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Posted
1 hour ago, markinca said:

Interestingly, the conversion website uses a free open source utility called Potrace. I wonder if the AD devs would bring that into the program and save dev time while adding native image tracing capabilities?

No they can't for Potrace due to strict GPL license restrictions here, they would have to buy a commercial license for reusing it in a commercial software product.

Quote

Dual licensing program

  Icosasoft  Logo A non-GPL version of Potrace, called Potrace Professional(TM), is available for integration into proprietary software. Licenses are available from my company, Icosasoft Software Inc. If you wish to purchase a license, or for more information, please write to licensing@icosasoft.ca.

The other services and free tools which make use of Potrace or AutoTrace usually use the GPL license variant, or maybe might have bought a non-GPL version of Potrace.

Further Potrace initially supports just black & white tracing and no color tracing, it also initially doesn't support centerline tracing. But Autotrace supports the later two things here. So a combination of both (like Inkscape uses and which enhanced those) would be good to have then here.

However, if I will find the spare free time, I can offer my refactored and slightly enhanced to nowadays Java building support versions of Delineate. Delineate is a Java based (and thus portable between Win/Mac) GUI-Frontend tool which makes use of the Potrace & AutoTrace CLI command line tools.

del_autotrace_600.jpg.12ef675263752b41ab0fcb43a93754bd.jpgdel_potrace_600.jpg.7cb03c2eb6b362d67cdff63fb05420bd.jpg

del_update_600.jpg.a27e837dc2d3924c4e6ca753b3e0118f.jpg

I've recently adapted, slightly enhanced and rebuild this tracing solution trio (Potrace/Autotrace and Delineate) and all their library dependencies for actual Mac/Win versions. Maybe (though I have to ask @Patrick Connor first, if he gives green light for this step) if it's Ok, I can provide these for the Affinity community as some forum resources addition then.

 

 

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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Posted
1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

if it's Ok, I can provide these for the Affinity community as some forum resources addition then.

Seems like a useful free resource to me, sure 

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

Posted
28 minutes ago, ashf said:

There're other nice images tracer that's affordable

Yes there are recently some newcomer tools in this area, but most of them need a MacOS version >= 10.13 and thus wouldn't be usable on older MacOS systems. - Some of them are now MacOS takeovers of previous plain iOS versions.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

Posted
2 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Yes there are recently some newcomer tools in this area, but most of them need a MacOS version >= 10.13 and thus wouldn't be usable on older MacOS systems. - Some of them are now MacOS takeovers of previous plain iOS versions.

Agree, Catalyst apps are little inconvenient since it requires newer macOS.

But I tried Vector Q on my iPhone and it's decent.
Unlike Adobe Capture, there are some adjustable parameter and app itself has vector editing features.
Good alternative to Adobe Capture if it doesn't work for what you need.
 

Posted
34 minutes ago, ashf said:

But I tried Vector Q on my iPhone and it's decent.

It was one of the first tracing capable apps for iOS, formerly better known as Imaengine then instead of Vector Q!

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

[FOR MAC USER ONLY] I'm a graphic designer for 33 years and i recently happily switched from Adobe to Affinity. I also had to look for alternative as few functions are definitively missing in Designer. If you need a free powerful solution for auto-trace from pixel to vector, have a look at Vectornator. It's a pretty awesome free software with an easy to use auto-trace feature…

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

Indeed, PDF or SVG export are both good options as far as they keep the vector outline. Depending on what you want, you can try one or the other. Sometimes the SVG export makes weird traces if the file is complex.

Posted

The ".ai export" is only available on the Ipad - iOs version - of Vectornator. The MacOs version can export as JPEG/PNG/SVG/PDF as you can see (sorry in French!) in the enclosed screen capture. Both SVG and PDF are good, depending on the complexity of the file. An SVG export will keep all the layers in Designer. It will be flattened in PDF. What i usually do is to auto-trace in Vectornator then export the trace to AF Designer to work on it. The same job could be done in Vectornator but it's not the point in a forum about Affinity Designer :) It's lightning fast on both side on a M1 Mac!

Capture d’écran 2021-04-27 à 09.45.36.png

Posted
On 4/8/2021 at 11:26 AM, Itacolomi said:

[FOR MAC USER ONLY] I'm a graphic designer for 33 years and i recently happily switched from Adobe to Affinity. I also had to look for alternative as few functions are definitively missing in Designer. If you need a free powerful solution for auto-trace from pixel to vector, have a look at Vectornator. It's a pretty awesome free software with an easy to use auto-trace feature…

Requires macOS 11.0 or later.

  • 4 weeks later...
Posted

I'm new to Affinity. I've read all of the posts in this forum but I am still left with a question.

What are the hurdles Affinity is trying to overcome in order to bring the tracing feature to a future update?  Why would it take so long (not rhetorical).

PLEASE ADD TRACING TO AFFINITY DESIGNER!

 

Thank you!

Apple MacBook Pro (2020) | M1 - 8gb Ram - 256gb HD | Ventura 13.5

Affinity | Photo | Designer | Publisher | 1.10.6

Posted
46 minutes ago, Bay said:

Why would it take so long (not rhetorical).

Possibly there are technical issues, but possibly it's just a matter of setting priorities for all the work that they want to do, and determining what they consider important in their vision of what they want the applications to do.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

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