	<head>
		<script>		
			function ScaleObject( obj, factor ) {
				var center = obj.getBoundingBox().center;
				var list = moi.geometryDatabase.createObjectList();
				list.addObject( obj );

				var factory = moi.command.createFactory( 'scale' );
				factory.setInput( 0, list );
				factory.setInput( 1, center );
				factory.setInput( 2, factor );
				factory.commit();
			}

			function DoIndividualScale(objects) {
				var scalefactor = moi.ui.commandUI.factor.value;
					
				for ( var i = 0; i < objects.length; ++i ) {
					var obj = objects.item(i);
					ScaleObject( obj, scalefactor );
				}
			}
		</script>
	</head>
	<body class="commandbody">
		<div class="commandheader">
			<div id="SelectPrompt" class="commandprompt">Select objects to scale</div>
			<div id="OptionsPrompt" class="hiddencommandprompt">Scale options</div>
		</div>
		
		<div id="options" class="hiddencommandoptions">
			<table>
				<tr>
					<td>Scale factor:</td>
					<td><moi:NumericInput id="factor"/></td>
				</tr>		
			</table>
		</div>

		<moi:CommandDoneCancel />
	</body>
</html>

Thanks a lot for the support :)

Have a nice day.

Ciao!

Marco (mkdm)

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P.S. Michael, I will read your answer in five-six hours because now I have to go :)

Thanks.

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Hi Marco,

> If we simply take into account the "speed of execution" factor, can we state that the code
> executed inside a the "hmtl" page of a command or inside a script placed into the "scripts"
> folder, is faster (and many times faster) the the execution of "js code" present in the "js"
> counterpart of command's html ?

For V3 yes that's true - the .js code is run in a separate process and uses inter-process communication on every MoI API call. The reason for this is it makes it impossible for the script to freeze MoI if it runs in an endless loop or something like that, the worker process can be torn down independently from the script's cooperation.

But the inter-process communication has a performance penalty. The regular default commands in MoI never use script to do heavy calculations in loops or things like that, and so are ok with that.

Code in the HTML side runs in the main process thread and so it doesn't have that same overhead.

For V4 this will be different though, in V4 the .js script will be run on the main thread and not on a worker thread anymore and so in v4 there won't be any difference for which file the code is contained in.

- Michael

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