hi, how can I delete the lines inside of the heart in attached pic. its for my laser cutting machine. something so simple yet I cant do.

many thanks
Gareth

You want only the heart?

In this case, I would suggest tracing it with the Pen or Pencil tool. It would be too tedious to convert the image to vector, and then do the node editing to remove the other lines....for only a simple heart.

Well, unless that's a screenshot of vector paths? If you have an SVG file with that drawing, and if you can share it with us.... Well for a couple of reasons. (1) That heart might already be by itself, and maybe it's on top of or underneath the other lines. And if it's not separate, (2) one of us could probably separate it from the other lines, faster than explain to you how to do it. Unless you have a lot of this kind of work to do, and this is just the first of several that need this kind of work. Then we'd be glad to explain node editing.

Note that the Eraser tool is NOT a good tool for this job. If you didn't need the vector paths for the cutter, the Eraser tool would probably work. But I would not recommend it for this.

However, unless you need THAT heart and only that heart, it would be far better to just find a heart by itself somewhere. The first thing that comes to mind is using one of the wingding/dingbat type of font.

For example, attached are the characters in a font I have called...well, I can only find the name 4EOVAL, but it's a collection of little Valentine's Day related shapes. There are 2 hearts in there that look similar to the one you want. To get one of the characters made of paths (which you need for the cutter), just convert to paths -- Path menu > Object to Path. Then you'll probably have to ungroup everything. Then you'll be able to select the heart you want. And that's it -- it's all ready for your cutter. (I might be able to attach the font file here, or if the website where I found it is still around, is 4yeo.com) (Well actually, it might have been myfonts.com. But either way, it's free.)

There are other ways, of course. There's an extension which can be used to make hearts, and I know of a tutorial for it. But the hearts it makes aren't shaped like yours. But bottom part is much more stretched downward, and the point is narrower.

I've seen some tutorials for drawing hearts from scratch, but none that are really worth searching out. Although it's been a while since I searched, so maybe someone's made a new one. Just search the internet for "Inkscape heart tutorials".

Beyond that, I'd run right over to OpenClipart.org. It's all free and publich domain artwork, and I imagine there are hundreds, if not thousands of hearts there!

Assuming the heart shape is a seperate object, try:

1. Select the heart

2. Make a duplicate (ctrl-D)

3. Set the stroke of the duplicate to NONE

4. Set the fill colour of the duplicate to any colour

5. Select both the duplicate you just created AND one of the lines that is behind the heart

6. Path > Difference (or ctrl and -)

I hope this works for you.

A perfect heart.

But an empty?
Rather snow filled.

If I read the request correctly, the OP would like to retain all the paths except those within the boundary of the heart shape object.

I rekon I'd use boolean operations with a duplicate of the heart for that.


(download this svg for inspection)

I'd break the resulting paths where they intersect the heart outline, so the laser doesn't need to cut twice.

If the strokes are to be paths, it gets more involved, but the same general idea.

tylerdurden wrote:If I read the request correctly, the OP would like to retain all the paths except those within the boundary of the heart shape object.

It's true, he didn't mention wanting the heart only. But based on the screenshot (it's not clear what the whole drawing looks like, and the portion we see seems somewhat chaotic), and stated goal for laser cutting, I could only imagine the heart being alone.

But it's possible he or she does want the other lines. In that case, I agree with you for the solution

Heart symbol:- ♡ Copy it, paste it into a document and select it, then right click to change the font size to what you want.

Lazur URH wrote:A perfect heart.

But an empty?
Rather snow filled.

Sometimes, It's dangerous to have an empty heart, specially on these dates.

On topic:
As always, I request for the svg file, or a sample of it

Greetings