# Illustrator Live Paint - Gaps on Expand



## Runefox (Jul 21, 2010)

I figure this would be the best place to ask about this rather than the tech forum. I use Adobe Illustrator CS4 for colouring my artwork via the Live Paint tool. I can export as PNG and so on more or less perfectly, but if I want to save as SVG or "expand" the Live Paint group within Illustrator, I get gaps on intersecting or even just adjacent lines/colours.

An example:






Should look like:





It's not life-threatening to not be able to export back out to SVG, but it is rather annoying, and if I ever start doing commissions on a regular basis, I may want to be able to provide SVG versions of the images I create (if for no other reason than as a "value-added" kind of thing). So, does anyone have any experience with this kind of problem? I've also tried to export/expand it in a version of CS5, but it's more of the same. x_x


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## Riv (Jul 21, 2010)

Illustrator has had problems like this for a while, at least since version 10 (just tested it in that version). I think it's mostly an issue with the maximum positional accuracy of points in an svg. You could try scaling it to a larger size before exporting, which should make the effect less dramatic, or you could use narrow strokes to fill in some of the spaces.

Edit: It also probably wouldn't hurt for you to manually make some of the shapes overlap, and correct some of the odd geometry at the intersections of the black curves


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## Runefox (Jul 21, 2010)

Those are both things that I've tried, but in the case of simply scaling up, it doesn't produce any different results, and in the case of making the shapes overlap, I can do that, but such a feat would take an inordinate amount of time and effort to do, especially considering that there's a whole lot more to the pic than that section. I'd need to edit every node, since just scaling the shapes would cause yet more gaps. x_x As for narrow strokes, again, there's an awful lot of work to be done there, too, and it probably wouldn't look very consistent, particularly where colours/gradients meet.

EDIT: I just had a bit of a brainstorm, and by copying everything and pasting it slightly shifted atop the gapped image, I can get a more or less clear image. But... It's not an ideal workaround, since it increases the complexity (and size) of the file by a factor of two.


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## Riv (Jul 21, 2010)

You may also want to look at "offset path" if illy still has that in CS4, and just set it to a value like 0.1pt. In Illustrator 10 it's under object<Path.


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## Runefox (Jul 21, 2010)

That's done it! Turns out it works great if I first Expand the Live Paint Group, then do two Offset Paths of 0.001pt each and save as SVG with a decimal places precision of 3-4. All smooth!


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