SVG Export - Maintain object order

[Nick_Tyrer]

Hey All, Is there any way to maintain the order of geometry when exporting a SVG?

I am creating drawings in rhino/gh, exporting to Inkscape via SVG, to create drawings on a pen plotter. However, the SVG export appears to reorder the file in an unpredictable way. Any suggestions as to how to maintain either the order of the geometry in rhino, or how out of gh?

Thanks!

[Tom_P]

I think the order in the .svg corresponds to the Print-order.
this can be influenced by layers and with
_bringForward
_bringToFront
_sendToBack
_sendBackward
if you need precise order, i recommend layers - search the forum there was a nice topic about print order. … let me see…

[Tom_P]

… check this:

@stevebaer

DrawOrder commands are paid attention to for SVG and PDF export. I know this is also not the best option, but it is an option

from this topic:

Export objects in a particular order to SVG/DXF/PDF

Lol, that’s just what I was playing with I just wish there was a more automatic way of doing it for larger numbers of objects. Dim arrObjects, strObject, n ’ Select objects one at a time in the sequence you’d like them exported in arrObjects = Rhino.GetObjects If IsArray(arrObjects) Then ’ Go through each object in reverse order, cut and paste in place For n=ubound(arrObjects) To 0 Step -1 rhino.copyobject(arrObjects(n)) rhino.DeleteObject(arrobjects(n)) Next End If

What export option to use to get Rhino into Affinity Designer?

Thank you McNeel for taking this seriously! For now I just print every single layer from Rhino layouts (so i have the right papaer format) as pdf and import it into Affinity Designer. Then the hatches as svg. It is a bit of work, but for now the best option, because otherwise you cannot preserve the layers in Affinity. Hope there will be better options in the future.

Draw Order Principles when printing to PDF?

I’m struggling to understand the “natural” draw order that rhino uses when printing to PDF as vector. Is there some sort of primer on how Rhino groks all this, before one goes about and manually adjusts draw order? I’ve been able to glean some information that it is related to layer order, and layer hierarchy, just as in photoshop or illustrator, etc. I think the biggest thing is that the model space, and even on as shown in a layout, don’t operate by the same principles as the PDF printer. S…

and other people that struggle(d)

Layout DrawOrder is causing so many problems. Can you please focus some resources on this?

Definitely worth a try! Sounds not too hard to implement, too. However, the trick will be to make editing/ handling these indices conveniently. What if you like to raise the index by, say, 1 for the topmost 15 layers? Do new layers automatically get a continuous index, or is it all left to the user? What happens when object indices are the same? Newer created object are drawn on top? What happens if layers share the same index? I guess what happens now - higher up layers are drawn in top. Th…

[Nick_Tyrer]

Thanks for your response, though perhaps i have used the wrong term, It’s not the drawing order (which object is in front of another), but the creation order that i want to maintain. My files have thousands of lines, so creating thousands of layers is not feasible (while possible through gh, it will make the inkscape process considerably harder).

It appears that my issue is identical to:

Export objects in a particular order to SVG/DXF/PDF

Hello, I want to be able to export objects (formats of interest are SVG/DXF/PDF) but maintain their order in the exported file. I.e. if I draw objects in the sequence 1,2,3,4 then I want them exported to the file in the same sequence 1,2,3,4. Reason - one application is to export to SVG and then output to an AxiDraw pen plotter from within Inkscape. I’ve experimented with this in v7, but there does not appear to be any logic to the sequence in which Rhino processes objects for export. I would …

It appears there is no known logic as to how the pdf order is exported, potentially same for svg.

Draw Order Principles when printing to PDF?

Not to my knowledge, no. -wim

I will install the gh plugin ‘graphics plus’ to test if its direct export feature maintains the order.