Image Tracing workaround

[MichaelKing]

I read that Image Tracing is on the list of feature requests.  Is there a workaround that we can use until the feature is made available in the product?  I'm working on hand lettering and would like to be able to digitize it using Affinity Designer.  I searched the forum but don't see any suggestions for workarounds.

 

Thanks,

Mike

[Callum]

Hi Mike,

 

Welcome to the Forums :)

 

The below video shows you how to manually trace in Affinity Designer which is our only work around at the moment. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91mnE8fLDJg

 

Thanks

Callum

[Alfred]

Inkscape has a very capable image tracing feature. Its native file format is SVG, so it's easy to use the output in Affinity Designer.

[MEB]

Hi MichaelKing,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

There's a couple threads about this subject you may want to take a look (including suggestions for third party products):

- Vector art conversion

- [ADe] JPEG, bitmap tracing to covert to vector

[PixelPest]

I´m  used to use Inkscape´s Potrace over a decade now and it never fails on me. Unfortunately the future of Inkscape on MacOS is dark.

 

Cheers

P.

[Fixx]

Handtracing is best if you need quality result (like font production does).

[MichaelKing]

Thanks for all the suggestions.  I've tried inkscape and a tool called Image Vectorizer.  I've found that for what I'm trying to do, Fixx's suggestion of hand tracing actually works best.  I get better control on the points on the curves and I can adjust them better.  

 

Thanks again!

[v_kyr]

I think Image Vectorizer is probably an older version of Super Vectorizer or the like here, at least these do look somehow similar.

 

Yes hand tracing gives still the most flexibility, but it's sadly also a very time consuming task, especially for complexer drawings.

 

I'm actually trying out some tracing algorithms under Windows with GDI+ for a little own quick tracing tool...

• 

...but as so often, there is always too little time left for this one, beside the main daily bread & butter dev work. So it might never leave the actual prototype state!

[MikeW]

Handtracing is best if you need quality result (like font production does).

Er, I still start out with a trace for most fonts. It simply automates a good portion of the grunt work. Nodes can be removed and the design be made holistic after getting the output into whatever I am using for the font.