Labview into Illustrator

[Wheels]

Does anyone know how I can take a plot or graph from Labview and paste it into Adobe Illustrator in such a way that I can individually access the objects (e.g. lines) in the plot. In other words, I do not want a solid object in Illustrator. I did this once but cannot remember how.

[altenbach]

RIght-click...data operation...export simplified image. Select enhanced metafile(emf) and export to clipboard.

I am not familiar with adobe illustrator, but in coreldraw I simply paste the clipboard. Then I can unmerge to get to the individual parts, change line width, line color, delete decorations, etc..

[mikeporter]

To get an image that actually looks like the graph that's on the screen:

1. Create an invoke node for the graph.
2. Select the Get Image method.
3. Wire the output of this node to the VI Write JPG File.vi. (There's also a VI for saving to a BMP if you so prefer.)
   
4. Import the image file into Illustrator.

If you want to see how these VI's work together look at the code in the report generation VI Append Control Image to Report.vi. Hope this helps...

Mike...

[Yi Y]

Altenbach's way works, or it can be done programmatically using the Export to Image Method.  This method can export the graph to 4 different formats--BMP, EPS, EMF and PICT.  Right click on the graph indicator on the block diagram, go to Create->Invoke Node->Export Image.

[mikeporter]

However, that only works with certain types of objects, and provides less control over the image. In addition it doesn't support JPGs and the image it creates is horrible... The method I presented works with any control or indicator, provides greater control over the image, creates an image that looks just llike the one on the screen and if you want to save space with a JPG you can. As a point of comparison, I took a graph of the default size and exported an image of it using both technique. The BMP was 227k and looked like a line drawing with no color. The JPG was in color and was 18k.

Mike...

[Yi Y]

Excuse my nerdiness for a minute here.

NerdMode->Start();

/*
EMF is Microsoft's vector graphics format.  It allows graphics to be saved such that each piece of the image is an individual piece that can be manipulated in an editing environment that supports vector graphics, such as Adobe Illustrator.  The image exported from LabVIEW does not export color information of each vector in the file, but the color or each vector can be changed easily, as the colors are not defined pixel by pixel as in BMP, but defined programmatically and then rendered to display on screen.  The difference between BMP and EMF is somewhat similar to the difference between WAV and MIDI.
Whereas LabVIEW does export JPG for most front pannel controls, it only export EMF for certain controls, such as the ones under the Graph palette, due to the limitation of LabVIEW's ability to produce vector graphics (afterall, LabVIEW is not a graphics software).
The reason BMP files are so big is because BMP is an uncompressed image format.  No matter how many colors are in a BMP image, it's going to be the same file size as long as the dimension of the image is the same.  JPG on the other hand, is a lossy compression format, which allows it to compress based on the color variations that happens in an image.  For example, if you have a jpg image that's filled with noise and another image that's 2-3 solid color, the one with solid color is going to compress a lot smaller than the noisy one.  However, in the case of LabVIEW graphs, since the graphics and color involved is so simple, JPG compresses really well, and the file size is consequently very small.
For more information on image compression, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_compression  For more information about EMF, http://www.fileinfo.net/extension/emf
*/

NerdMode->Stop();