How to get 2D export to Inkscape at high quality?

@BrianJ cold we add this as main request for the V6. You know, svg it’s an open source standard and it’s suitable for illustration and for vectors in browsers…
How much could you take add this simple feature?

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Yes please!

The request for SVG support has been logged for a while. Here’s a related YouTrack item that’s public for future reference…
http://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/RH-24165

It helps raise the priority of feature requests to add your votes here.

I tested the DXF option to InkScape before suggesting it and it appeared to work well. They save as SVG too.

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The AI file format does not work. I exported from Rhino having selected “Save Geometry Only”, assuming that this creates a very simple AI file.

When I import into Inkscape 0.48 / Windows 7, that fails with error messages:

  • Adobe Illustrator 9.0 and above (PDF based):

    Failed to load the requested file C:\Temp\logo.ai

  • Adobe Illustrator 8.0 and below (Postscript based):

    1. UniConvertor failed

    2. Failed to load the requested file C:\Temp\logo.ai

It seems that:

  • Rhino exports to Illustrator 8.0 and below format.

  • The tool UniConvertor conversion tool used by Inkscape has issues on Windows 7. See comments on Inkscape bug 745997. Inkscape 0.48 includes UniConvertor 1.1.5.

    A recommended workaround is to install UniConvertor 1.1.4 separately, and then do the conversion manually from the Windows command prompt:

    uniconv input.ai output.svg

    I have not yet tried that.

That causes non-circular curves to be approximated by line segments. Well, it looks OK, and I know that resolution can be tweaked. However, the line segments are not joined, probably due to limitations of the DXF format. This is a problem since it looks like line segments cannot be joined in Inkscape.

I was wondering if that would be an issue for you. The only other solution that comes to mind is using PDF with vector output but I understand about not wanting a ton of kinks.

If something else occurs to me I’ll be sure to post it.

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Didn’t try myself, but You can export as .dwg or .dxf and open it in the free DraftSight wich has .svg export.

It was written by @Willem. Here is the original post.

c.

The script doesn’t output splines, right?

I now converted the AI file to SVG using Illustrator. The result is nice: Curves got converted into smooth simple to edit splines. However, a light-weight tool is preferred. I didn’t yet try UniConvertor 1.4.

Hi Riccardo,

I wrote the script. There are still issues with converting certain types of curves. I myself did not use the exporter for a while now because I did not need svg anymore.
Back when I used it the results were very useful and smooth.

Cheers Willem

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Sadly, that link is dead. Suggested read for McNeel’s sysadmins: Cool URIs don’t change

Where else do I get the script?

With AI export broken in versions 5 and WIP, PDF export producing ugly kinks, and no SVG export, it seems impossible for me to share 2D drawings for laser cutting with partners and colleagues.

Have you tried DXF and / or WMF?
Inkscape reads both…

The DXF export, R12 Natural, that I tried produced garbage, though I may try other DXF export schemes.

WMF is full of kinks, so ugly that the result is useless:

If you want, you can give it a go, see my thread: Export to SVG challenge

This is what I get with a normal Illustrator export from Rhino…

OK, so you can reproduce the problem. The morphing is clearly visible when comparing the letters with those in the Rhino file.

Use ConvertToBeziers on your curves before exporting…

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FWIW I have the rvb files here:
The setup file will alter the other script to offer a direct loop through inkscape to let it convert to a clean PDF.
ExportInkscapeSVG_01.04_alpha.rvb (40.4 KB)
SetupInkscapeSVGExport_01.rvb (7.3 KB)

HTH
-Willem

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Great find! Now, I hope the Rhino devs finally know how to fix AI export.

Manually having to apply ConvertToBeziers is a pain, especially as it doesn’t preserve layer information. At least for the given drawing, I already have a script that prepares production. It removes duplicate lines, adds connection bridges, etc. So I can add ConvertToBeziers somewhere.

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Thanks. The exported SVG could be imported into Inkscape just fine, great!

Now, for the quirks:

  • When importing into Xara Designer Pro X11, I see garbage:

    That could of course be a Xara issue, and also Xara is not the destination platform anyhow. So, that’s not important.

  • The curves in the text get approximated by straight lines, which does not look nice.

I had some trouble, so I tried this way for some black and white icons created in Rhino… which is fast for creating good vectors… I rendered the icons huge (Overkill) 12000x600 pixels…saved as a bitmap, Opened in Inkscape and right clicked the image, and hit the trace bitmap type thingy… default worked great… move the top layer that has been created off and delete the under layer… results are awesome… The nicest bit is that I don’t have to do any layer wrangling because I made surfaces in one shot in Rhino, made them black before rendering the bitmap… This is a better solution than fighting the Ai export for what I was doing. Thanks everyone and the dude who made the “Tracing bitmaps in inkscape” youtube video :slight_smile: