How to crop a vector design ?



  • I'm trying to crop small portions of large vector designs obtained through image trace + shape effects. The design is quite 'messy' due to the way it was obtained. I'm cropping parts of it to use it as a basis for the next iteration (I don't want to crop the original image used for tracing as I don't know the part I want to select in the end)

    I'm using Intersect Combine Path function, with a rectangle shape to crop the design. It works often, but also fails often and I cannot find why.

    I flattened all shape effects, I used the simplify path feature to remove extra nodes.

    In this video, you can see that Intersect boolean doesn't work with filled shapes, but works when fill is transparent : https://somup.com/cT11QiL1Or

    Any suggestion for cropping vector designs ?

    I'm attaching the file (compressed) : 0_1749201638156_croptest2.vstyler.zip


  • administrators

    @EricP There might be a bug here, I get the same issues.


  • administrators

    @EricP The problem occurs because there are a lot of very thin small objects in this trace result, and intersection breaks with these (this is a bug that I will try to fix).

    Was this traced in VectorStyler?

    But there is a workaround:

    • open the Magic Wand panel and expand it (with the knob in the title).
    • disable the Inside View option in the panel menu.
    • disable all, and enable the Thinness option.
    • select the magic wand tool and click on one of these thin shapes.

    0_1749205290652_thincase.png

    • there should be over 14000 of these.
    • delete all these small shapes.
    • also: remove the stroke from all these objects
    • then intersection should work.

    I will try to improve the intersection to better handle these thin cases.



  • @VectorStyler thank you, that worked well. I learnt a new trick with the magic wand thinness

    Yes it was traced within VS

    could you please let us know what the thinness selection is looking for specifically ? is it a ratio between height and width of the shape ?

    Also, I often have trouble with selecting shapes within groups. I often end up ungrouping them for the sake of the selection but there may be a better way. I've tried the deep selector but it does not always work well in tandem with Magic Wand


  • administrators

    @EricP said in How to crop a vector design ?:

    is it a ratio between height and width of the shape ?

    Yes, something like this.

    I often end up ungrouping them for the sake of the selection but there may be a better way. I'v

    Double click the group and that will isolate for selection.