Can anyone suggest a was to find the approximate total area within all paths?

Some may overlap. E.g. the answer for this:



is 8 sq.mm.

My current solution is to set all to partially transparent black, then in an external program, sum the blackness. Not great.

Hi.

See my Convex-hull script.
http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13622

Run the script and then do an - Extension - Visualize Path - Measure Path - Area.
If you just want the area of the paths themselves - Select all paths - Duplicate - Union - Extension - Visualize Path - Measure Path - Area

Good Luck

RGDS
Ragnar

Thanks Ragnar, but neither method handles overlaps.

There is the object and column function for reorganising the objects to make overlaps disappear in the object menu.

Aha! So a solution is:

To find total area inside all paths (and optionally objects):

1 Save drawing (because the following is destructive)
2 Select all
3 If you want to include objects too, do Path > Object to path)
4 Object > Align and Distribute > Remove overlaps [button]
5 Path > Union
6 Extension > Visualize Path > Measure Path > Area
7 Read results from text that appears in drawing

A quick test shows that works fine. Thanks both!