Function Image Tracing in Adobe Illustrator- this is the most fast way convert your image to vector format for high quality printing at any size. With the introduction of an improved function Image Trace

Adobe Illustrator CS6 and subsequent updates have opened up a world of possibilities for graphics software users who want to be able to trace line art and photographs and turn them into vector images. Users can now convert bitmaps to vectors and files with relative ease PNG to SVG files using Illustrator.

Illustrator often used to convert images from scanned or drawn images to a pixel art program, such as Adobe Photoshop, into clear vector lines. There are two ways to track images in Illustrator CC. You can manually trace them using template layers and drawing tools, or use the "Image Trace"

So, let's begin.

Unlike raster images, vector images are made up of mathematical paths that allow designs to scale indefinitely while maintaining their quality.

Here's how to easily convert a bitmap to vector using the tool Image Trace in Adobe Illustrator:

Step one.
Opening the image in Adobe Illustrator, select " Window» > « Image tracing».This will bring up the panel image trace.

step two
With the image selected, check the box Preview. This will give you a lively look at your vector image. Don't worry if it doesn't look great.
Step Three
Select the dropdown menu " Mode” and select the mode that best suits your design.

Step Four
Then adjust the slider " Colors», « Grey" or " Threshold". This slider will change depending on the mode you select, however the functionality between the three sliders remains similar.
Colors - maximum amount colors used for tracing.
Grace- grayscale accuracy from 0 to 100.
Threshold- Pixels darker than the threshold are converted to black.

If it's too low, it may make your image look too simple. And if it's too high, it can make your image look too complex. However, it all depends on your unique image.

Step five
Toggle menu " Additionally» down for more options.

Step Six
Adjust the slider " Ways».

It sets the number of paths in your design. Fewer paths means a simpler design, but if there are too few paths, it can distort your image or make it look square. Conversely, too many paths can make the edges of your design look very rough. Again, it all depends on your unique image - so it's best to find a happy environment.

step seven
Adjust the slider " corners».

This controls the number of corners in your design. Fewer corners will make your design curves more rounded, and more corners will make your design curves more defined.

Step eight.
Adjust the slider Noise.

Vector Magic really lives up to its name. In my opinion, neither Corel Draw's tracing nor Adobe Illustrator's are up to the mark. (Many thanks to the user of our resource Mechanik for this useful link).

So, in more detail. This is a free online image tracing service, i.e. The input is a raster and the output is a vector. This is the brainchild of James Diebel and Jacob Norda of the Artificial Intelligence Research Lab at Stanford University. They tried to make the resource as simple as possible, with a clear and understandable interface, requiring a minimum of costs. How well they succeeded is up to you.

To work with the service, you will need Adobe Flash Player 9 - alas, nothing will work without it. The second problem that I encountered is the reluctance of the Opera browser to work with this site. Probably, if desired, it could be customized, but there was no desire. Internet Explorer (as well as FireFox) worked well.

The first page of the resource gives us a lot of information about the project, vector, tracing, and how worse all previously used tracers are. But the main one is the window where we select the necessary image for tracing (from our computer). The download process takes some time. You can upload JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP and TIFF formats.

After loading, a sign pops up: “Most likely, your image will have mixing colors at the borders of elements. This is important, because the result will depend on the correct choice of settings. Confirm your choice of settings by pressing the Next button, and if necessary, try several other settings. This service tries to automatically detect the type of your image (to improve the trace quality). Below you will learn how to check the correctness of the selected type.

Another nuance: it is desirable that the resolution of your image does not exceed 1 megapixel. On this occasion, a window will pop up again with the following content: “The uploaded image is quite large and will be reduced to 1 megapixel. This precaution is necessary so as not to overload the server. Unfortunately, this can lead to the loss of small elements of the image and the appearance of mixing colors on the borders of objects. You can either continue working or upload another file."

Despite the warnings, I still continued.

Next, you will be prompted to select the type of your image.

1. Photo(complex graphic image taken with a camera).
2. Image with color blending on the borders of objects(This anti-aliased image is the most appropriate category for logos and other simple graphics).
3. Image without color blending on object borders(not anti-aliased).

At the very bottom (in the fourth square) - you will see an enlarged section of your image. Use it to visually compare it with all three options and choose the most suitable one. To move on, click Next.

Choosing the quality of your image

1. High
   does not have compression artifacts or other noise;
   the color of objects is uniform;
   no blur;
   If this item is selected, the tracing is done more carefully, along the contours of objects, so noise can spoil the result.
2. The average
   there are artifacts and noise;
   the color is almost uniform with slight variations;
   blur in places;
   (Proposed by default)
3. Low
   a lot of artifacts and noise;
   color is heterogeneous with significant changes;
   strong blur;
   Noise and blur, if possible, is not included in the tracing process, which may result in the loss of some details.
4. Detail of your image for comparison.

Choose the most appropriate option and click Next.

How many colors are in your image?

(this item will not be available if you selected a photo in the first item)

1. Yes, not enough, about 12 colors
   Selecting this item may reduce the error from noise or blur.
2. No, there are many colors in my image
   This option can leave errors from noise and blur.

Make a choice and click Next.

Color analysis

The right half of the screen offers tracing palettes based on the color scheme of your image. By default, the most successful (according to the service) palette is offered. Below are others, from black and white to the maximum possible for your image. It is possible to replenish the selected palette with a set of others, take colors from the original with an eyedropper, create your own color options, but still within the existing color range. A few more tips:

• On the left side is your picture. It can be "zoom" and "scroll".
• To select a color with an eyedropper, you need to click while holding Ctrl.
• Try not to double-click on the palette, because of this, tracing automatically starts.

tracing

Tracing takes some time - the progress of this process is displayed on the strip and in percentage. After the process is completed, you can check and download the trace result.

Downloadable formats: EPS, SVG, PNG. The result, again, can be "scrolled" and "zoom". The result view mode can be changed using the buttons:

• Split - helps to see both images (raster original and trace) next to each other;
• Single – viewing the trace result;
• Bitmap - holding this button, we see the bitmap original, releasing - the vector result;

If the result did not impress you, and you want to change something in the settings, please. On the right is such an option. Possible shortcomings and recommendations for their elimination are indicated. Below each hint there is a button that starts tracing with modified conditions. With each change, the trace starts again.

Are the color borders not smooth enough?

Choose a lower image quality in the settings to achieve smoother edges.

Noise spoils the result in many small areas?

Choose a palette with fewer colors or lower image quality in the settings.

Lost colors?

Choose a palette with more colors.

Where are the small details?

Select a higher image quality in the settings.

Small inaccuracies and errors, dots and cut lines?

You can fix it now instead of editing the already downloaded file.

Image editing online

This function exists in order to give the possibility to edit errors in certain areas of the traced image. This allows you to achieve the most ideal result for almost every image. Is segmentation a view? in which the image is fragmented into parts, which are then smoothed in the process of creating the final trace result. That is, in the window we see, as it were, the pixels that make up the image and edit just such a view.

There are buttons on the image field, and their small description on the right.

Undo and Redo: Respectively cancels and redoes the performed actions and manipulations. I could not find any restrictions on return actions.

Reset: Apparently cancels all changes.

Bitmap and Vector: Holding the first shows the bitmap original, holding the second shows the vector result.

Finder: Sometimes small details are not automatically detected. Finder helps you find them. Each such section must be edited so that it is completely separated from the rest of the mass by a gap.

Pan: Scrolls the image.

Zap: Sometimes, however, traces from filters and color mixing are processed by the tracer and they look like parts of details that differ from the overall color. Zap breaks the part into segments, and then connects, painting in the color that you click on.

Fill: Fill, just click on the selected part.

Pixel: A pencil that draws with the color specified in the color box.

Color: Eyedropper for color selection. The selected color is reflected in the box below.

All changes created are saved on the server, provided that the Next and Finish buttons are clicked. Changes are not saved if you reload the page while editing.

Here, it seems, like all instructions for use. I can only add that I traced an uncomplicated picture with a minimum of colors and with quite good quality. The downloaded file (I downloaded EPS) looks exactly like the preview. Everything is traced correctly without unnecessary points and angularities, and all the details of the illustration are grouped and located on one layer.

PS: It is worth noting that, unfortunately, now the use of Vector Magic has become paid.

14.06.2012

Today we're going to take a look at the new tracing engine in Adobe Illustrator CS6 and talk about its new features. First, we'll draw a photo, sketch, and texture, and then compare the results obtained in Adobe Illustrator CS5 and Adobe Illustrator CS6. So, let's begin!

Step 1

In Adobe Illustrator CS6, tracing options are now in a new palette - Image Tracing (Window > Tracing).

The appearance of this palette will allow us to use other palettes and tools during tracing. Adobe Illustrator CS5, as well as earlier versions of the program, did not have such features. Tracing parameters were set in the Tracing Settings dialog box. And it was impossible to work with other objects and interfaces.

Step 2

There are also changes in presets.

Adobe Illustrator CS6 has a new Silhouettes preset that allows you to quickly create a vector silhouette.

After applying the Expand command, we will get a vector object with the optimal number of anchor points.

Step 3

Let's compare the tracing quality in Adobe Illustrator CS5 and Adobe Illustrator CS6 after applying the Photo preset. High Quality(High Fidelity Photo).

Note that in Adobe Illustrator CS6, there are several options in the Palette list to choose from. This option is set when the image mode is set to Color or Gray Scale. As you can see, the new tracing engine in Adobe Illustrator CS6 gives better results.

Adobe Illustrator has a new feature that allows you to instantly see the original image. Press and hold the "eye" next to the View option.

Step 4

There are some changes to the Max Colors setting. This option specifies the number of colors that will be included in the final image. In Adobe Illustrator CS5, the maximum number of colors can be set as a number, and in Adobe Illustrator CS6, as a percentage with high precision.

Step 5

By opening the Advanced tab in the Tracing palette, you can specify additional settings. Adobe Illustrator CS6 introduced the ability to select a tracing method. The Abutting method creates clipping paths. The contours of objects are joined.

The Overlapping method creates contours one above the other, the contours of objects are superimposed.

Step 6

The Fit Contour option determines the accuracy of tracing the original bitmap. In Adobe Illustrator CS5 than less value, the more precise the contour, the larger the value, the coarser the contour. In Adobe Illustrator CS6, the opposite is true: the larger the number, the more precise the contour we will get.

The Minimum Area option in Adobe Illustrator CS5 corresponds to the Noise option in Adobe Illustrator CS6. This option determines the size of the smallest details of the original image that will be taken into account when tracing.

The Minimum Angle option in Abode Illustrator CS5 corresponds to the Angles option in Adobe Illustrator CS6 and is set as a percentage. The larger the number we set, the more corners will be in the final image.

In Adobe Illustrator CS6 there are no tracing options such as Blur and Resample. In Adobe Illustrator CS5, the Blur setting is used to reduce fine details and soften the edges of the resulting image. The Change resolution setting speeds up the process of tracing large images and reduces the quality loss of the final image.

Step 7

Let's see how the new tracing mechanism works with sketches. Apply the Black and White preset. Sketch tracing in Adobe Illustrator CS5 gives good results.

If we apply the same preset in Adobe Illustrator CS6, most of the small details will disappear.

Unfortunately, in order to achieve the same results in Adobe Illustrator CS6 as in Adobe Illustrator CS5, you need to change the tracing parameters manually.

Step 8

Let's try to do texture tracing. Apply the same Black and White preset. As you can see, the tracing result in Adobe Illustrator CS5 looks better than in Adobe Illustrator CS6.

Category: Printer's and designer's tools

Often, designers are faced with the need to process complex line illustrations for use in full-color booklet and poster layouts, on a company website, in an annual report, on souvenirs, in catalogs, and in many cases, significant scaling of illustrations and printing from using various technologies in color or black and white. Scanning, as a rule, cannot provide transformation capabilities without losing the quality and necessary versatility of a raster image, so the only way is to obtain an identical vector image. Creating a vector version from scratch is not optimal and not the best fast option, it is much easier to use tracing (vectorization) of a raster (scanned) original.

There are quite a lot of programs on the market today (both stand-alone applications and included in graphics packages) for tracing bitmaps. It should immediately be noted that the review offered to the attention of readers does not claim to be complete and comprehensive. For example, we will not touch on applications such as CorelTrace and Live Trace, which are included in the Corel Graphics Suite and Adobe Illustrator, respectively. Most designers are well aware of their pros and cons. The advantages are mainly that these tracers are included in the aforementioned programs and you don’t need to buy anything else, and the disadvantages are that with the default settings it is almost impossible to achieve a satisfactory result, and sometimes even a very experienced user cannot improve these settings. . Fortunately, today the market offers an extensive selection of tracers from other manufacturers. It is them that we will consider next.

TraceIT

Manufacturer: Pangolin Laser Systems, Inc.

TraceIT is a rather interesting program that uses original tracing algorithms (Fig. 1). The image loaded into it is first processed by filters to remove "garbage" (noise, color noise), after which it is already traced.

An interesting feature is that in addition to processing images in common BMP, GIF, TIF, JPG, PSD, etc. formats, it is possible to upload video files in AVI, MOV or MPEG formats and process only selected frames, any range or the entire video file. You can save the result in a dozen formats, including BMP, JPG and EMF.

RasterVect

Manufacturer: RasterVect Software

RasterVect (Fig. 2) is a simple program with a minimum number of settings, which is aimed at users of the AutoCAD package. The settings in it are reduced to a minimum: loading a raster image (support for 15 formats), choosing a tracing method and choosing a vector image format (DXF, EPS, AI, WMF or EMF). Optionally, you can pre-process the bitmap (only the simplest operations) and apply masks.

Vector Eye

Manufacturer: Siame Editions

The main difference between Vector Eye (Fig. 3) and other similar applications is that during the tracing process several image options are created corresponding to different combinations of settings, and from this series the user selects the most optimal one for further use. Raster images can be loaded in BMP, PNG, JPG, TIFF and AVI formats, and the result of the program is exported in SVG, PS and EPS formats.

Vectortractor

Manufacturer: VextraSoft

Vextractor is a fairly powerful program that has built-in efficient algorithms for cleaning a bitmap image from “garbage”, a tracer of average capabilities, and a good built-in editor for fine-tuning the vectorization result (Fig. 4). Supports import of the most common raster image formats and export to popular vector formats, including DXF, EPS and SVG.

Acme TraceART

Manufacturer: DWG TOOL Software

A multifunctional and complex program designed mainly for vectorization of drawings, diagrams and various kinds of maps (Fig. 5). A large number of raster and vector formats are supported. The tracing quality cannot be called outstanding, but the program has other advantages - for example, it provides a convenient function for previewing the result even before tracing, as well as working with multi-page images and spreading the tracing results into layers.

Potrace

Manufacturer: Peter Selinger

Potrace is a free, constantly improving program (Figure 6). Included in distributions of packages such as FontForge, mftrace, Inkscape, TeXtrace, etc. A good alternative to other vectorization programs listed here. Of the common raster formats, it “understands” only BMP files. The resulting vector image can be exported to EPS, PS, PDF and SVG. Of the minuses, one can name an obvious “swimming” at the places where the curves intersect at an obtuse angle, which, however, is a disadvantage of almost all tracers. Otherwise, the program has an almost complete set of settings for edge detection, color quantization, etc. The program distribution kit can be downloaded for operating systems such as Linux, Sun Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, AIX, Mac OS X and Windows 95/98/2000 /NT.

Raster to Vector Conversion Toolkit

Manufacturer: AlgoLab, Inc.

Two fairly popular programs from the same manufacturer, aimed at users of CAD / CAM systems (Fig. 7). Programs do not have significant pros or cons. The only thing I would like to note is the implicit and not entirely clear vectorization settings.

Raster to Vector

Manufacturer: Raster to Vector

Another black box. At the input - raster images in the most common formats (BMP, JPG, TIF, GIF, PNG, PCX, TGA, etc.), and at the output - vector images (DXF, HPGL, EMF, WMF). No significant settings are suggested (Fig. 8).

WinTopo Raster to Vector Converter

Manufacturer: SoftSoft.net

A good multifunctional program with enough settings to get a satisfactory result (Fig. 9). There are extensive options for pre-processing a raster image, including transformations, editing saturation and contrast, garbage removal, etc. There are not so many tracing settings, but enough to somehow affect the result of the program.

A free version is offered that lacks some features (such as color image tracing).

As mentioned at the beginning of the review, all the presented programs have their pros and cons, but one thing is undeniable - with the default settings, it is almost impossible to achieve a satisfactory result. However, a thorough knowledge of the settings does not guarantee a good result, which is explained by the imperfection of the tracing algorithms.

In principle, any raster image can be traced, but the result will directly depend on its quality. The decisive role is played by the purity and clarity of the image. In addition, tracing is usually used only for images with solid fills and extremely sharp edges. In other words, in order to get a good result in the tracing program, the designer must first carefully prepare the source bitmap. The use of specialized raster editors is more preferable than the use of built-in tracers to remove "garbage".

So, by tracing without preliminary preparation, you can quickly get a bad or medium quality vector image, and a good quality vector image requires a lot of time to carefully configure the tracing program and prepare the raster image.

Neuro Tracer - a new generation program

Manufacturer: Brand Security Systems GmbH

When the review was almost ready, the Neuro Tracer program fell into the hands of the author, which I would like to tell you more about. The main feature of Neuro Tracer is the use of neural adaptive image filtering technology. Its essence lies in the possibility of intelligent preliminary preparation of source bitmaps for tracing, taking into account the wishes of the user. For example, the user can specify which areas in the image are to be ignored and which are to be rendered.

The adaptive neural filter included in this software product allows you to clean up even a very “dirty” scanned image in a semi-automatic mode in a matter of minutes. The filter is given small areas of the scanned image with hints about what it is actually desirable to see in this area of ​​the image. After training, the program applies the proposed processing method to the entire image.

On fig. 10 on the image of an old engraving, areas with strokes are marked in red (including in places of their poor visibility), and areas with “garbage” that must be removed are marked in blue. The result of cleaning the image from "garbage" is shown in Fig. eleven.

Optional parameters for processing a bitmap during tracing can be set in the filter settings and subsequently applied to all types of bitmaps. Filter settings can be saved and later applied to different images of the same type. If there is no information about a certain part of the new object in the saved filter, the filter can be "retrained" using new additional information.

Neuro Tracer has other features that the author has not encountered in any other tracer, such as tracing with an indication of the shape and direction of objects. So, in fig. 12 engraving pointilles were indicated as significant elements.

In the following example (Fig. 13), only lines of a certain direction were indicated as significant objects.

An important feature of the tracer filter is the ability to parse an image into color components. Figures 14 and 15 show the result of parsing the scanned illustration. Of course, each color is located on its own layer.

On fig. 16 a rather "dirty" fingerprint image is cleaned and traced in three clicks without any significant time investment.

Neuro Tracer allows you to download bitmaps in 20 of the most common formats, including JPG, PCD, PSD, PSP, TIFF, BMP, etc. The result is exported in AI format.

All of the above allows us to conclude that the Neuro Tracer program is intended for professional work on vectorization of raster images.