What is the path frame?

[Chris Northcross]

Happy New Years guys! I'm working to increase my understanding of SA this year by studying the SA manual as in depth as I can. Right now I'm on chapter 9: bezier paths. I think I'm missing clarity for a few definitions and am hoping you can help me out. What exactly is a path frame? I couldn't find a definition of what it is. I think its the current bezier paths on the canvas for a particular frame but want to double check.

[Synthetik]

There is a bezier path frame associated with each layer. So each layer has a rgba raster image buffer ( red - green - blue - alpha), and a bezier path frame. You can think of the bezier path frame as the buffer where the bezier paths stored in the layer are recorded. If you are in bezier operation mode then you can see the contents of the bezier path frame displayed on the canvas. Otherwise they are hidden from view.

When you switch to the different layer, it has it's own associated bezier path frame and the display would change accordingly when in bezier operation mode.

Resizing the canvas scales all of the bezier path frames in addition to the raster image buffer. So a path that stretches across the canvas will continue to do so at the new canvas resolution.

There are 4 global bezier path memories. You can use these as working buffers for saving and retrieving sets of bezier curves. So you could save a set of curves in a global memory, then switch to the new layer, and then play them back in to a new layer.

There's also an internal bezier path memory in the paint synthesizer. You can use this internal path memory to encapsulate a set of bezier paths in a paint preset.