Bitmap trace question or any advice is welcomed!

[riogirl71]

I have a jpg file that is not very sharp as you can see in the upper left. I tried a couple of trace bitmap options but nothing came out very good, lots of little objects everywhere (upper right) and uneven paths, I tried the simplify command but it was still far from good. So I decided to do it by hand but not sure how I can get the double outline look for cutting.

So on the lower left I show part of the image and how many points there are even after I "simplify" d it. On the lower left I show just a path (thick 10 px) I made from my bezier tool that mimics it. So I like this path. I tried duplicating it and doing either outset or inset to try and get the "outline effect" so that I can cut this outline. Everything came out really far away from what I intended. Is there an easy way of doing this that I am missing? Just duplicating and moving doesn't work.

does that make sense? I just want to create a simple path like the one on the lower left but it be cut as an outline... I iuse inkscape and signcut and was wondering if anyone had any ideas. I could clean up the trace but will take forever. Also tracing each side of the outline will be very time consuming in order to make it evenly spaced.

Thanks!

[Suzan]

I don't know how to do it in inkscape, but you can outline your stroke, it should be under path.

[Thyme]

Make the path the thickness that you would like the distance between the inside and outside paths to be. Then Path/Stroke to Path.
You will then need to go back to the stroke setting and sake it thin again (and remove any fill) - then you will see the outer and inner lines that you want

[riogirl71]

AHA! Perfect!!! Exactly what I needed!!!!! Thank you so very much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If only I had asked that sooner would have saved me tons of time, better late than never!!!

[pigtailpat]

I've read about this in the inkscape book I bought, and I feel this is probably a very significant concept, but I am not understanding.

What is the significance of this for hand tracing? Am I to understand that if you have a really poor raster, and a tablet device, you can physically hand draw the paths along the lines of the raster (like a computerized lightbox in the old days)?

And then, how do you determine what distance you want from the stroke lines? Sort of measure your raster and follow along (ie print your raster and measure it from a physical perspective in your hand?)

This is an interesting thread and hoping to understand more about its significance.........

Pat

[newbiecat]

Hi Pat

I made a quick video which is under hints and tips about using the bucket tool to trace vector files
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1674 otherwise most of us use either Path/ Trace bitmap and adjust the brightness settings until you get a good trace.

You can also use the Bezier tool to click and trace images - Penny Duncan has a great tutorial on that on her website

There are some good videos on youtube under Inkscape tutorials which may help - if I can remember I will post a link in here later

Pandora

[pigtailpat]

Pandora -

thank you so much for your help. A video on the bucket trace method is very helpful. However, I was asking about actual hand tracing, by creating paths by physical drawing, as what riogirl was doing above, she hand traced her raster as software tracing didn't do the job. So I'm trying to understand the concept of what she was doing, as it's not sinking through this old brain of mine.

Pat

[Suzan]

Pat, I don't use inkscape I use Illustrator, but my stuff I did for a disney artist was hand sketched, you got a horrible auto trace in both programs. It was so much easier to hand trace it, than to go back and edit all the nodes. In the beginning I didn't have a tablet device. I used my mouse and traced away. It allowed me to accurately put in all his little details. Then I did get a tablet a used wacom. The nice thing about tracing in inkscape is you don't have to use the pencil tool. Use can use the bezier tool and roughly trace around your design then go back and pull the nodes and handles to shape it up really nice. Some things trace really well in Auto trace, but then there are the things that are just easier to do by hand. I hate editing so I normally hand trace unless it is a super clean copy of something. Susan Bluerobot has a really great tutorial on learning how to trace.

[riogirl71]

Hi Pat, I have a bitmap that is very jagged but I really like the picture, a mom like an angel holding her baby. The function of auto trace normally does a really good job and I use it a lot to transform jpgs into vectors I can manipulate and cut or print and cut outline. However when you have jagged edges and a poor resolution photo with lots of artifact contamination (those dots everywhere) auto trace could not give me a clean vector, my auto trace had so many nodes it was a mess. There is a command you can use to simplify but even that gave me a mess that would take me hours to clean and time I don't have. So I used the bezier tool to trace the whole image by hand, yes almost as if using a light table. I picked a bright red color for my stroke, I then used the bezier tool and created all the lines over the bitmap, moving nodes and adjusting curves. THis now gave me a vector "sketch" over my bmp. Now where I got stuck is that I needed a cutting path. Because my current setup was a background image and a thick 10 px stroke over it but a single stroke. Had I sent that to the cutter it would have cut simple lines on a piece of vinyl so that would not work, I needed a cutting path that was an outline of my stroke so that I could get the design cut.

I attached a picture of what my issue was and waht I was trying to accomplish if that helps. It worked great and so easy! Sorry my pic got cut off.

[pigtailpat]

Thanks so much!!!

Those photos really HELPED ME alot to understand what you were trying to achieve, and what stroke to path is all about.

I knew this thread was significant, and now I get it.

Pat

[riogirl71]

So glad it worked! Yes, this was a huge help for me! This stroke to path could have helped me so much before!!!

[Thyme]

Stroke to path can be used on so many occasions, it really is a great tool and works so much better that trying to resize a second copy

[Gigi]

That was really a helpful and great explanation - I wasn't getting it either!

Thanks so much!