Removing Overlapping And Intersecting Line

[f_8153]

I deal with very complex SVG pics daily. Is there any way to remove overlapping and intersecting line automatically? Any scripts or plugins maybe to help with this process?

[CarlosCanto]

Can you show samples of what you need? share a file if possible please

[f_8153]

The problem: https://jackforge.com/overlapping-lines-adobe-illustrator/ 

But in complex pics like:

Dark black overlapping line.

[jduncan]

Why not outline all strokes and unite everything into a single compound shape using the Pathfinder palette? This would only work with single-color designs, like the one in the blog post mentioned.

[f_8153]

I don't want to make it as a shape. I need to have the lines editable but without having that extra overlapping line. I am looking for something like AutoCADs "Overkill" command but for Adobe Illustrator.

[jduncan]

Understood... Was just going for the simplest option first.

[Kurt Gold]

Can you share a sample Illustrator file with further instructions?

[f_8153]

This is the result I am looking for:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/dnovycd7ywig6tjdpqvik/samplefile.ai?rlkey=tabw4wa5sa7oaisyhvbq9uhas&s...

[sttk3]

This may be achieved by converting the target objects to Live Paint and immediately Expanding them.

[f_8153]

Nope. Doesn't work on these kinds of pictures I work with, only simple ones. This method just makes the file size bigger.

[Kurt Gold]

Well, the Live Paint approach does eliminate 2842 out of 4920 paths in your sample file. Not ideal, but pretty good.

It does fail with duplicates that are not 100 % congruent.

However, at the moment it is probably the most effective built-in technique to purge such drawings in Illustrator.

Of course, you may want to research into the reasons why the original applications create these garbage .svg files and how to possibly prevent it in the first place.

[asd_4802]

How can you see how many paths it eliminates?

[Kurt Gold]

By looking at the Document Information palette, asd_4802.

[asd_4802]

Thanks, Kurt Gold.

[Bobby Henderson]

I'm not sure if there is anything in the market, even with plugins, that can automatically trim overshot lines in artwork. Part of the problem is that defining what is an overshot line can be a subjective call. Any sort of automatic function can end up deleting parts of paths or even entire paths that weren't supposed to be deleted. That can be a big issue with things like CAD-generated artwork.

The Shape Builder tool can work pretty quick at manually trimming lines that are overshot past another path. Select the tool and hold down the Alt key (Windows) to see the minus sign next to the pointer. Drag it across a path segment going over and past another path to delete the overshoot. It can delete multiple overshot paths in a single drawing stroke. Astute Graphics' Dynamic Sketch plugin can do the same thing.

CAD artwork is usually pretty unfriendly to vector-based graphics applications since most of the artwork is just lots of open lines rather than closed paths. CAD is just a very different paradigm.