Trace or Vectorize Tool Still Missing?

[moebis]

I can't believe we've paid for 2 versions of Affinity Designer over the last number of years, and here I see 2.1 out hoping they finally listened to the community and included a bitmap to vector tracing tool. Nope. A technology 30 years old and existing in CorelDRAW on Windows 3.1 is still missing from a modern graphics and design suite? Even the open source community has had many solutions for almost as long as Corel and Adobe. AI tools are now being released to vectorize bitmaps. How can you call this a line art, structured graphics design tool when we can't even access vectorizing tools? Bizarre. You realize half of logo design in the industry has been done like this in Illustrator for decades, and you want to compete? Speaking of AI, Adobe is embracing it, I don't see anything new or revolutionary from Serif. One of the reasons I switched off of Adobe and to Affinity Suite years ago was because I believes in this scrappy company and they would at least listen to us. Look at the 5+ years old threads where we were begging for vector tracing tools, and we simply ignored. We still paid to upgrade to 2.0, and now I see 2.1 with really nothing big.

[LibOne]

I would like to see this tool too. Even in more basic form without the AI for now (which possibly be upgraded later).

Of course AI would be a great feature but Im afraid its not possible in this conditions. Serif doesn't have the manpower of Adobe. But.. on the other side, implementing an AI would be a great strategy to jump the Affinity popularity. It has to be done sooner or later anyway (if we dont want the Affinity to stay behind all others in the near future). 

[moebis]

48 minutes ago, LibOne said:

I would like to see this tool too. Even in more basic form without the AI for now (which possibly be upgraded later).

Of course AI would be a great feature but Im afraid its not possible in this conditions. Serif doesn't have the manpower of Adobe. But.. on the other side, implementing an AI would be a great strategy to jump the Affinity popularity. It has to be done sooner or later anyway (if we dont want the Affinity to stay behind all others in the near future). 

Vector tracing has been done since the 16 bit days. It's not rocket science. Serif pretending like it would take an army to implement a feature that other packages have had for over 30 years is just bizarre. No line art tool is complete without a bitmap vector tracing tool. It should have been in version 1. The community was very vocal about it, they chose to ignore us, charge for a version 2 upgrade and give us vector flood fill? Are you kidding me?

[LibOne]

11 minutes ago, moebis said:

Vector tracing has been done since the 16 bit days. It's not rocket science. Serif pretending like it would take an army to implement a feature that other packages have had for over 30 years is just bizarre. No line art tool is complete without a bitmap vector tracing tool. It should have been in version 1. The community was very vocal about it, they chose to ignore us, charge for a version 2 upgrade and give us vector flood fill? Are you kidding me?

True. There are even some nice open-source bitmap tracers, so its not a problem with know-how. As you said its a basic feature for vector software, so Im not sure why devs don't want to add this.

[IPv6]

https://www.visioncortex.org/vtracer/

[RNKLN]

People want Affinity products to do this tracing suggesting that every other graphical program does this. I've tried a number of programs (Pixelmator Pro, Logoist) as well as the websites suggested above as well as others. They all do a half decent job. For instance, the attachment is the result of making use of the website suggested by IPv6 (Thanks for sharing. I can now bookmark yet another one which promises to do this 😀). The rectangles in the flag are not created as rectangles but curves with many nodes. This is not good enough for me (I would create a few rectangles manually, rotate them, etc.). In case it is good enough for you (could be anybody), why not make use of such websites, import the result in AD/APh and move on with your workflow? Is it really that important that this exercise is performed inside of Affinity (note that, many years ago, I also gave a suggestion on this forum to include this. I've decided to wait until Affinity comes with something superior to everything else. I'm patient.)?

 

 

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[PaoloT]

2 hours ago, RNKLN said:

They all do a half decent job.

I'm not using image tracing in my everyday job, but I need to vectorize a bitmap from time to time. As a former Illustrator user I've usually tried that one, and recently also tried to deal with Inkscape. The type of image I use is usually flat and "technical", so I always end up preferring manual tracing, than editing the thousand nodes created by the automatic function.

Maybe this is the reason I can't fully understand why people more skilled than me with drawing apps can't copy and paste an image from a dedicated tracing program to Designer. The arrogance with which some reclaim this feature sounds more like kids pretending a toy, than professionals trying to optimize their workflow.

Paolo

 

[jwst]

I don't have a problem using a separate vectorizer, such as the one in Inkscape.  It's a one-off conversion process, so it is not disruptive for me to do the vectorization and then import it into Affinity.  In these days of rapidly developing AI, and also the specialist nature of vectorizing I can see a valid reason for leaving that process to an external application.

However ... when I saw the Vector Flood Fill tool announced for AD2.1 I did have hopes it would work like Inkscape's - in other words Vector Flood Fill even in bitmaps.  For certain cases the Inkscape vector fill is much better for achieving a good vector result than using the actual vectorizing function.

So I am disappointed that the new Vector Flood Fill tool in AD2.1 doesn't fill bitmaps.

[moebis]

33 minutes ago, jwst said:

I don't have a problem using a separate vectorizer, such as the one in Inkscape.  It's a one-off conversion process, so it is not disruptive for me to do the vectorization and then import it into Affinity.  In these days of rapidly developing AI, and also the specialist nature of vectorizing I can see a valid reason for leaving that process to an external application.

However ... when I saw the Vector Flood Fill tool announced for AD2.1 I did have hopes it would work like Inkscape's - in other words Vector Flood Fill even in bitmaps.  For certain cases the Inkscape vector fill is much better for achieving a good vector result than using the actual vectorizing function.

So I am disappointed that the new Vector Flood Fill tool in AD2.1 doesn't fill bitmaps.

Well, since the lack of a vectorizer doesn't impact you, and you really couldn't care if impact others, then why do you even care about a lacking flood fill tool in Affinity Designer? Just use Inkscape. You already stated it's not a problem to use another external application. And I don't mind using another tool to do flood fill, so my workflow should apply to you too. 🙄

[RNKLN]

Not sure, but I see vectoring a raster image as a one off activity, while using vector fill may be something you'd like to do multiple times until your design is complete. In this case it would justify having the flood fill tool in Affinity.

By the way, I'd love to see Serif adding vectorisation, as long as they do a very good job, better than some of the alternatives I've seen.

[Twolane]

In any event, it doesn't matter whether Affinity comes up with a specific tool, or not. Because reasons:

• an implementation must be based on AI
• in more basic form without the AI
• rectangles are not created as rectangles but curves with many nodes. This is not good enough
• adding vectorisation, as long as they do a very good job

As we all no doubt know, it won't matter when/if Serif adds the tool. As with most of their tools, according to posters throughout this forum, none of them are good enough. Funny, that, considering the number of users who are quite satisfied. Oh well. Whatev. I have things to do.