function-import
On Mon, 2025-10-06 at 17:12 +0000, William F. Adams wrote:
Is the basic importing of an SVG outline not what is wanted?
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSCAD_User_Manual/Importing_Geometry/SVG_Import
Apparently not, or perhaps there is something he can't figure out how
to do.
Here's his initial pot:
I'm trying (without much success) to use the BOSL2 'skin' module To
that end, I need to create a list of 2D objects. E.g., things like:
slice1 = [circle(50), circle(30), circle(20)];
or
slice2 = square(100);
work fine.
But what I really need is a list of imported SVGs. (And yes, I've
enabled the 'import-function' option under Preferences->Features.)
Everything I've seen indicates that OS treats an imported SVG as a set
of 2D points/polygons/whatever. So I should be able to do something
like:
slice3 = import("X_100x.svg");
But it fails with "WARNING: Failed to parse .../X_100x.svg..." etc.
Note that the non-function form of 'import' works fine with this rather
simple closed-curve file.
Am I just ahead of the curve (no pun intended) in the sense that that
the functionality isn't implemented yet? Or am I just doing it wrong
(again)?
Later, he says:
I think I have a workaround: the shapes in question are (more or
less) convex in the regions of interest, but I may be back later with
stupid questions about 'hull'.
Further discussions confirm he meant convex.
On 10/6/2025 12:19 PM, larry via Discuss wrote:
I'm trying (without much success) to use the BOSL2 'skin' module To
that end, I need to create a list of 2D objects. E.g., things like:
slice1 = [circle(50), circle(30), circle(20)];
or
slice2 = square(100);
work fine.
But what I really need is a list of imported SVGs. (And yes, I've
enabled the 'import-function' option under Preferences->Features.)
There is no straightforward way to get from that Point A to that Point B.
In theory you could parse the SVG file, extract a list of coordinates
(and other directive), translate them into JSON, and then import that
JSON into OpenSCAD. But that processing wouldn't be trivial.
Note that the non-function form of 'import' works fine with this rather
simple closed-curve file.
Functions are not modules; modules are not functions. The import
function is completely independent of the import module, and has
entirely different capabilities.
Am I just ahead of the curve (no pun intended) in the sense that that
the functionality isn't implemented yet?
Yes.
I probably am in a minority here, but I would prefer that we not
overload names in this manner.
Jon
On 10/6/2025 3:39 PM, Jordan Brown via Discuss wrote:
The import function is completely independent of the import module,
and has entirely different capabilities.
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I agree with Jon on this. It's especially tough when trying to find the
functionality in the docs.
On Mon, Oct 6, 2025 at 3:09 PM Jon Bondy via Discuss <
discuss@lists.openscad.org> wrote:
I probably am in a minority here, but I would prefer that we not
overload names in this manner.
Jon
On 10/6/2025 3:39 PM, Jordan Brown via Discuss wrote:
The import function is completely independent of the import module,
and has entirely different capabilities.
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Perhaps there's a difficulty with two identically named items doing
different things.
How about an ImportData ?
Harvey
On 10/6/2025 12:40 PM, Jordan Brown via Discuss wrote:
On 10/5/2025 11:01 PM, larry via Discuss wrote:
A fellow on the 'OpenSCAD Academy' group on Facebook has asked a
question about function-import. I have never used it, so I can't help
him.
I have suggested he join this list, but I don't know if he will.
He enabled function-import and tried this...
slice2=("file.svg");
He gets an 'unable to parse' error.
I tried a few variations, but only got errors.
Could someone either answer his question on Facebook or give me an
example I could pass on to him
The import function imports JSON data and returns it as OpenSCAD data.
It handles most or maybe all JSON files.
It handles only JSON files; it does not (yet?) handle any other file type.
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If, next year, the import() function became able to read an SVG file and
return its contents as data (in some sense), what name would you want it
to have?
Is it wrong that the import() module can import both STL and 3MF files?
Is it wrong that it can import both SVGs (yielding 2D geometry) and STLs
(yielding 3D geometry)?
There have been lots of feature requests asking for of such a
functionality in the last years ... Thanks for bringing it up again.
The work around I have been dealing with this problem since years is
- load the .svg (ASCII) into an editor
- do some search & replace, and convert the point list into a scad-file
with the structure: svg = [[px, py], ... ]; - include the scad file
I also wrote a converter in Matlab doing this steps automatically to
convert a couple of svg-files with a certain structure into sca-files.
However I tailored the code only for a small subset of the svg format to
get my jobs done.
Rudolf
Am 06.10.2025 um 19:13 schrieb larry via Discuss:
On Mon, 2025-10-06 at 09:40 -0700, Jordan Brown wrote:
On 10/5/2025 11:01 PM, larry via Discuss wrote:
A fellow on the 'OpenSCAD Academy' group on Facebook has asked a
question about function-import. I have never used it, so I can't
help
him.
I have suggested he join this list, but I don't know if he will.He enabled function-import and tried this...
slice2=("file.svg");
He gets an 'unable to parse' error.
I tried a few variations, but only got errors.
Could someone either answer his question on Facebook or give me an
example I could pass on to himThe import function imports JSON data and returns it as OpenSCAD
data.
It handles most or maybe all JSON files.
It handles only JSON files; it does not (yet?) handle any other file
type.
That brings up another question (mine, this time).
Is there a way to get a json representation of an svg file?
L
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so here i am doing the boolean operations on a linear extrusion and a cube with this code cubesize=[6,1,1]; union() { linear_extrude(4) square(4); cube(cubesize, center=true); } translate([-6,3,0]) intersection() { linear_extrude(4) square(4); cube(cubesize, center=true); } translate([6,-3,0]) difference() { linear_extrude(4) square(4); cube(cubesize, center=true); } my question is .. is this mixing 2D and 3D shapes in boolean operations? or not. according to my place on the learning curve once i extrude from the 2D shape it is not involved in the boolean anymore i try this code cubesize=[6,1,1]; intersection(){ translate([.1,.1,.1]) color("green") %cube([5,5,2]); union() { linear_extrude(4) square(4); cube(cubesize, center=true); } } and i see this and when i remove the % on the cube the intersection does its thing .. i do think it odd that some of the sides of the resulting shape are still yellow and through all of this there are no warnings in the console i change the code a bit .. the intersecting cube is moved down in Z to be sure that it is overlapping with the square cubesize=[6,1,1]; intersection(){ translate([.1,.1,-1]) color("green") cube([5,5,2]); union() { roof() square(4); cube(cubesize, center=true); }} and we see this so .. EITHER we should be seeing warnings .. so there is a bug in there somewhere OR the use of an extrusion or a roof to create 3D geometry means this code is not mixing 2D with 3D shapes some of you will be tired of me pursuing this .. but for me .. maybe it really is my understanding that is flawed so how is it that the 2D shape underlying the linear extrusion, or the roof, is still being considered as part of the boolean operation .. and why are the warnings about mixing 2D with 3D not being emitted? thanks for your kind attention Jeff Hayes
An extrusion of a 2d thing is no longer 2d. It is 3d.
On Tue, Oct 7, 2025 at 12:32 Jeffrey Hayes via Discuss <
discuss@lists.openscad.org> wrote:
so here i am doing the boolean operations on a linear extrusion and a cube
with this code
cubesize=[6,1,1];
union() {
linear_extrude(4)
square(4);
cube(cubesize, center=true);
}
translate([-6,3,0])
intersection() {
linear_extrude(4)
square(4);
cube(cubesize, center=true);
}
translate([6,-3,0])
difference() {
linear_extrude(4)
square(4);
cube(cubesize, center=true);
}
my question is .. is this mixing 2D and 3D shapes in boolean operations?
or not.
according to my place on the learning curve once i extrude from the 2D
shape it is not involved in the boolean anymore
i try this code
cubesize=[6,1,1];
intersection(){
translate([.1,.1,.1])
color("green")
%cube([5,5,2]);
union() {
linear_extrude(4)
square(4);
cube(cubesize, center=true);
}
}
and i see this
and when i remove the % on the cube
the intersection does its thing .. i do think it odd that some of the
sides of the resulting shape are still yellow
and through all of this there are no warnings in the console
i change the code a bit .. the intersecting cube is moved down in Z to be
sure that it is overlapping with the square
cubesize=[6,1,1];
intersection(){
translate([.1,.1,-1])
color("green")
cube([5,5,2]);
union() {
roof()
square(4);
cube(cubesize, center=true);
}}
and we see this
so ..
EITHER we should be seeing warnings .. so there is a bug in there somewhere
OR the use of an extrusion or a roof to create 3D geometry means this code
is not mixing 2D with 3D shapes
some of you will be tired of me pursuing this .. but for me .. maybe it
really is *my *understanding that is flawed
so how is it that the 2D shape underlying the linear extrusion, or the
roof, is still being considered as part of the boolean operation .. and why
are the warnings about mixing 2D with 3D not being emitted?
thanks for your kind attention
Jeff Hayes
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(Just FYI, I'm the "fellow from Facebook" larry alluded to...)
For one or two SVGs, brute-force text editing is certainly a viable option. When I asked the question, I was dealing with
dozens of SVGs from a LuBan 'stack' operation (cross-sections of a hideously complex SolidWorks STL export). Doing
that many by hand seemed like, well, way more work than I was up for, not to mention the sheer size of the results.
But at least the LuBan-generated files are all polygon/polyline objects, with no circles/ellipses/beziers.
Sounds like a job for Perl, or at least a plausible reason to learn it...
I probably should have done that a couple decades back when I was still getting paid.
-----Original Message-----
From: Rudolf via Discuss discuss@lists.openscad.org
Sent: Tuesday, October 7, 2025 8:25 AM
To: larry via Discuss discuss@lists.openscad.org
Cc: Rudolf parkinbot@digitaldocument.de
Subject: [OpenSCAD] Re: function-import
There have been lots of feature requests asking for of such a functionality in the last years ... Thanks for bringing it up again.
The work around I have been dealing with this problem since years is
- load the .svg (ASCII) into an editor
- do some search & replace, and convert the point list into a scad-file with the structure: svg = [[px, py], ... ];
- include the scad file
I also wrote a converter in Matlab doing this steps automatically to convert a couple of svg-files with a certain structure into sca-files.
However I tailored the code only for a small subset of the svg format to get my jobs done.
Rudolf
Am 06.10.2025 um 19:13 schrieb larry via Discuss:
On Mon, 2025-10-06 at 09:40 -0700, Jordan Brown wrote:
On 10/5/2025 11:01 PM, larry via Discuss wrote:
A fellow on the 'OpenSCAD Academy' group on Facebook has asked a
question about function-import. I have never used it, so I can't
help him.
I have suggested he join this list, but I don't know if he will.
He enabled function-import and tried this...
slice2=("file.svg");
He gets an 'unable to parse' error.
I tried a few variations, but only got errors.
Could someone either answer his question on Facebook or give me an
example I could pass on to him
The import function imports JSON data and returns it as OpenSCAD
data.
It handles most or maybe all JSON files.
It handles only JSON files; it does not (yet?) handle any other
file type.
That brings up another question (mine, this time).
Is there a way to get a json representation of an svg file?
L
OpenSCAD mailing list
To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
OpenSCAD mailing list
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