Inkscape.org
Beginners' Questions Ungrouping fo hours
  1. #1
    Bergman Bergman @Bergman

    Hey, I'm newĀ at InkscapeĀ and I've gotĀ a behavior that I don't know if it's supposed to be like that:
    I madeĀ an SVG in Processing and imported it to Inkscape, it isĀ about 8,000 lines.
    when I try to ungroupĀ all of them (ctrl + shift + g), the software freezesĀ and it completeĀ the ungroupingĀ after 8 hours or so.
    Is Inkscape can't handle thisĀ amount of objects?Ā am I doneĀ something wrong?
    I use version 1.4 in Windows

  2. #2
    Paddy_CAD Paddy_CAD @Paddy_CAD

    No, this is not expected behaviour. I regularly import pdf documents with thousands of paths. There's something in your file structure that's choking Inkscape. Perhaps you can upload a modest sample file (with fewer shapes) for interrogation.

  3. #3
    Lazur Lazur @Lazur

    Yes and no.Ā 

    Inkscape is performing very bad with style attributes. If, say that group had a style attribute -or transformation for that matter- set to it, by ungrouping,Ā 

    everyĀ objectĀ inside will inherit said attribute/transformation in some form.Ā 

    So when ungroping it does go through that 8000 objects.

    As a result, after ungrouping and saving your file, bet it is 10 times its original size.

    You need alot of memory to processĀ that and capable to use the resources at hand -which is yet another part inkscape doesn't hold as a selling point.

    If there isn't much to inherit those group attributes, then I'd try removing the group object tags in the original svg file with a notepad.

    It may work, although when saving it as svg with inkscape after any necessary editing it may want to add more attributes to objectsĀ 

    -for "convenience".Ā 

    Browsers render svg-s at their face values. Inkscape tries to add "useful" information to make it extra clear so it's not a guessing game.