I can click on curves (and even groups of curves) in Rhino, copy them to the clipboard, and then paste them into Photoshop — which is great, BUT, it only allows me to paste them as a Vector Smart Object, and it’s a stroked set of vectors by default.
For example, if I draw a rectangle in Rhino, copy, and paste it into PS, I’ll get a stroked rectangle Vector Smart Object. This means that if I want to modify the vector at all (or choose to make it filled instead), I have to edit the smart object, which opens it up in Illustrator.
Now, when you copy vector data in Illustrator and paste it into Photoshop, you actually get this panel:
Much more flexibility. I’m guessing that Photoshop expects the vector/path data to be copied in some specific format in order for this to happen.
Wondering if anyone at McNeel knows a way for Rhino to copy curve data in this format so that I can skip this whole middle-man of Illustrator completely? Or any chance of investigating it with a script? I’m specifically hoping to paste curves from Rhino into PS directly as shape layers.
If it helps, as a test I created a single rectangle in Illustrator, copied it, and downloaded a Clipboard data viewer. It looks the data is wrapped in some basic SVG headers (among some other things…)
This is a really hacky PS approach, unfortunately. It’s basically taking a pixelated rasterized selection and converting it into a vector shape, so the shape vector is made of really compromised data.
Another tool I use is Figma. Figma is all vector-based, it’s a massive product with a huge reach. You can copy and paste all sorts of vector data directly into it, as well as dragging vector files in (AI, SVG, etc).
If I copy a curve in Rhino and paste it in Figma, it pastes a screenshot of my Rhino viewport. Not the actual SVG data.
I believe Rhino would dramatically benefit from an incredibly basic CopySVG command which could be run on any curve. You already support this through saving/exporting to AI/SVG formats. Could we just get a handy command line for this to skip the annoying process of creating temporary junk files?
I agree !
I curently copy from rhino, paste to illustrator, copy again, and paste to figma.
That’s the easiest way I figured to copy from rhino to figma.
Which version of Rhino are you using?
Rhino puts SVG, PDF, and DWG versions of the geometry on the clipboard. It’d be up to the receiving application to use that.
-wim
