Break apart objects

[vitaprimo]

I've spent several hours now reading the help and searching online how to break apart objects but I haven't been able to come up with anything. The closest I've gotten is to opening the curves at the nodes but that automatically breaks other stuff and previously empty areas automatically are filled. I've tried just going with it and duplicate stuff to punch the areas empty again but it doesn't work, instead everything disappears except for what I'm trying to fill--I mean, void actually. See:

 

This is the original:

 

When I break it apart using the nodes areas get filed and and worst of all is that they are grouped in some weird manner that they move together even if they are "physically" not.

I've also tried just using the pen tools to draw a line as some sort of a knife and cut at that point but the end result was the same.

 

I think I've reached desperate status now.

[gdenby]

Hi, vitaprimo,

 

Not surprising you are getting desperate. AD has a way of forming shapes that can be hard to understand.

 

Illustrated, a donut shape circle. The shape converted to curves, those self divided, which results in 2 filled circles. This happens whenever objects w. holes in them are self divided. But the last part of the illustration shows that the hole can be remade by subtracting the smaller circle from the larger circle on the layer below.

 

 

Your file seems rather complex, and there are other unexpected things happening. I suppose there are at least 2 other problems you are running into.  At present, AD does not have a knife tool, and a simple stroke will not work. You can make a stroke, and expand it, and then do a subtraction.

 

 

Hope this helps.

[vitaprimo]

Thanks for you help, I saw it earlier in the day but didn't had enough time--I'm going to try it right away.

I did find something about closing nodes on each shape but it was very very vague and when I tried it, well, you've seen my results. If anything else fails I'm going to manually retrace everything with the pen as if it were a sketch and be done with it, maybe it's even better. It'd take much more time per import though. Thanks again!