SVG Export in QCad 3

[hungerburg]

The ChangeLog lists enhancements of SVG Export. Will that also include a reduction in the number of entities? Currently for example curves and circles are described as very many straight lines. The resulting files can become of a ridiculous size, that makes them unusable for distribution for illustrative purposes. I consider SVG (and pdf as a consequence) not the medium to describe measurably exact technical information, that is what DXF and DWG are for, but to give an intermediate impression. Is it unreasonable to expect, a small filesize SVG that is not too far from drawing standards? What stance do you take here, Andrew?

[andrew]

We've decided to provide two different SVG export options for QCAD3:

1. Export resembles original drawing as closely as possible. With this option, the SVG displays texts as lines and arcs, each dashed entity is exported as a group of separate, small line segments to render the exact same dash pattern as QCAD, etc. Exported files tend to be large but preserve the exact rendering. This is usually used for presentation (we use this for the figures in the QCAD book).

2. Export provides as much geometrical information as possible. With this option, the SVG will not render identical as the CAD drawing but tries to preserve as much of the original data as possible. This is usually used for further processing.

QCAD 2 interpolates some entities with line segments. QCAD 3 will export NURBS curves as a set of bezier curves (SVG limitation) and circles as circles unless the circle is dashed and the first option is chosen. If you can send files to us, we can produce some example output with both options: info [at] ribbonsoft [dot] com.