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The Engineering behind Figma's Vector Networks

alexharri.com · 7,668 words · saved by 4 readers

Adobe Illustrator introduced the pen tool back in 1987 as a tool for creating and modifying paths. Since then the pen tool has become incredibly widespread, so much so that is has become the de facto icon of the graphic design industry. The pen tool's functionality hasn't changed significantly in the 30 years since its introduction. Just click and drag to create smooth curves. Designers have learned to work with it, and around its idiosyncrasies. The pen tool But Figma felt like they could improve some aspects of how the pen tool worked, so they had a go at redesigning it. Instead of it being used to work with traditional paths, they improved the pen tool by creating what they call Vector Networks. In this post we will go through what Vector Networks are and what problems they try to solve. After we've defined what Vector Networks are, we will take a look at some of the engineering challenges you would face if you were to take a stab at implementing them. This post can be thought of as

The Engineering behind Figma’s Vector Networks The Engineering behind Figma’s Vector Networks November 24, 2019 Adobe Illustrator introduced the pen tool back in 1987 as a tool for creating and modifying paths. Since then the pen tool has become incredibly widespread, so much so that is has become the de facto icon of the graphic design industry. The pen tool’s functionality hasn’t changed significantly in the 30 years since its introduction. Just click and drag to create smooth curves. Designers have learned to work with it, and around its idiosyncrasies. The pen tool But Figma felt like they

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