Hi there,

I'm doing a lot of 2D work in MoI lately and I'm using flat surfaces to put a bit of color in my designs.

It would be great if you could export flat surfaces as edges when saving as .AI

Like when you do the script: /* switch selection from a face to its edges */ var gd = moi.geometryDatabase; var faces = gd.getSelectedObjects().getFaces(); gd.deselectAll(); for ( var i = 0; i < faces.length; ++i ) faces.item(i).getEdges().setProperty( 'selected', true );

But only at export time.

For now I have to keep edges of every surfaces as separate elements so they get exported.

Thank you :)

Hi DesuDeus, it actually works like that already - you can currently do an export or "Save As" of a surface or solid to AI format and when you do that it will write all the edges out to the AI file.

You don't need to do any special script or anything like that - if you want to write just some surfaces select them and use File > Export and if you want everything use File > Save As, and any edges on the objects being exported will get written as curves during the export.

But maybe I don't fully understand what you are asking for because it should be working exactly as you are requesting already...

- Michael

If you use the AI format from Moi to XARA XTREME (free toward 29 april 2013) you don't need to separate object in Moi
http://www.xara.com/us/specialoffers/designer/
(they will be separated curves in Xara but you can make some groups as you want after ;)

Speaking of color and Ai export… it would be great if Style colors (applied to curves/edges/objects) would export to colored Illustrator objects (paths, no fill, or even with fill?) as well. Or maybe even better, to Illustrator layers - it would make it a snap to stylize them later.

/ Fabien

Hi Fabien, I do want to beef up AI export to have color support. Can you please send me a sample file in AI 8 format with a couple of colored simple objects like squares in it so I can look at those while also trying to interpret the file spec for how that is supposed to be set up?

- Michael

Hi Michael,

I don't know if you already have the requested file but here's one:

3 squares with red , green and blue borders and no fill and
3 squares with red , green and blue fill and no borders

Made with Illustrator CS3 and saved as version 8 file.
The Illustrator color mode was RGB.

Hi Michael,

When I export a surface (like a square) it makes 4 separate lines in illustrator
When I export a square (without planar applied) it makes a square in illustrator (not separated lines)

Is it possible to write non separated lines from planar surfaces ?

Hi Martin, thanks for the test file!

- Michael

Hi DesuDeus, ok now I understand a bit more about what you're asking about.

But sorry no there is not currently any way to write a set of multiple edges as one single closed curve, each edge will get written separately.

This is because many times edges are shared between multiple faces, like with a box for example if each face boundary was written as its own closed curve there would be overlapping pieces.

I guess I could put in an option in the moi.ini file that would control this (writing individual edges or writing connected boundaries), but some things like the boundary of a cylinder could be kind of weird writing as one single curve since that would have the top closed curve then the "seam edge" and the bottom closed curve all glued together as one thing...

- Michael

Yes Michael but I only plan to export planar surfaces and not volumes so overlapping edges are not a problem :)

Each face would have their own edges so they can be filled with a color in illustrator, that would be cool.

For now I use the convert face to edges script then export to .AI, it's working ok.

Thanks Martin, looks like you beat me to it! Oh, and Michael, great to hear you're looking to expand the 2D export. Ai-export is great, but perhaps you might find PDF more approachable to add these features?

/ Fabien

Hi Fabien,

> but perhaps you might find PDF more approachable to add these features?

Unfortunately PDF is in general a massive increase in complexity (file structure wise) from the old AI format so everything is more difficult with it. I do want to implement a PDF export in addition to AI8 format export and I have some new PDF support stuff in place that should help me do that but I should probably try to get colors working in AI8 first before digging into the PDF export. Some things at a low level in PDF resemble AI format so getting it working in AI8 may also give me kind of a running start as far as figuring it out in PDF later on as well...

PDF import has already been significantly overhauled in MoI v3 a few releases ago to use a proper PDF parser so the import side for PDF is working much better now.

- Michael