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I'm working on a project of polyhedral lanterns designed on topography, and using Blender for my modelling ahead of prototyping. I'm designing artwork in Adobe Illustrator, a program I'm robustly familiar with, and exporting the SVGs to Blender for import.

Most of the time this works well - but every once and a while when I import the SVG the fill in Blender does not match the artwork in the SVG file. See below images - In Illustrator: Gg

In Blender: enter image description here

I understand that Blender may be interpreting the position of handles improperly and hence filling places that should be empty, or leaving empty places that should be filled. Due to the complexity of the images (and the fact I want to do this many times with different images), I'm hoping for some kind of work around that keeps me from having to hunt through the many many vertices each time.

Here is a link to a google drive with the SVG: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ITkPdh5p0qhy7y5YPJq4Gz57DgZDjCHS?usp=sharing

Alternatively, I can export the file as a DXF - and fill it after the fact. But again, because of the complexity I can't figure out how I would easily fill the appropriate areas while leaving gaps. Any advice would be welcome, and you'd help bring something like the below image into the world (the actual physical, not on the screen world).

Many thanks in advance.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Overlapping or intersecting paths, or any that have any kind of effect applied to them do not translate well to curves in blender. It would help if you make a simplified SVG and make it available for others to help you. $\endgroup$
    – susu
    Commented Jun 16, 2020 at 19:43
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the response. I should have been more clear. The paths have all been simplified into one single compound path. There are no overlapping sections. I will post a link to the svg file. Thank you. $\endgroup$
    – ari
    Commented Jun 16, 2020 at 20:53
  • $\begingroup$ A link to a google drive with the file is available here: drive.google.com/drive/folders/… $\endgroup$
    – ari
    Commented Jun 16, 2020 at 20:57

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I don't think that the intricacy of your design is the issue here but how Illustrator is combining the many different paths. It looks like there are way too many points to create the curvature of the paths. I suspect those extra points are the result of compunding the paths. Even in segments that are straight there are many points in a straight line. enter image description here

A cure to most of the problem is converting the Handle Type to Vector

enter image description here

enter image description here

but in the areas where there are still too many control points the problem persists. Maybe there are open paths somewhere? Illustrator has tools to check for open paths.

enter image description here

I suspect that the paths need to be simplified and streamlined before they are exported from Illustrator to avoid the problems you are facing.

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  • $\begingroup$ Susu, Thank you very much for that. You're probably right about the complexity of the points on the vector. It's a result of the blend, outline, boolean operation I'm using in illustrator, I'll explore ways to simplify it. $\endgroup$
    – ari
    Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 22:38
  • $\begingroup$ As a workaround for the time being I found that if I coloured the open spaces, and imported that into blender I could extrude them and use a the Bool Tool to remove them from a mesh I created in blender. As a result I imagine the problem involves both what you have shared and that being exacerbated when the svg contains both inner contours and outer contours with a lot of complexity. $\endgroup$
    – ari
    Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 22:41
  • $\begingroup$ Having so many points is detrimental, as the beauty of curves is that they require just a few points to describe shapes. Having more points makes them behave more like pixels or vertices in a mesh, Creating non smooth transitions. $\endgroup$
    – susu
    Commented Jun 18, 2020 at 4:13
  • $\begingroup$ @ari If an answer helped you upvote the it. If you feel it completely solved your problem consider marking it accepted $\endgroup$
    – Duarte Farrajota Ramos ♦
    Commented Oct 21, 2020 at 11:37
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I had a similar issue, and what worked for me was increasing Decimal Places to 3 in the Advanced Options when saving.

I suspect this is why scaling up before exporting can work.

Adobe Illustrator SVG save options dialog box with advanced options expanded and decimal places set to 3 and highlighted.

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What helps, is scaling up your illustrator file (for instance x5 or x10). When imported in Blender you'll be able to scale your design down again, maintaining the details. Don't forget to also simplify when possible, as @susu mentioned/

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  • $\begingroup$ How does scaling help? Vector files are not resolution dependent like raster images $\endgroup$
    – Duarte Farrajota Ramos ♦
    Commented Oct 21, 2020 at 11:36
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, I know it sounds crazy because they are vector files, but it works. $\endgroup$
    – van de Ven
    Commented Oct 27, 2020 at 14:44

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