5.77 FAQ-1084 Why is the exported 3D vector graph not editable?

Last Update: 1/21/2021

Origin employs OpenGL to enhance performance and quality of 3D graph by default. However, 3D OpenGL graphs cannot be exported as a "real" vector graph. If you use Copy Page to copy a 3D OpenGL graph from Origin to other application, such as Word, you will find the exported graph get blurred when you enlarge the graph. If you export the 3D graph to a vecotr format, such as EPS format, the exported graph cannot be editted in Photoshop or Illustrator.

For demonstration purpose, we always recommend exporting 3D OpenGL graphs with high resolution (600 or higher) to keep the good quality. If you really want to export the graph as vector format, you can follow the steps in Turn off OpenGL section of this quick help to turn off OpenGL, and then export again. Keep in mind that once you turn off OpenGL, the graph may look very different and some feature only supported in OpenGL version (lighting effect for example) are lost.

If your 3D OpenGL graph contains large dataset, you can set system variable @oglsv = 0 and export the it as EPS format again. This will automatically downgrade the quality of exported EPS to a reasonable level but greatly reduce the size of figure. Alternatively, you can set system variable @oglssb = 1 and try to re-export the graph again. This setting will keep the quality of the exported graph but the size will be larger.

Keywords:EPS, export, 3D, OpenGL, photoshop, illustrator, PS, AI