Inkscape – Merging Overlapping Nodes

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I would really appreciate some help with this little problem I have, it may only be a click away somewhere in a menu – perhaps someone can help. The application I’m using is Inkscape and I’m trying to find a way to quickly merge the overlapping nodes of a single object. Because the shape’s nodes have been randomly jittered they are now overlapping each other – which is exactly what I want but not the white ‘negative’ spaces. I would like to achieve the result shown on the right of the picture (this was done outside Inkscape using Photoshop) perhaps you can help?

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Answer

Here is a simplified example of what we’re trying to do:

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Note that changing the fill rule will not give the desired results.

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How to do it:

  1. Make sure all objects in your design are paths.
  2. If you have multiple objects in your design, choose “Path” > “Union” to merge them into one object.
  3. Draw a filled rectangle entirely around your entire design path and choose “Object” > “Lower to bottom” to put the rectangle below your design path.

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  1. Select both the rectangle and your design path and choose “Path” > “Difference”.

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  1. Select the resulting path object and choose “Path” > “Break Apart” to produce multiple path objects for each region of the design.

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  1. Using the select tool, click near the corner of the whole rectangle to select the rectangle object.
  2. Delete the outer rectangle you just selected.

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  1. Select all the objects that are left over and choose “Path” > “Union”.

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Tested using Inkscape 0.48.4

Very cool question, by the way!

Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Monk , Answer Author : Sean

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