De-embed Polygons

Removes inner polygons from surrounding outer polygons, creating holes. This is the inverse of “Extract Holes.”

When to Use

• When imported data has separate “hole” polygons drawn on top of filled areas
• To convert stacked opaque layers into proper cutout geometry
• When converting from formats without native hole support to formats that support holes

Options

Option	Description	Default
Selected layers only	Process only selected layers	Off

How It Works

1. Identifies polygons that are completely contained within other polygons on the same layer
2. Subtracts the inner polygon from the outer polygon
3. The inner polygon is removed, leaving a hole in the outer polygon

Before:

┌─────────────┐
│  ┌───────┐  │
│  │ inner │  │
│  └───────┘  │
│    outer    │
└─────────────┘

After:

┌─────────────┐
│  ┌ ─ ─ ─ ┐ │
│  │ (hole) │ │
│  └ ─ ─ ─ ┘ │
│    outer    │
└─────────────┘

Technical Notes

• Only polygons fully contained within another polygon are de-embedded
• Partially overlapping polygons are not affected — use Layer Boolean instead
• Multiple levels of nesting are handled (holes within holes create islands)