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AutoTrace (convert raster image to vector)


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I would be another fan of an autotrace function! Knowing that you need a good contrasting image to start in the first place, but that is what I have: nice clear black/white pen drawings on paper. Would be great to be able to autotrace instead of manually trace.

Loes

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I wouldn't give my +1 to this.  But maybe embedding the open source Potrace would save work hours ?  Might be license issues, as right know can't remember if license is GPL or another.  (a BSD license would allow anything)

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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  • Staff

We already have a full tracing engine that we used within the more recent drawPlus versions - it's actually pretty good, but there are a few flaws that actually add up to being enough of a problem that we were unhappy to include it at present. We'd rather include no tracing functionality at all until we have something we can be proud of - it's just the way that we like to work :) If we weren't happy, then within a few hours you'd see why and then you'd be unhappy too - and that's not what anybody wants...

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Autotrace will probably be a 2.x feature rather than a 1.x one. That's why we haven't put it in our roadmap. In other words, it's still years away.

Years away? Wow! I've been waiting to buy Affinity Designer (I already have Photo) just for this reason, but at this point I won't wait any longer. Just bought Super Vectorizer, limited but better than nothing or than an expensive solution. Too bad, if it was going to be implemented soon I'd have bought Designer.

 

And I've created this account just to give my opinion on this topic.

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Years away? Wow! I've been waiting to buy Affinity Designer (I already have Photo) just for this reason, but at this point I won't wait any longer. Just bought Super Vectorizer, limited but better than nothing or than an expensive solution. Too bad, if it was going to be implemented soon I'd have bought Designer.

 

And I've created this account just to give my opinion on this topic.

 

If that is the only feature that would have been of use to you, you made the correct choice (though I would have recommended Vector Magic).

 

AD for most people has a far wider utility. 

 

Mike

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Quite much agreeing... I'd be fine , quite, with just some clever use of Potrace if were only interested in that, which is free, and I used it even for professional projects... And yep, AD is waay much more than just a single-feature tool, like a tracer... (heck, that while I keep thinking is best to do the tracing by hand... )

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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Using inkscape and importing the trace back into Designer. It works!

 

By the way, Potrace is the open source tracing engine that is included in Inkscape. Glad to see someone made a Mac-native version.

+1 on the Live Trace request

 

I didn't know Inkscape had this feature. I think I will take a look at this, thanks.

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It has it, and I have resorted to that to every project where I needed it. Tip: You need to play a royal lot with settings to get what you want, and very much recommended for most uses to later on do an auto optimize (inkscape feature), and maybe clean ups and/or manually fix yourself some areas. Is proved to me very useful, you only need to find your best way (depending on what you are doing, you will need one or another tracing method of what Potrace allows. I suspect the command line tool is more flexible than embedded like in inkscape). I for example often just trace in two colors, not in those bazillion colored areas chunks. I do very rarely need tracing (mostly for a cheapo job of half an afternoon where tracing is one of the steps), but from time to time I output so a silhouette pretty fast.  The "need" for it is not such, IMO. There's a collection of methods, both raster or vector, or mixed, to get a good silhouette shape from a photo, if one so badly needs that...

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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This is the one deal breaker feature for me that has prevented me from switching to Affinity Designer.

Illustrator had had this feature since at least 2006. Even Inkscape has it. It is a key part of my workflow.

This thread is from 2014. Has some progress been made one this? 

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This is the one deal breaker feature for me that has prevented me from switching to Affinity Designer.

Illustrator had had this feature since at least 2006. Even Inkscape has it. It is a key part of my workflow.

This thread is from 2014. Has some progress been made one this? 

 

I'm somehow sure that when something is cooking they will show it,  just as they did with Symbols and light UI.

 

Illustrator had had this feature since at least 2006

 

 

Yes, but in the 18 years before the total nothingness...  :)

You had to purchase Adobe Streamline

The white dog, making tools for artists, illustrators and doodlers

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I'm somehow sure that when something is cooking they will show it,  just as they did with Symbols and light UI.

 

 

Yes, but in the 18 years before the total nothingness...  :)

You had to purchase Adobe Streamline

 

After getting over the initial frustration over the lack of that feature, I softened up a bit and changed my perspective. Just purchased the software and started using it.

 

And, Wow! I am truly humbled. This software is profound. Next generation of vector drawing. Bravo developers. Work on what ever features you want. Thank you for this truly amazing software.

 

I feel rather silly to have such a tremendous change of heart, but I was just ignorantly griping about one feature. Using the software is very fluid. I am seriously impressed.

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Fully agreeing with  the above post   :D

And for the tracing matter, I'd recommend the potrace/inkscape route whenever you need a task like that. Then export the traced file and import in Designer or Photo to continue working. As I mention in this post.

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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This is a no brainer to me. In fact, I bought Affinity Designer thinking as a professional piece of software it would surely have this feature. What a complete let down. Being a "few years away" is really unacceptable for such a high demand feature. One star for the app store. Get your act together guys and let me know when you put your big boy pants on.

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This is a no brainer to me. In fact, I bought Affinity Designer thinking as a professional piece of software it would surely have this feature. What a complete let down. Being a "few years away" is really unacceptable for such a high demand feature. One star for the app store. Get your act together guys and let me know when you put your big boy pants on.

CNMiles,

 

CS 2 is when Illustrator first got the ability to vectorize raster files. Before then you had to use Streamline to do it. So for 18 years of its existence Illustrator wasn't wearing "big boy" pants? 

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Fixx,

 

I completely agree with you. Sure in a production environment there are occasions where I would use it (if a customers sends me a terrible low-res jpeg and won't pay for it to be re-made) but for anything else, I would trace it or redraw it because it would be much better than simple auto-tracing. I've never seen an auto-trace program that was as good as a skilled artist. Sure there are times when they are close (simple black and white logos) but normally they can't compete with drawing by a person. If you want something to look the best, then do it the best way (which isn't auto-tracing). 

 

Hokusai

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Exactly, word by word, it is just like that.

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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