SVG Splitter

Split a single SVG file into multiple SVG files, each file containing one single SVG element.

This can be used to produce importable files for Tinkercad.

Installation

Requirements:

• Node.js (Version 16+) - this will also install npm
• Optional: Windows Terminal or use your pre-installed terminal

Run node -v (or nodejs -v) in your terminal to check if you meet the preconditions. The installation of this tool is straightforward:

npm install -g svg-split

Check if svg-split has installed successfully by starting the programme:

svg-split

Usage

You will need to draw a SVG file first. For Inkscape it is best to make all object coordinates absolute by selecting all paths in your SVG (Ctrl + A) and using "Object > Transform", de-select "Relative Mode" and select "Apply to each" before hitting "Apply".

Being a command line tool, you will need to open a terminal every time you want to use svg-split:

svg-split YOUR_SVG_FILE.svg

This will split up the SVG file into multiple SVG files, and put these into your current directory. It will also generate an index.html which allows you to check all SVG files that have been generated.

If the number of objects in your SVG file is odd, and there is a single rectangle present, this rectangle will be used to make an inverse SVG of the SVG paths it encloses. This can be used to build cookie cutters.

These SVG files can be imported into Tinkercad - or used in any other way you can think of.

Advanced usage

The second parameter of svg-split allows to output all output files to a different output directory:

svg-split YOUR_SVG_FILE.svg output/

This will create all new files in the subfolder output.

The third parameter lets you filter all SVG elements by colours. If you only want to export a part of your SVG paths, use a fill our stroke colour and give this colour as the third parameter. All other paths will be ignored.

svg-split YOUR_SVG_FILE.svg output/ red

This will export only red SVG elements.

If filter is prefixed with - the filter is reversed: Only parts with the string not present will be exported.

Status

Legal stuff

Author: Frank Boës

Copyright & license: See LICENSE.txt

As stated in the LICENSE.txt, this tool comes with no warranty and might damage your files.

This software complies with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as it does not collect nor transmits any personal data to third parties.