4 replies to this topic

[frax]

OK, here is an Illustrator challenge: I exported a dataset from ArcMap, and it turns out to be quite dirty - a lot of stray small (closed) paths, but also unclosed two-point paths (even though it should be a polygon layer).

I can use simplify, and I can weed out the unclosed paths easily -- but sometimes I miss any functionality for selecting small polygons.

Is there a way to select paths by area? (Or length?) Related: I had another problem where I needed to know the area of paths, is it possible to get at that?

I guess I should have been better in cleaning it up on the Arc side of things!

[Nick Springer]

I don't think there is any built in way to do this, but if it's a big enough ongoing problem, the Illustrator Scripting language will enable you to do just about anything.

[frax]

i have actually played a little bit with javascript in illustrator, very cool and powerful, although I find the object model lacking a bit.

[Hans van der Maarel]

I would personally use FME for this. It's very easy to weed out non-polygonal features that way. IMHO, this is a GIS problem and should be solved on the GIS side, not on the Illustrator side.

[Martin Gamache]

IMHO, this is a GIS problem and should be solved on the GIS side, not on the Illustrator side.

I agree.