For anyone that is interested, I ended up doing some post processing of the analysis mesh/es in illustrator. Thanks to my friend Chris Landau for pointing me in the direction of this illustrator script. This was a reasonably effective workflow for the purposes of solving the initial problem. (in reviewing this post, it seems a bit lengthy, but hopefully it’s of use to others).
Link to Illustrator Script example:
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/508138
Portion I used: This applies to entire illustrator document. I am using Illustrator CC 64 bit and this worked okay. Tested a few times and it failed once, but a restart of Illustrator fixed it.
var v_selection = app.activeDocument.pathItems;
SwapFillStroke(v_selection);
function SwapFillStroke(objSel) {
for(k = 0; k < objSel.length; k++){
var subSel = objSel[k];
var c_fill = subSel.fillColor;
var c_stroke = subSel.strokeColor;
subSel.fillColor = c_stroke;
if(!subSel.stroked)
subSel.stroked = true;
subSel.strokeColor = c_fill;
}
}
redraw();
My goal was to export colored geometry, (analysis meshes for example), from Rhino and get it into illustrator with solid fills.
If you want to know how meshes are colored in rhino…there are many explanations here on the forum, a quick search will get you more detailed information.
Short version: export your lines from rhino to illustrator and run the script listed above to make the stroke color the fill color. (in illustrator, shift+X will swap the fill and stroke colors on individual objects, but does not work on multiple objects…hence the need for the script).
Detailed Version:
In my case, I had 2 case studies I was working with.
1 - wind rose meshes generated from Ladybug/honeybee
2 - A mesh terrain that was colored by pre-set slope values.
NOTE: There are a few plugins to bake objects with color. I used Human tools, (Bake Geometry and JustifiedText3D).
http://www.grasshopper3d.com/group/human (lots of other great stuff in there too!)
I had two types of geometry. (2 different definitions)
1- An analysis mesh, (HoneyBee/LadyBug),
2 - Lines generated from mesh faces. (mesh terrain/slope values).
Export results as a DXF, and choose “do not explode”. (these were my settings)
DXF seemed to produce the most consistent results.
(you could export/save as an AI file and just open them in illustrator, but that seemed to give inconsistent results with the script).
Open DXF in Illustrator:
Apply Script in illustrator:
In the terrain example, there are only 5 colors, so selection in illustrator, by color, is very easy. In the results from honeybee/ladybug, (or any analysis process I imagine), the default colors are created with a much wider range of values. I presume the legend is then created by an average of those values within a range. My point is that, with the analysis results, selecting objects by color in Illustrator is probably not a very effective workflow.
I only tested this on my instance of rhino and Illustrator. mileage may vary.
In summation, at this point, it seems that the best way to get colored mesh faces, into illustrator, is to export the meshes, (which really ends up being the mesh face edges…curves), and bringing them into illustrator and running a quick script to swap the colors. Once that is complete, you can then select ALL the objects, and change the stroke color/weight at once.
