All Boolean Path Operations in Inkscape Explained (with Examples)

if we take a look up here inside the path menu we have two sections of operations here which are known as Boolean operations Boolean operations work on multiple shapes or paths at a time and they make life much easier when creating Vector designs allowing us to do things like combine shapes with other shapes separate different parts of shapes and cut shapes out of other shapes however it's not always clear exactly what each operation does and with so many different ones to choose from it can be difficult to decide which one to use in a given situation so let's go through them one by one and see if we can dispel some of the mystery behind them first is Union if we have two or more overlapping shapes selected and we perform the union operation it turns the shapes into a single path combining their nodes together if the objects were different colors the New Path takes the color from what was originally the bottommost object if we do a union on objects that aren't overlapping it still turns them into a single object as we can see by the single bounding box around them but instead of combining the objects into one big path it keeps them as separate subpaths within the object this is similar to grouping objects except all subpaths in an object must have the same color information a good use of Union would be creating a cloud sheet shape out of a bunch of overlapping ellipses next if we select two overlapping shapes again we can use the difference operation to cut the top shape out of the bottom one it also completely removes the top shape so if the shapes aren't overlapping difference would just delete the shape that has the higher stacking order all right now I have this Cloud shape again that I created using Union and let's say I want to add some shading to the bottom right of the cloud to do this I can first duplicate the cloud and make it a darker gray this will be my shading path then I can duplicate again now make this one a different color just so I'll be able to see it better then I'll move it up and to the left a bit I now want to remove the entire top path and the part of the shading path the top path is overlapping to do this I can select both the top path and the shading path and go to path difference for another example I want to cut all the small circles out of the big circle so that I can see the background through it now unfortunately difference only works on two selected objects at a time so if I select all of the circles and try difference it doesn't give me the result that I want so one thing I can do is I can go one by one cutting each small circle out of the big one this is fine when I only have a few objects to work with but let's say I wanted to cut a dozen small circles out of the big one doing them one at a time would get pretty tedious so instead what I can do is I can first perform the unit operation on all of the small circles which will turn them into a single object I can then cut the object out of the big circle in one go with the next operation intersection we can get just the overlapping parts of the selected shapes and like with Union the resulting path takes the colors of the bottommost object if we do intersection on not overlapping shapes it will just remove the shapes completely since there aren't any overlapping parts to keep intersection is really useful for creating leaves for example I have these two overlapping circles here and if I select them both and go to path intersection All That Remains is just the intersecting Leaf shaped piece all right and again I have the cloud shape that I created earlier along with the shading that I created using difference and now I want to add a highlight to the top of the cloud I could again use difference to do this the same way I did with the shading except I would use a white duplicate and put it at the top left but this doesn't give me much control over the shape of the Highlight as we can see with the shading it has the exact same curves as the body of the cloud which doesn't look very natural so instead I can use the pin tool to create a path for the Highlight I'm holding down shift here to create a corner I now want to bring the path up around the top of the cloud so that it completely overlaps the top then click the first Point again to close the path this is going to be for the highlight so I'll make it white I now want to get just the part of the Highlight path that is overlapping the cloud to do this I'll first duplicate the cloud path then I'll select both the duplicate and the Highlight path and go to path intersection okay the next operation exclusion is kind of like the opposite of intersection as it'll remove only the overlapping parts of the shapes it also combines the shapes together using exclusion on non- overlapping objects will just turn them into subpaths like Union does here I have a vector silhouette of a rabbit with some text overlapping it and I want to cut this part of the text out of the rabbit to do this I can select both objects and go to path exclusion and this is a single path now so I can easily change the color of the entire thing next we have division division is similar to difference in that it will cut the top shape out of the bottom one however it also leaves the overlapping Parts as separate paths using division on non- overlapping objects just removes the one with the higher stacking order like with difference with division I can easily create something like a pie chart for example the next operation cut path does almost the same thing as division except it only cuts the bottom shape stroke into pieces completely removing its fill color using cut path on nonoverlapping objects we'll delete the top one and remove the fill of the bottom one next is the combine operation like with Union we can use combine to turn multiple objects into a single object however unlike Union even if the objects are overlapping they will become subpaths we can see that they're subpaths because they have separate strokes and we can use the node tool to move them apart this also means that combine works well with overlapping objects that only have a stroke whereas Union does not for example if if I select these line segments here and do a union on them the line segments disappear however if I instead do combine on them they all remain intact combine is useful with both the division operation and the cut path operation this is because Division and cut path like difference only work on two objects at a time for example let's say I wanted to use all of these line segments to cut the circle into fragments if I just select everything and go to path division it only uses one of the line segments to cut the circle but if I first select all of the line segments and do path combine I can then use the new object to cut the circle into fragments similarly I could use cut path to cut the circle stroke into fragments after combined we have a break apart break apart is basically the opposite of combin as it will separate subpaths into individual objects for example if we take some shapes and combine them together into a single object and later decide that we want to separate them again we can use break apart one Nuance with break apart though is that if we have a path with enclosed empty areas like this and we do break aart on it it will also fill in the empty areas and we now actually have multiple paths one big filled in path and a separate path for each of the enclosed areas that were filled in as an example of when I might use break apart I had this circle here again with holes punched out which I created earlier and now I want to fill in all of the holes to do this I can first go to path break apart and I don't need all the extra small paths so I can turn everything into a single path by going to path Union and now I just have to filled in big circle the next operation split path is also for separating sub paths however if the sub paths are overlapping split path has no effect but if we make it so the sub paths aren't overlapping and perform split path it separates them another difference between split path and break apart is that if we do split path on an object with enclosed empty areas it won't fill in those areas if you want to separate the letters of some text split path is usually the better option for example if I do break AP part on the text it does separate the letters but it also fills in the empty areas inside some letters like the A's and the O's which is probably not what we want but if I instead do split path on the text it separates the letters without filling them in next up we have fracture if we use fracture on some overlapping shapes it uses the overlapping parts to cut the shapes into fragments as we saw earlier if we wanted to use some line segments to cut a shape into fragments we could use the division operation but because division only works on two selected objects at a time we would first have to select all the line segments and combine them into a single object with fracture however we can skip the combined step so so I can just select everything and go to path fracture for another example I have my cloud shape again and I want to use this white path here to give it a highlight to do this earlier I first duplicated the cloud path then I performed the intersection operation between the duplicate and the white path another way to do it is to select both the cloud path and the white path and do fracture on them I can now deselect everything and delete this extra white piece here keep in mind however that this method also removes the overlap parts of objects so if that's not what you want it would be better to use the intersection method all right the final Boolean path operation we have is flatten if we do flatten on some overlapping shapes it appears that nothing has happened but if we now separate the shapes we can see that are removed all the the overlapped parts this is similar to the difference operation except it can be used on more than two objects at a time and it also doesn't delete the top objects for an example of when I might use flatten I have a small circle centered on top of a big circle here and I want to cut the small circle out of the big one however I also want to keep the small circle so that I can shrink it down more and create something like a Target design to do this I can select both circles and go to path flatten and now I can scale down the smaller Circle while holding shift and control to keep it centered and proportional all right so those were inkscape's Boolean path operations if you were confused about any of them before I really hope this video helped to clear up some things thanks for [Music] [Music] watching

Channel: Sweater Cat Designs

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Keywords: vector, graphic design, digital art, guide, complete, course

Id: Xr8HqSwqn2E

Length: 13min 31sec (811 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 19 2023