Open SVG Files - Feature Request

[DennisV 1]

I would like to request that Cura recognize a .svg file as a valid file type to open, then launch the Convert Image... dialog.

 

Right now, Cura does not appear to be able to open a .svg file. So if you're working with a desktop imaging application such as Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, you have to save to a bitmap format like .gif, .jpg, or .png in order for Cura to open it. These bitmap files create anti-aliasing of angles and rounded edges. These will in turn result in uneven side walls when Cura slices.

 

The workaround I'm aware of is to use your imaging application to save as .svg. This then requires an intermediate application to open the .svg and save it as .stl (Tinkercad can do this). Then go back to Cura to open the .stl and slice, then save as .gcode for Ultimaker. It's an additional set of steps that seem unnecessary. If Tinkercad can do it, why not Cura?

 

Would love to hear if someone has found a better way to tackle this.

Edited January 8, 2018 by DennisV

[ctbeke 133]

Thanks for suggesting this!

As it's not really a core feature I don't think the Cura team will implement it anytime soon. You could however make a pull request on GitHub to add the functionality yourself. Have a look at the image importing plugin to start: https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/tree/master/plugins/ImageReader.

[HappyDuck 0]

Hi DennisV,

 

What I do is that I create an .svg file in Illustrator, and than I import it into Tinkercad as it can read stl files. Then I size it and export it as an .stl into Cura.

 

Hope this helped.

[nallath 1,104]

Alternatively, we have a plugin that allows you to read SVG files directly into Cura now: https://marketplace.ultimaker.com/app/cura/plugins/Ghostkeeper/SVGToolpathReader

[ahoeben 1,770]

That SVG plugin does not cover the usecase of interpreting colors as heights like the ImageReader does. That is a lot less straightforward to implement than it may seem. Cura is not a modeling program.

[xiaoshizi 0]

Not totally agree on the argument that Cura isn't a core feature as the img loader can get you the gray-scale image into the height-map why shouldn't it be able to get colors to heights?

As the img already imports it's just a little push to get it import SVG and get the colours of the svg shapes bring it up to height. 

Com'n Daid you can make this happen 😉