: Generate Difference Looking to invert the path data in an inkscape project. I would like each whitespace to be it's own individual shape (so it can be separately cut out on the laser cutter...)

@Bethany839

One idea that can work:

Fill the white areas with the paint bucket. It creates new colored shapes. You can turn them white. It works even with your linked raster image. See an example:



The Paint bucket has been used nine times. The Fill color can be set in tool options.

The generated shapes can be selected all at the same time for example by color.

As you see they are a little too small because the raster image is a little unsharp. That's the antialiasing. The size of the generated shapes can be enlargened by adding a stroke. Contraction is possible by Path > Inset.

If your image happens to be a raster image, you can also do Path > Trace Bitmap.

BTW. laser cutting results can be interesting. I had ordered a complex cut and got one pailful of nearly same sized, but different metal pieces. The cutter said "Here you are! I quarantee nothing is missing. Use them without any hesitation!"

Something useful (the preceding got obsolete when I finally got the SVG downloaded)

There's nothing mythical in the SVG. It has two level layering that is easily explored in the Objects panel (Object > Objects) See a screenshot:



You can select all roads, convert the strokes to paths (=closed shapes that are of same form and size than the strokes, but not any more easily editable) and make an union or combined path. Then you have one shape that has the form and size of all roads. Plus possible included frames and texts.

Except my Inkscape freezed when I tried it. Its probably caused by my low resource system where I ran Inkscape.

In Illustrator the SVG worked ok. The map consists much larger area than it appears. There's a clipping mask that limits the visible area to a small part.

In Illustrator I tried the following


In the layers panel close all other stuff but the roads
draw a line with the same red as the roads
select all with the same stroke color
copy
paste (scroll to far away to avoid pasting onto the map; it's no use to close the original because it will be opened anyway to be able to be copied)
let the pasted bunch to stay selected. Goto Object > Path > Outline Stroke


Now all roads are closed shapes. Continue


Select the new road bunch, make a compound path
Draw a grey rectangle, send it under the compound path
in pathfinder panel subtract (=Minus Front) the road bunch from the grey rectangle


Now what's remained is the original white area. I had removed (=closed) the rectangles and the texts. Also the clipping mask was released, so the following screenshot consists quite a small part of the total map area. White parts are holes:



There's still traps:


it's extremely complex compound path. Consult with the cutting company can they cope with something this complex (=dense, long thin paths, many of them have only one end fixed)
all cutters that I have met wanted Autocad DXF files. Inkscape generates them unreliably due a known bug. There are difficult to pretend dimension errors. I do not know is it fixed. Illustrator makes proper DXFs.
the sheer complexity of the SVG needs an expert to handle the the conversion to cut-ready file. Knowledge of the cutting process can be needed. Get local help!

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