Draft SVG: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:43, 2 March 2020

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Autodesk .DXF .DWG

Open Cad format .OCA

Draft Module

Menu location
Draft SVG
File → Export → Flattened SVG (*.svg)
Workbenches
Draft
Default shortcut
Ctrl + E
Introduced in version
-
See also
Draft DXF, FreeCAD and DXF Import, Import Export

Description

This function imports SVG files as workable Draft Workbench objects.

Inkscape drawing exported to SVG, which is subsequently opened in FreeCAD

Opening

The following SVG objects get imported at the moment:

PATH objects
LINE objects
RECT objects
CIRCLE objects
ELLIPSE objects
POLYGON objects
POLYLINE objects

Importing

Works the same way as opening but creates the objects in the active document instead of creating a new one.

Exporting

The following objects can be exported in an SVG file:

Lines and wires (polylines)
Arcs and circles
Faces
Texts
Dimensions

Limitations

Important Note: Keep in mind that SVG is a 2D format, so all Z information will be disregarded (all objects will be flattened).

Preferences

For more information see: Import Export Preferences.

Unit Handling

When exporting, a User Unit (px) equals one millimeter.

When importing, the width, height and viewBox attributes are respected. All elements are scaled to their size in millimeter, which is FreeCAD internal unit. If the SVG does not contain information on its physical size, it is assumed to have 90 DPI resolution. Using absoulte units in attributes inside the SVG should be avoided. Relative units like em,ex and % are currently not supported.

The SVG Editor, Inkscape currently works only with 90 DPI documents. No matter which unit is selected in Inkscape. All the output has to be considered converted to 90 DPI and rounded to 6 decimal places. As FreeCAD (and the SVG standard) is agnostic to the precision of rounding done in Inkscape these values will not be rounded on input. And odd values in millimeter will remain. If you need the SVG import not to be rounded, work on User Units (px) in Inkscape. Scaling can be done after the import to FreeCAD or by changing the width, height and viewbox attributes.

Scripting

See also: Draft API and FreeCAD Scripting Basics.

You can export elements to SVG by using the following function:

importSVG.export(exportList, filename)

Example:

import Draft, importSVG

Polygon1 = Draft.makePolygon(3, radius=500)
Polygon2 = Draft.makePolygon(5, radius=1500)

objects = [Polygon1, Polygon2]

importSVG.export(objects, "/home/user/Pictures/myfile.svg")