Hello Michael,

Sorry to have taken you in a wrong direction. I got some sleep and did some more tests.

The errors on the original Illustrator paths are clearly visible when a thicker contour is added.
I attached screenshots of one of the faulty enpoints (left Illustrator, 2 points width ; right CoreDraw, zoom 4000%).

> I think a good compromise method may be to make one pass through the file screening out non-visible stuff, but if nothing was found on that pass then I will make another pass through and take any kind of path found including non-visible ones on that final pass.

> That will help imports in situations like this file where the only paths in the file are non-visible ones.

It would be faster for Photoshop users who do not want to transit in Illustrator just to add a contour to their path.

While experimenting, I got 3 observations/questions :

- Invisible paths
I tried to import an invisible path (path without contour) into MoI 1 but never was able to see any.
Is it because I have the beta version installed at the same time as v.1 ?

- Importing plain rectangles
In another test, I have drawn rectangles, rounded rectangles, circles, lines, distorted rectangles (ex. Arc), text
(in Illustrator CS3 and 4 and on 2 different computers).
Everything would import into MoI except the plain, unmodified rectangles.
Can somebody else reproduce this problem ?

Have a good day !

- Michel

Thanks for all the info. Interesting thread.

>>> And for the moment a quick workaround if you don't have Illustrator is to load it into MoI V1 instead and then save it out or copy/paste it from there.

It works fine. I could import several paths using version 1. Cool

>>> Schbeurd would have to say for sure how that particular path was created.

Not much to say there. The path comes from the Photoshop presets. I was just making a test.

>>> I think a good compromise method may be to make one pass through the file screening out non-visible stuff, but if nothing was found on that pass then I will make another pass through and take any kind of path found including non-visible ones on that final pass.
That will help imports in situations like this file where the only paths in the file are non-visible ones.

I think this is the best option.

>>> It would be faster for Photoshop users who do not want to transit in Illustrator just to add a contour to their path.

Well, you can not really add a contour in Photoshop like you do in Illustrator.

Thanks for the help. I'm now able to import the paths via MoI V.1

Schbeurd

Hi Michel,

> - Invisible paths
> I tried to import an invisible path (path without contour) into
> MoI 1 but never was able to see any.

Did you try the .ai file that was attached to the start of this thread?

That one should work in v1.

If you have some other file that does not work in v1, can you please post it, maybe you are running into some other issue or bug with your new file.


> Is it because I have the beta version installed at the same time as v.1 ?

No, they are totally independent, the only way they can really get crossed is if you have set one of them as the program to handle a particular kind of file extension and then you try to open that file by something like a double-click in Windows Explorer.


> - Importing plain rectangles
> Everything would import into MoI except the plain, unmodified rectangles.
> Can somebody else reproduce this problem ?

Can you please attach the .ai file with the plain rectangle in it here?

Those other things were probably generic bezier paths, but there is a special "re" operator that can be used for simple rectangles, maybe MoI has a bug in processing this particular operator.

- Michael

Hi Schbeurd,

> Not much to say there. The path comes from the
> Photoshop presets. I was just making a test.

Oh sure, blame the junky geometry on someone else.... ;)


I've got this tuned up now for the next v2 beta, so that AI files like this which have only non-visible paths in them will get those pulled in like they were for v1.


Thanks for posting the example file, it helps a lot to have that to debug with!

- Michael

Importing plain rectangles from Illustrator

>Can you please attach the .ai file with the plain rectangle in it here?

>Those other things were probably generic bezier paths, but there is a special "re" operator that can be used for simple rectangles, maybe MoI has a bug in processing this particular operator.

Hi Michael,

Here is an Illustrator file with a rectangle and a distorted rectangle with vectorized text labels.
The plain rectangle doesn't import into MoI. The rectangle shape letters ( i and l ) of the vectorized text neither.

- Michel

Hi Schbeurd,

I checked the Photoshop preset path you used and it is impossbe to see the defective control points even at the highest zoom.
(though they are clearly visible in Illustrator as shown in a previous post)

I also checked some of the other Photoshop preset paths and some of them showed junk paths too, even visible in Photoshop (Ex. Ornament 8).

So, you'd better draw your own paths for your next tests I think,

- Michel

>>> Oh sure, blame the junky geometry on someone else.... ;)

Hehe ! ;-) Fortunately, Michel found some other junk paths in the Photoshop presets so I'm definitely not guilty ! :-))

>>> I've got this tuned up now for the next v2 beta, so that AI files like this which have only non-visible paths in them will get those pulled in like they were for v1.

Thanks. I'm impatient to discover the new features of this beta. The fix will be a welcome addition.

>>> So, you'd better draw your own paths for your next tests I think

Sure. Actually, the toolset of MoI is sufficient for almost all my needs. One reason for which I can use Photoshop is explained in the attached image.

Additional notes on plain rectangles importation problem:

- When the ai file is created from Photoshop, the plain rectangles import correctly in MoI.
- When a rectangle is rotated in Illustrator, it also imports correctly in MoI.

- Michel

Hi Michel, this was a bug in MoI's path processing, when handling the special "re" (rectangle) operator when the width or height of the rectangle was specified as a negative value.

It looks like Illustrator just happens to generate rectangles with a negative width value, while Photoshop generates them with a positive width value, which is why the Photoshop ones avoided the bug in MoI.

I have fixed this up for the next v2 beta, so that the rectangles generated by Illustrator will be handled properly now.

I think it should also be possible to avoid the problem in the current beta if you export using the older version AI format, like version 8 or earlier. Those older file formats were before they switched to the PDF style format and the old style files do not have a "re" operator, instead they will just contain 4 lines to make a rectangle so those should work.


Thanks for posting the example file and the additional information!

- Michael

Thanks a lot Michael,

Looking forward for the next beta.

- Michel