When will there be a sort of live trace tool for faster creation of Vector graphics out of Bit maps?

[Fap65]

Yesterday I bought affinty designer for my Mac and wondered that one important tool is missing. When do You think will a sort of live trace tool be developed in order to transform bitmaps to vector based  graphics/files?. For me this is one of the most important tools in Illustrator, a program I warnt to left behind me. Even of it does Not work very precicely there it helps making Workflows faster.

[SrPx]

There's talk and answers to that in an active thread (well that's one of them)

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/51145-trace-in-designer/

PD: Is not, by any means, essential, there are extremely good specialized utilities for that, which are even free and able to be combined with Affinity.

 

[v_kyr]

Yes there have been already a bunch of threads related to such themes here:

• Tool to smooth a rough vector edge

• help turning photo into line art

• Image Tracing workaround

• ... and so on ...

[miksmith]

Any recommendations on a third party tracing tools that I could use with Affinity?

[SrPx]

Inkscape.   It's free.

It uses and embedded version of Potrace. Which is one of the best tracers out there, despite being free. Even if it is command-line based (POTRACE, not Inskcape !! ). Or maybe specially flexible because it is.

Inkscape gave it an UI inside the application its self, is very easy to handle it, but trickier to get great results. Everything needs some effort ! 

If well handled -you need to try quite a bit till you get the right balance between nodes optimization and accuracy, and/or the exact feel you are after-  is quite useful. 

Once in the application, import any raster image. Select the bitmap imported thing, now go to paths top menu, and click on "rasterize bitmap" if it says so in your language. Or instead of all this, select the bitmap object and type the shortcut for it (I have here shift + alt + B )  . Once in the vectorizing window... well, I'd need to make an entire tutorial about it. But this is not an Inkscape forum, is an Affinity forum.  You could after tracing it, save as SVG, PDF, DXF, EPS, etc, etc,  (of the many formats that Inkscape can output,) or print it,  or whatever. Beware not all formats are fully implemented there, or not fully compatible with commercial apps, but you should find a way to export it in a vector formats that works for you.  You CAN import a bunch of them into Affinity Designer, so, yep, it works great with it. SVG and PDF are among my favorite ones in inkscape.  I guess laser cutters would love DXF , but I have not tested how good that export format might be in Inkscape.

Or you could as well export as bitmap. But would be a bit strange, as you were after vectorizing (could make sense for vector-like style of illustration, not my cup of tea as a workflow, tho)

So, yyyyep, Inkscape is a great complementary tool for AD (not just for the tracing, also for formats, a good inking brush, etc). As it has always been with other software apps. (AI, PS, etc....). Heck, it was my main vectors tool at one company (I needed constantly to pair it with CMYK -and other print related features- supporting tools. Is quite an useful application. IMO, AD is far more complete (and tons better UI ), though (and waaaay faster development. It has a very similar "pace" as Gimp... one of the reasons why I smile in an insane way when ppl around here get impatient with releases.... big lol...). But inkscape keeps having its very convenient uses as a tool in the graphic grunt's arsenal.

https://inkscape.org

 

[miksmith]

Brilliant! That works perfectly I use Inkscape occasionally but wasnt aware that it had a trace function - it was for a silhouette so the default values worked perfectly.

 

thanks!

[SrPx]

You're welcome !