Trace in designer

[dieseldave]

I am using Corel Draw at this time, but considering affinity design. I is obviously a vector  based drawing app, but does it have everything that Corel does? Well, maybe that is too broad a brush. Let's say does t have something like D's Trace. Which gives you a lot of ways to convert a bitmap to a vector. It isn't always good at the conversion, but there are times i can use it.

[R C-R]

There is no auto-trace in Affinity Designer.

[SrPx]

For tracing, I keep recommending this one (if ready to learn it well, otherwise might get the impression that is not good...which would be very far from reality) , which is command line (you need to learn and test well the parameters) open source, and multi platform : 

 

http://potrace.sourceforge.net

 

Is in now way substitute of a 2D vector or raster package. Is "just" a command line utility to make this vectorization. But extremely awesome in good hands. The export can be very well imported to Affinity Designer or Photo to complete your project. Once you learn it well, IMO, due to the flexibility allowed (which can get you always the result you want, not "sometimes") is superior to most built-in solutions you can see in high end 2D packages.

[v_kyr]

Another one is AutoTrace ...

http://autotrace.sourceforge.net/

 

[SrPx]

As a curiosity, I don't find Potrace linked or mentioned anywhere on the Autotrace's site, but I do find Autotrace mentioned and linked in Potrace's site, together with this description from Potrace's author :

"This program performs a similar task as Potrace. In my opinion, the output is not as nice, but it supports a much larger number of file formats, and it has been integrated with a larger number of other software packages. "

 

I only have experience with Potrace and its embedded version in Inkscape, though. I know is pretty capable, but gotta test some day Autotrace, too.

[SrPx]

Euh.... zero interest in one tool instead of the other, though.... But I am seeing updates in potrace binaries from even 2017, while latest in Autotrace seem from 2002....That's a major factor, imo... besides I see quite more platforms/versions in potrace... Anyway, I have not tested Autotrace: Maybe it is a jewel.

[v_kyr]

AutoTrace is an older project which is used by some other third party tracing apps and also some online services etc. It's available as a C source library (libautotrace) and/or standalone prog, it can handle color image tracing.

[SrPx]

Nice...color, potrace can, too... Anyway, that's always tricky in every software... a bit of a pain, indeed...I usually have to play quite with settings for getting a decent result. Anyway, been avoiding to accept gigs about this since long, for these and other reasons...

[v_kyr]

Yip these tools have a bunch of setable options and sometimes it's not directly obvious how these settings might do influence the final results, so one has to try and check. Further it also often highly depends on the quality and pixel rendering of an applied input image.

[SrPx]

Indeed, couldn't agree more, is exactly like that.   And also, that last very important bit : Number one matter for a good tracing is having a high resolution raster image. (Even while I'm always more favorable to manual tracing, if time allows, and even more, no tracing at all, but fully hand made original art. But there are situations that have each of these techniques as the ideal for particular projects, each one depending on each case.) . For example, I have needed to make tracing stuff to get a SVG out of an existing logo -with all permissions from the client-owner, obviously-  as the author wanted a 3D print which included his logo (to be imported in a 3D software, extrude, embed, mixed with a 3D mascot I made, etc). I could have made it by hand, but was in an extreme hurry, all permissions were given ,and no 100% accuracy was even desired. (mascot-logo). In cases like that, is a bit of a time loss... As one needs anyway to optimize nodes and curves by hand, to very high curve and line quality. I mean, I used just the same time, or more...! 

 

It has its uses... In my case is extremely rare (the need of tracing). So much that Potrace (or Autotrace, I need to try it  ) or its implementation in other programs, launched twice a year (as much), is more than enough....(but it has useful applications and in some cases I can understand it is an actual need, I can understand that. My point is that these tools have been around a long time, and are tested to work.    I'm always in the idea that one has to be able to handle the best utilities for certain specific uses. There's no harm in doing so, quite the opposite.  We are used to have a suite and do everything with it. In my opinion, this is good, compact and fast in workflows, but a bit too limiting if one decides that in no case some work can be done by an external tool, that it has to be the absolute 100% made with a suite, be it Affinity or Adobe, or etc. Those having worked in companies producing graphics (2D or 3D) might be more of my opinion : You end up needing to handle a bunch of tools. usually the ones that excel in certain tasks, besides the powerful suite of choice. )

 

 

 

[v_kyr]

Well it always depends, if you have to vectorize a bunch of bitmap images (stock images, icons or whatever) it's a time consuming task to redraw these manually. So using some halfway good functional vectorizing/tracing tool can be a huge time saver here. If a main vector drawing tool doesn't have or offer some auto tracing support, you just take another third party tracing tool.

However most vector drawing tools already have some sort of build-in tracing support (AI, Corel, XDP, MS Expression Design, Inkscape...), though not always a very powerful one, so some dedicated tracing third party tool might sometimes give better results here.

Handling around with a bunch of tools is (at least for me as a dev) common usage, I'm used to have a chain of tools which are involved to do certain tasks, since there is very rarely just one tool which can deal with all eventualities perfectly. It's basically here the same as with using OS CLI tools, where you pipe the output of one as input into the other for further processing. 

[SrPx]

yes...Anyway, when I have a bunch of images, I tend to prefer batch processing focused tools... Even just command line....but I'm a bit weird... 

My everyday at companies used to need a tad of apps of very different nature, and constant switch. (one of the reasons why I'm more eager to buy a Ryzen 7 than a powerful intel (those new six cores are gorgeous, tho)... I guess anyone doing heavy multi tasking would benefit from many cores...)

[v_kyr]

Well I'm first of all a dev/coder and no designer, but having a capable hardware system in the backhand with enough power is essential for many tasks nowadays, no matter here if video rapping, 3d rendering, gaming or performing image manipulations, coding in VS or Xcode etc. - So In the long run only power helps ...