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I need the ability to automatically change the image to vectors. Designers use pen tools on top of images with poor resolution, not vectors, below them to make them vectors. I think it needs to be automated. In fact, if you take a program that's automated, it's Vector Magic.

Even though it is not very accurate, it is very helpful in images that require a lot of vector conversion work.

Obviously, if we include this feature in our efficiency, it will be a simple and automated function.

스크린샷 2019-09-01 오전 5.20.21.png

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2 hours ago, Catshill said:

This feature is in Serif DrawPlus 10. Trace if I remember. Is it replicated in AD?

It has been requested for many times over and over  and it will probably be included in a version 2.0

Serif stated that they will only include this function if it works the way they think it should work, as in effective tracing.

 

For now you can use the tracing engine of Inkscape. It's quite good.

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On 9/1/2019 at 6:09 PM, Tourmaline said:

It has been requested for many times over and over  and it will probably be included in a version 2.0

Serif stated that they will only include this function if it works the way they think it should work, as in effective tracing.

 

For now you can use the tracing engine of Inkscape. It's quite good.

@Tourmaline

So you mean that Affinity doesn't have the function right now, and Inkscape has the function that I want, right?

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i downloaded Inkscape yesterday and the tracing feature is pretty decent.
you can easily simplify (reduce the numbers of node)  after conversion.
then import as SVG into AD after that.

i'd say Inskape is good to have around, if only for that feature, until AD implements this function.

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On 9/1/2019 at 7:23 AM, Catshill said:

This feature is in Serif DrawPlus 10. Trace if I remember.

The feature in DrawPlus is called ‘AutoTrace’. (There never was a product named DrawPlus 10. DrawPlus 8 was followed by DrawPlus X2, to match the PagePlus version numbers which had gone from 8, 9, 10, 11 to X2. So version 10 was named X3, and that version did indeed introduce the AutoTrace feature.)

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1 hour ago, Alfred said:

The feature in DrawPlus is called ‘AutoTrace’. (There never was a product named DrawPlus 10. DrawPlus 8 was followed by DrawPlus X2, to match the PagePlus version numbers which had gone from 8, 9, 10, 11 to X2. So version 10 was named X3, and that version did indeed introduce the AutoTrace feature.)

@Alfred So, why hasn’t the feature in AD? Is this also present in Adobe Illustrator?

Edited by BAK UI-SEOK
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I believe Adobe Illustrator does offer auto-trace, but since I’ve never used the program I have no personal experience of the feature.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
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2 hours ago, BAK UI-SEOK said:

@Alfred So, why hasn’t the feature in AD? Is this also present in Adobe Illustrator?

Yes, Illustrator has an auto-trace feature, as do most similar programs.

Not that it matters. What many don't know is that Illustrator was very late to the whole auto-tracing thing, as it was in many other features. All three of its main competitors (FreeHand, Draw, Canvas) had full auto-trace features, while Illustrator (up 'till around version 9, as I recall) had only a crude trace command that only traced one color at a time.

Nowadays, auto-trace features are very common both as built in features and as online services, and there are even free implementations of both. Tourmaline mentioned Inkscape and you yourself mentioned Vector Magic. And although their user interfaces differ in terms of eye candy, they all do pretty much the same thing, and results are all pretty much alike: "Garbage in, garbage out" very much applies.

So as for "why," consider that in context of Tourmaline's first reply in this thread, in which he paraphrased Serif's replies (which you can read if you do a quick search for the already-existing threads on this commonly-requested feature). Unless and until Serif has something game-changing to bring to the auto-trace table, there are more valuable things for its dev team to focus on which constitute real opportunity for long overdue innovation in the vector-based drawing arena.

I am among those who see no need for yet another "me, too" auto-tracing feature in Affinity. It's no more onerous to switch to another program for this very single-purpose function than it is to, for example, launch the scanning utility of my scanner. Even Corel long delivered its auto-trace solution as a separate standalone utility that was simply bundled with Draw.

Moreover, when it comes down to it, auto-tracing is a bad practice that usually just swaps one kind of resolution-dependent ugliness (bitmap pixelation) for another (poorly-drawn vector paths).

JET

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18 hours ago, JET_Affinity said:

Yes, Illustrator has an auto-trace feature, as do most similar programs.

Not that it matters. What many don't know is that Illustrator was very late to the whole auto-tracing thing, as it was in many other features. All three of its main competitors (FreeHand, Draw, Canvas) had full auto-trace features, while Illustrator (up 'till around version 9, as I recall) had only a crude trace command that only traced one color at a time.

Nowadays, auto-trace features are very common both as built in features and as online services, and there are even free implementations of both. Tourmaline mentioned Inkscape and you yourself mentioned Vector Magic. And although their user interfaces differ in terms of eye candy, they all do pretty much the same thing, and results are all pretty much alike: "Garbage in, garbage out" very much applies.

So as for "why," consider that in context of Tourmaline's first reply in this thread, in which he paraphrased Serif's replies (which you can read if you do a quick search for the already-existing threads on this commonly-requested feature). Unless and until Serif has something game-changing to bring to the auto-trace table, there are more valuable things for its dev team to focus on which constitute real opportunity for long overdue innovation in the vector-based drawing arena.

I am among those who see no need for yet another "me, too" auto-tracing feature in Affinity. It's no more onerous to switch to another program for this very single-purpose function than it is to, for example, launch the scanning utility of my scanner. Even Corel long delivered its auto-trace solution as a separate standalone utility that was simply bundled with Draw.

Moreover, when it comes down to it, auto-tracing is a bad practice that usually just swaps one kind of resolution-dependent ugliness (bitmap pixelation) for another (poorly-drawn vector paths).

JET

@JET_Affinity Still, if the Affinity Designer includes the feature, it would be much more accessible. And most of all, there is no API for general users to develop plug-ins. If can make a plug-in, someone will develop it.

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Still, if the Affinity Designer includes the feature, it would be much more accessible. [ emphasis mine]


No. Just slightly more convenient.

For other examples in addition to the scanning utility already mentioned: I use the Windows Calculator utility quite often, every day, while working in most every program I use. Same thing goes for the screen capture utility, TechSmith SnagIt, and the standalone Bitstream Font Manager that comes bundled with CorelDraw.

Launching any of them is, at worst, a single click on the TaskBar. (SnagIt is invoked by a keyboard shortcut.) I find that no more arduous than clicking a tool button or making a menu selection in order to invoke yet another auto-trace feature to twiddle with yet another UI, just to get pretty much the same result.

I use multiple programs all day. I also use multiple vector drawing programs. I don't need a differently-branded UI corresponding to each different drawing program for every calculation, screenshot, scan, or auto-trace. I actually prefer using the same familiar interface for scans and screenshots and font management, regardless of what graphics program I'm using. It's actually more efficient that way.

Auto-tracing is just as appropriate for that kind of "standalone" use. It doesn't need to be re-invented in every drawing program. There are decent auto-trace solutions (at least as defined by the current state of it) available to everyone for free, even. Unless and until Serif (or anyone else) has some kind of game-changing functionality to make it more than what it currently is (generally bad practice anyway), it's not even on my "missing features" wish list.

For example: I have yet to see any auto-trace program (targeted to mainstream general graphics users) that knows what a child knows: that when it's scanning the pupil of my puppy's eye, the resulting path should be an ellipse. So yeah, if and when the Affinity team happens to have in its secret closet an auto-trace feature with sufficient artificial intelligence for at least basic shape recognition, that might be something worth introducing.

JET

 

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And most of all, there is no API for general users to develop plug-ins.

I don't know what that has to do with this thread (which is just a repeat of existing auto-trace threads). But if you want to see, say, a thoroughly well-done Javascript implementation in Affinity, I'd be right there with you. I've said as much in existing feature wish threads. (I'm not really interested in coding—or buying—plug-ins.)

But now may not be the time since the feature set (and therefore, I assume, the object model) of Affinity Designer is still very much under development.

JET

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1 hour ago, JET_Affinity said:


No. Just slightly more convenient.

For other examples in addition to the scanning utility already mentioned: I use the Windows Calculator utility quite often, every day, while working in most every program I use. Same thing goes for the screen capture utility, TechSmith SnagIt, and the standalone Bitstream Font Manager that comes bundled with CorelDraw.

Launching any of them is, at worst, a single click on the TaskBar. (SnagIt is invoked by a keyboard shortcut.) I find that no more arduous than clicking a tool button or making a menu selection in order to invoke yet another auto-trace feature to twiddle with yet another UI, just to get pretty much the same result.

I use multiple programs all day. I also use multiple vector drawing programs. I don't need a differently-branded UI corresponding to each different drawing program for every calculation, screenshot, scan, or auto-trace. I actually prefer using the same familiar interface for scans and screenshots and font management, regardless of what graphics program I'm using. It's actually more efficient that way.

Auto-tracing is just as appropriate for that kind of "standalone" use. It doesn't need to be re-invented in every drawing program. There are decent auto-trace solutions (at least as defined by the current state of it) available to everyone for free, even. Unless and until Serif (or anyone else) has some kind of game-changing functionality to make it more than what it currently is (generally bad practice anyway), it's not even on my "missing features" wish list.

For example: I have yet to see any auto-trace program (targeted to mainstream general graphics users) that knows what a child knows: that when it's scanning the pupil of my puppy's eye, the resulting path should be an ellipse. So yeah, if and when the Affinity team happens to have in its secret closet an auto-trace feature with sufficient artificial intelligence for at least basic shape recognition, that might be something worth introducing.

JET

 

That's right. As you say, the accessibility benefits of such disconnection may be greater. I hope it's more accurate, but it's not too high and it's a good function just as an assistant for designer. It's up to the Serif to integrate and pack it well.

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1 hour ago, JET_Affinity said:


No. Just slightly more convenient.

For other examples in addition to the scanning utility already mentioned: I use the Windows Calculator utility quite often, every day, while working in most every program I use. Same thing goes for the screen capture utility, TechSmith SnagIt, and the standalone Bitstream Font Manager that comes bundled with CorelDraw.

Launching any of them is, at worst, a single click on the TaskBar. (SnagIt is invoked by a keyboard shortcut.) I find that no more arduous than clicking a tool button or making a menu selection in order to invoke yet another auto-trace feature to twiddle with yet another UI, just to get pretty much the same result.

I use multiple programs all day. I also use multiple vector drawing programs. I don't need a differently-branded UI corresponding to each different drawing program for every calculation, screenshot, scan, or auto-trace. I actually prefer using the same familiar interface for scans and screenshots and font management, regardless of what graphics program I'm using. It's actually more efficient that way.

Auto-tracing is just as appropriate for that kind of "standalone" use. It doesn't need to be re-invented in every drawing program. There are decent auto-trace solutions (at least as defined by the current state of it) available to everyone for free, even. Unless and until Serif (or anyone else) has some kind of game-changing functionality to make it more than what it currently is (generally bad practice anyway), it's not even on my "missing features" wish list.

For example: I have yet to see any auto-trace program (targeted to mainstream general graphics users) that knows what a child knows: that when it's scanning the pupil of my puppy's eye, the resulting path should be an ellipse. So yeah, if and when the Affinity team happens to have in its secret closet an auto-trace feature with sufficient artificial intelligence for at least basic shape recognition, that might be something worth introducing.

JET

 

And most of all, imagine! If there is such a feature in Affinity Designer, which is well-optimized for operating systems with new technologies, it must be a big advantage for users, too! We don't have to use slow illustrators and other programs!

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On 9/3/2019 at 2:46 PM, JET_Affinity said:

Yes, Illustrator has an auto-trace feature, as do most similar programs.

Not that it matters. What many don't know is that Illustrator was very late to the whole auto-tracing thing, as it was in many other features. All three of its main competitors (FreeHand, Draw, Canvas) had full auto-trace features, while Illustrator (up 'till around version 9, as I recall) had only a crude trace command that only traced one color at a time.

Nowadays, auto-trace features are very common both as built in features and as online services, and there are even free implementations of both. Tourmaline mentioned Inkscape and you yourself mentioned Vector Magic. And although their user interfaces differ in terms of eye candy, they all do pretty much the same thing, and results are all pretty much alike: "Garbage in, garbage out" very much applies.

So as for "why," consider that in context of Tourmaline's first reply in this thread, in which he paraphrased Serif's replies (which you can read if you do a quick search for the already-existing threads on this commonly-requested feature). Unless and until Serif has something game-changing to bring to the auto-trace table, there are more valuable things for its dev team to focus on which constitute real opportunity for long overdue innovation in the vector-based drawing arena.

I am among those who see no need for yet another "me, too" auto-tracing feature in Affinity. It's no more onerous to switch to another program for this very single-purpose function than it is to, for example, launch the scanning utility of my scanner. Even Corel long delivered its auto-trace solution as a separate standalone utility that was simply bundled with Draw.

Moreover, when it comes down to it, auto-tracing is a bad practice that usually just swaps one kind of resolution-dependent ugliness (bitmap pixelation) for another (poorly-drawn vector paths).

JET

Most professionals will do a manual trace for logo's as it yields best results. I can image It might save time but with relatively complex logo's doing it yourself is always better then any trace program.

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This topic has come up a few times in past threads.  The general response from Serif has been (in essence) that they intend to offer a tracing feature at some point in the future but they are not happy with the way the feature works in most existing programs and want to make sure that when they do implement this in AD they do it right.

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On ‎9‎/‎4‎/‎2019 at 10:00 AM, Tourmaline said:

Most professionals will do a manual trace for logo's as it yields best results. I can image It might save time but with relatively complex logo's doing it yourself is always better then any trace program. 

Correct. Proper logo designs of all things should be created with the most painstakingly efficient and elegant paths. The more vector-appropriate the artwork, the less excuse for auto-tracing. Else, you lose the resolution independence advantage that vector-based graphics exist for in the first place.

Certainly anyone claiming to do commercial quality vector illustration (i.e., charging money for it) should be proficient in drawing optimal paths with the appropriate tools. And that's where anyone learning to create commercial-quality work should expend energy; not in tweaking a bunch of tolerance settings in an auto-trace feature. The more vector-appropriate the artwork, the fewer and cleaner the paths should be, so the less "time consuming" it is anyway, for someone who knows how to do it right.

So when it comes down to it, the only few-and-far-between excuse for resorting to auto-tracing is for things that are just too complex for drawing with deliberate and intelligent discernment. And even in those cases, one should always ask oneself if auto-tracing is going to yield any technical advantage anyway. See the self-cancelling cycle?

It's not the beginning users' fault. The software vendors grossly over-glorify the "automagic" of auto-tracing features with claims like "Instantly convert raster images into resolution independent vector graphics!"

That's the myth perpetrated among hobbyists. There is no "conversion" to it. Raster-to-vector is not some kind of unambiguous code translation, like converting a TIFF file to a PNG file. The only lossless 1:1 "conversion" from a raster image to a vector graphic would be literally tracing a square path around each and every pixel. And that would have absolutely zero resolution-independence advantage over simply using the original raster image. That technically "perfect" auto-trace would also be perfectly useless.

No, there's just re-drawing the subject. And auto-tracing doesn't even make any attempt to re-draw the subject, because it has no idea what the subject or its purpose is. It merely tries to draw paths around contiguous clusters of similarly-colored pixels, utterly regardless of shape or meaning. So you either re-draw the subject with meaningful (and hopefully aesthetic) human discernment, or you entrust it to a completely dumb algorithm that has (as of current standards) absolutely none.

JET

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For some artistic things, the autotrace feature might be suitable, but for Logo Design, it’s a bad habit.

Best regards!

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  • 1 month later...

I often use the auto trace function in Freehand platform. The auto trace result are different when I resize the jpeg image behind layer.

I can control the vector tracing quality by do this for a few times until I got the best result (no. of points). In illustrator platform, the tracing result is not as good as in freehand.

As Affinity Designer is a professional vector design software, please include this tool in next version. It provides a basic vector structure for user to work with (no matter the user is a professional or a student).

Thanks!

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