Cropper - Would you provide some sample files for test purposes?

[Kurt Gold]

Currently I'm tinkering with an action that is supposed to crop (open) stroked paths based on any shape in one whack. You can draw any closed path to define the crop area. The action will retain plain stroke attributes like stroke weight and stroke colour and it will not convert the stroked paths to filled paths. At the moment it won't work with more complex strokes like brushes, though.

In order to test it I'd like to get some sample Illustrator files from you. Ideally, they should be as complex as possible.

Can you provide something?

Thank you

[Kurt Gold]

No need for something like this?

For example, a map consisting of about 22000 mostly open stroked paths with different stroke attributes and about 150000 anchor points. Like this:

Now you may do a circular crop (not just masking the thing) in one whack by just defining any crop area with an unfilled and unstroked path. In this case it may take about 20 seconds to complete the task (how long would it take to do it with the Shape Builder tool or some other technique?). All stroke attributes or almost all stroke attributes will be retained, by the way. No conversions to filled paths.

I was hoping that you may want to provide some sample files for test purposes as I was going to optimise the approach I cobbled together so far. But probably it is a superfluous undertaking for some reasons.

[Jacob Bugge]

Kurt,

I hope others will join me in this:

This is the closing of the most important gap in core features that I can think of.

I regret that I am unable to present anything remotely as complex as what you have covered already.

Others?

[CarlosCanto]

Hi Kurt, do you still have CS5, CS6. Illustrator used to come with a Cool Extras folder with pretty complex drawings. You can practice with those, I'm not sure if I can post them here, probably not.

[Kurt Gold]

Thanks, Carlos. I can remember the Cool Extras folder in former Illustrator versions. It would certainly be a good resource.

But what I was really hoping for was to get some real world sample files from users in this forum. There can be many edge cases that may need special treatments. To inspect them would just help to improve the toy.

By the way, the Cropper action is not a genuine invention. It has been there for many years, but I overlooked to use it in the appropriate way. It's surprisingly simple.

Perhaps some users may want to provide sample files, so I can see how to adapt them to what I have now.

[CarlosCanto]

ok noted, I hope other users participate and provide good material, I'm looking forward to seeing your Action in action.

[Kurt Gold]

Yes, thanks Carlos. At the moment there is zero material from other users.

We'll wait and see what happens.

[Kurt Gold]

Carlos,

just a status report: So far I haven't received any sample file.

Well.

[CarlosCanto]

I thought the community was going be so excited you wouldn't know what to do with so many files...I was wrong.

[Kurt Gold]

.

[Egor Chistyakov]

Hm, I missed this.

Actually, the problem is highly popular among stock artists, although they are OK with having strokes expanded (but the buyers are not). There are several solutions to help stockers with preparing the files for uploading, notably this one: https://mai-tools.com/super-magic-eraser

As for now I do not immediate files I can share, this would require some archives digging.

But I have a quiestion — do you cut the paths exactly at the point of their intersections, or do you also calculate the angle of the cut and adjust the cutting point relative to the stroke weight, to ensure the cut line, when and if still clipped, looks OK? Tka a look at the test image.

[Jacob Bugge]

Egor,

As I (mis)understand it, the cropper cuts at the intersections of the spines of the path, like the one to the left in your image, but obviously with no way to avoid something protruding somewhere, especially if the cropped path is thicker.

[Kurt Gold]

Jacob is right. You would get something that is shown to the left in your sample image.

To make something that is shown to the right would be wonderful, but that's not possible with an action (and I doubt with a script either).

[Egor Chistyakov]

Another known solution is SplitPath script by @Sergey Osokin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_vUUFkTwxk

[Sergey Osokin]

It's hard to imagine a test file more complicated than a map with 22,000 paths ) But I wonder, will the method in the action handle grouped objects, objects in clipping masks? The SplitPath script ungroups all paths, but it can't handle clipping masks. Since the script uses the Live Paint trick, it gives extra points to the cropped paths at the end if they intersect.

[Kurt Gold]

It's not only about the total number of plain paths, Sergey. It's about complex files that could contain any kind of objects that may need some special treatments. Wild and unpredictable combinations, just to see how one may optimise the approach.

As for your question about groups: Basically, the action can handle them so far, but I can imagine that you may rather think about retaining the integrity of multiple processed groups, so they don't get melded into one overall group. If so, that would be a good idea that needs some extra evaluation.

And then objects inside clipping masks: That's certainly a tough one. At the moment I have no idea how to handle them.

I tested your SplitPath script. It works pretty good up to a certain number of paths. A shock test however with a topographic map consisting of more than 20000 paths obviously brings it to its knees, possibly freezing Illustrator.

Nonetheless, it's really good.