I have a several SVG files that were generated in Adobe Illustrator. Inside each file is one huge path statement with many Subpaths. When I import any into LightBurn at ASMBLY nothing appears. When I open it in Inkscape at ASMBLY nothing appears. However in Inkscape I can do a Select All and lots of little squares appear suggesting the underlying data is there. I have been able to import it into FreeCAD. See it and manipulate it to create out a 3D solid and print it on a 3D printer. So I’m sitting at ASMBLY trying to get Dorian Laser to work with these SVG files and I’m stuck. Any suggestions?
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I’ve had lots of trouble with Illustrator exports, but in my case it is usually my own error. I know Illustrator has multiple export options, perhaps the file was exported correctly. @valerie could probably give you better advice.
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Thanks for the prompt reply James. I think I might need to convert the massive path into individual paths or something using some special Inkscape incantation. But I’m at a loss. We need a StackOverflow kind of website (stating Problems and showing Solutions) so that when I finally figure this out I can save it for others to refer to.
@bwatt Have you tried saving to AI file format and opening that directly in Lightburn? My experience is that it usually does a good job of that. Like… way better than expected, and better than going through SVG in general.
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All I’ve got is the SVG files, but inside them they mention Adobe Illustrator so I assumed they came from Illustrator. So I’m trying to make them work as-is. Thanks for the suggestion though. If I can go back to the source I will…
I have not have good experiences with SVGs (they tend not to maintain proper size) and as a practice I only use AI files. Those import well into Lightburn (note that hidden or locked layers do not import), for the most part…
…Lightburn sometimes does weird things to vector objects that can be extremely problematic. At times, your original vector object is no longer the same object because Lightburn decided the paths that intersect/overlap create a different shaped object. I might write that up on the Lightburn forum at some point when I have time (people that know me are probably laughing at the “when I have time” part 
).
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On the svg export sizing…. Adobe illustrator has a known svg resizing export “issue that we’re not going to fix”…. It’s one area inkscape is better than illustrator.
I still use adobe svgs in fusion - but always need to multiply by 1.33336 to get complete size parity.
Here is a stackexchange on the topic:
https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/128038/change-illustrators-native-svg-resolution/129918#129918
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All I’ve got is the SVG files, but inside them they mention Adobe Illustrator so I assumed they came from Illustrator.
Ah, I misunderstood and thought you had been working in AI and were using SVG as an intermediate format. It sounds like you’ve got SVGs and don’t necessarily have access to the original AI files (and maybe not Illustrator itself?)
OK, so in that case I’d suggest a some alternative tactics, in no particular order:
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Fiddle with the SVG file a bit more, attempting to “clean it up” before importing into LB. I don’t necessarily mean that the SVG vectors are “dirty” or otherwise corrupt per-se, just that sometimes doing things like simplifying the layers/groups/paths and such in the file might fix the de facto issue by giving LB slightly different data to process.
If your source file does have lots of layers and such, and/or maybe custom shading or other visual effects, perhaps try to hand-tweak it into the simplest possible line art: just basic vectors, with as few logical groupings/fills/etc as possible to still get the end result you want. Once you get something close-enough into LB, you can set up layers and groups to get the end result you really want.
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You mentioned that it loads up in FreeCAD and the vectors you expect show up there? Maybe use that tool as an intermediate step – do something like intentionally save-as as a new file via FreeCAD or even copy-paste specific objects into a new file? (I know nothing of FreeCAD; I’m assuming here that it can at least do basic load-and-save operations on SVG.)
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If you are familiar with VCarve at all, it also does a decent job of import-export, including exporting to AI files that have always worked perfectly in LB for me. I personally think it is also a very clean and efficient vector editor, once you learn it’s quirks (just like any of these tools).
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If you really had to, another option is to export this design as a raster image, then re-trace the vectors from scratch. It looks simple enough that this shouldn’t be too terribly labor-intensive, but it depends. Again, I like VCarve’s image tracing tools, at least for line art like this.
TL;DR: As both Valerie and Doug alluded to, file format conversion is unfortunately a big mess sometimes. The reasons are a mish-mash of technical challenges, legal disagreements, and classic good ol’ laziness. Sigh. The end result is that the answer to “How do I fix this?” is very often “Try some stuff till it works.”
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Thank you all for your comments, suggestions and feedback. It is indeed a mystery and a puzzle that I need to solve. So…
After many hours of trying all sorts of things I stumbled luckily into a solution. The file contained a CSS style definition which contained a fill:none. When I removed the following three lines the file now displays in both Inkscape and LightBurn windows. Who knew that would solve it. Sheesh!
<style type="text/css">
.st0{fill:none;}
</style>
Screen shot of LightBurn on my home machine. Hopefully it’ll also work on ASMBLY’s machines.
Thank you all so much!
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My first suggestion would be to flatten your image in illustrator prior to export
Second I would try exporting to dxf
A hack to “fix” an import at the wrong scale would be to just draw a square around the whole art piece that’s a known dimension like 12”x12”, export it, then when you import it you can select all and scale it correctly whether it imports wrong or not
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^^^ I’ve started doing this for any project that requires exporting and importing across multiple softwares.
You might be getting a vector file import into LightBurn where the line width is zero. I have had this problem going into Inkscape and have to assign a non-zero line width and color black.
You can also try exporting as a DXF, importing into QCAD and merging small vectors into single vectors for each shape.
