when saving ai to svg paths changes?

Question

I have a path (looking like an instrumental bridge) that when saved as .svg changes the paths? Saving as a pdf is fine, saving from pdf to svg does the same thing. Changing size of the bridge does the same thing. Compound or not compund does the same thing. I DO however have a week old svg that still is correct. But opened in the laser cutters software it makes the same thing to the path.

The original path is symmetrical, when saved to svg it goes assymmetrical.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse · Answer

This is a precision issue with the SVG format. Outside of making sure you have increased the value for precision in the export dialog, there's not much you can do. The problem is related to how SVG writes paths. In Postscript code, a path starts at one point (x1,y2) then moves to a new point (x2,y2), then creates a path between them, whether it be a straight line or a curve... and so on, coming all the way back to the original starting point (x1,y1) to close the path. All the positions are absolute, so the starting and end point are identical.

SVG works differently... All the points are positioned relatively, so after the path starts at (x1,y2) it then says, 'move X amount of points left or right and move X amount of points up or down' from the original position, then draw a path. If you have a low precision value set (say "1") that means all the measurements are to one decimal point which is far less accurate than the origianl Postscript code. This causes a cumulative error that can effct changes in the shapes, particularly at the end point where they rejoin.

A higher precision (at least "4") will draw the shape more accurately. Give it a shot and report back.

(The only drawback to higher precision is file size of the SVG as the position numbers need to be written with more code. (e.g. XXX.XXXX versus XXX.X) so the file becoms larger)

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