: Script to get x,y positions from a path in a vector image In the old days, if someone had a scientific graph, then readers would only have access to the rastered image. So if you wanted

@Cugini998

The usual object type for a graph in vector graphic is a path (called pathItem in the Illustrator JavaScript API). It could be one joined ragged line, a smooth bezier curve and sometimes separate straight lines. Depends on the program generating the graph.

I have written a little script to get you started extracting the points from a graph:
#target illustrator

// the current selection
var selection = app.activeDocument.selection;

// create a txt-file for the data
var file = File.saveDialog('Save a comma-separated list of the x and y coordinates of the points of the current selection, relative to the coordinate system of the artboard.', 'Comma-separated values:*.csv');

// enable writing to the file
file.open('w')

// iterate through each selected item
for (var i = 0; i < selection.length; i++) {
var item = selection[i];

// check if selection is a PathItem
if (item.typename === "PathItem") {

// every PathItem has a list of pathPoints
var points = item.pathPoints;

// iterate through each pathPoint of the item
for (var j = 0; j < points.length; j++) {

// the point in document coordinates, relative to the center of the whole document
var documentPoint = points[j].anchor;

// the point converted to artboard coordinates, relative to where you have placed the origin of the coordinate system
var artboardPoint = app.activeDocument.convertCoordinate(documentPoint, app.coordinateSystem, CoordinateSystem.ARTBOARDCOORDINATESYSTEM);

// write the artboard coordinates to the file
file.write(artboardPoint[0] + "," + artboardPoint[1] + "n");
}
}
}

// stop writing to the file and save it
file.close();


The script creates a .csv file containing a comma-separated list of the x and y coordinates of the points of the current selection, relative to the coordinate system of the artboard.

I would recommend first moving the origin of the artboard ruler to the origin of the graph, then select only the graph itself and run the script.

If your graph is made of separate lines, you will get a lot of duplicate points. You could remove them in the .csv file or you could "clean up" your graph first using my script from this answer or integrate the two scripts.

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