Tracing in Xtreme

I do a good deal of digital painting, and would be wonderful if I could use the tracing feature to create something like an outline. I'm reluctant to trace by hand, since my arthritis inhibits it. Ideally, I'd like to trace a bitmap such that I can redo the tracing in, say, a Xara calligraphic pen or a brush with varying thicknesses. I can generate a passable outline in PhotoShop using one of several techniques; no matter how simple I make the drawing however, Xara trace generates a host of interior lines that make the outline impractical to manipulate. What I want is a bitmap image reduced to the kind of picture in a kid's colouring book; can Xara perform the trick?
Earwig

You might take a look at Xhris´s tutorial on the bitmap tracer. It´s very thorough in its explanation.

http://xhris.digitalred.net/

Thanks, S. That tutorial is very helpful indeed. However, I don't think it speaks to my problem. I want to select all lines (or virtually all the lines) that the tracer generates and turn them into calligraphy strokes, for example. But trace simply produces so many -- even when I bring in a photoshop outline bitmap simplified to pure B&W -- that I can't use it. I'm wondering if there's a way to make trace generate only one stroke for every black line in the bitmap outline. Thus if I select all strokes>change to calligraphy stroke #1, the result will look like the line drawings in a colouring book, with a minimum of deletes required.

Tracing almost always requires post editing, so on the face if it you may be asking for a bit more than a tracer can offer. Also it's worth noting that before you trace, you might be better off if you prepare an image for tracing, keeping your intended result in mind. EG: Increase contrast and sharpen edges . Also try using Mehdi's Fine threshold before you send it to Xara's trace.

FInally, why not give VectorMagic's tracer a try? It may bring you results closer to what you seek

I don't think Xara's will fit the bill for you and I doubt that many other vector programme will either although some might get close. The one that gets closest in my opinion would be Adobe Illustrator with it live Trace & Live Paint tools but even here there are problems with the tracers output as it does not really treat the outline as a line but as a shape.

I would always say to someone if they can is to manually trace the object into any vector package and then work from there but I realise that you have a handicap which may effect your ability to carry out this task but it is not that hard if you have patience. Have a look at this movie where the cartoonist is using Illustrator but it could be any vector package here: http://www.warking.com/Cartoon_Line_work.mov

Remi one of the moderators here found another site where you upload photo or line drawing and then download an EPS file which you take into your favourite vector package and take it from there and here is the link for the upload page but do have a look at the tutorial movies as well: http://vectormagic.stanford.edu/vectorize/upload
This programme I think is the best converter from bitmap to vector but you will have problems and that is why I still think if your disability allows to manually trace rather than let a programme do it for you. If you know anyone that has a Wacom pad try that for a few days to do your manual trace it may help you rather than using a mouse.

I have had good luck doing the type of line work you desire by zooming in and using the shape editor tool. I would click at one point on a curve, then click at the other end of the curve, then just "bend the line" to fit the curve. Zoom in far enough and you can trace anything...

For instance my steam engine in this months stop an post thread.:)

The method by which Xara's tracer produces images is not really suited for your needs. Its method is analogous to producing a collage of shapes to approximate the image. I would recommend VectorMagic over Xara's tracer for line-tracing, as its approach is different and more in-line to the approach used by other graphics packages (albeit significantly better).

Xhris

There seems to be an echo here ;)

Also see Paul Solderholm's Guest Tutorial From Line Art to Clip Art II.

Gary

Generous responses all! I'll give your suggestions a try, including the hand-trace-and-bend. Much obliged.
Earwig

Wonderful thing about the net: you query one thing and you get a solution for another. I'd never heard of the VM site, and you're right; it really can generate remarkable traces. I'd like to use those algorithms to vectorize and enlarge preliminary drawings made from photos done with a tiny Canon Elph I carry around on my belt. However, I can't get Xtreme 2.0e to import or show either the .eps or the format with the suffix .svg. (Xara seems to import the .eps, but the screen stays blank) Can you folks help?

Earwig

I don't believe Xtreme supported svg until version 3. But my memory isn't as good as it used to be. Version 3.2.4 is the current version.

For eps files they should be compatible with Illustrator version 7 or 8. The newer versions will not import into Xtreme.

If you open an eps file with a text editor you can find out the version. The attached shows the data in an eps file.

xar wont import svg yet [it only has an export filter for svg - still at early stage]

I use inkscape to convert svg to pdf, which is ok for xtremepro

Sorry to be so dense, but I take these last two responses to mean that I can't have the Vector Magic *vector* image in Xtreme (ANY version). Is that right?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by earwig

Sorry to be so dense, but I take these last two responses to mean that I can't have the Vector Magic *vector* image in Xtreme (ANY version). Is that right?

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No, it's not possible to import these EPS or SVG files with the current import filters of Xara Xtreme (any version). See also this and this thread for some workarounds (Inkscape was already mentioned by Steve here).

Remi

Open your EPS file convert.nevia.com then export as PDF.

Import the PDF in Xtreme.

Only problem I have found is sometimes the EPS file crops off part of the image.

I'm currently writing a review of Vector Magic for Communication Arts Magazine. The fellow who developed VM is a PHD candidate at Stanford University and specializes in artificial intelligence. It's quite a story.

I have done traces on solid color low resolution GIF image with excellent results and then traced the same image in Illustrator's Live Trace and Live Trace does not even come close. I'm getting a copy of the new CorelDRAW X4 later in the week and plan to try the new and improved CorelTRACE. Should be interesting.

Gary

I'm finding this thread very interesting and the vector magic and conversion to PDF are working well for me, but what exactly are people doing with these traces? Maybe a silly question, but what are the benefits of importing a traced image into Xara and what and what type of output are people usually striving for when doing this sort of thing?

Kurt

Hi Kurt

for example:

a pencil/pen cartoon drawing scanned in will be bitmap
so cannot use boolean [ctrl1-4] to slice out shapes for color fills.
could hand trace - but that can be tricky to get right with a complicated drawing
usually much quicker to convert to vector and then slice out fill shapes
also - the vector line is then scalable and can be edited like any other shape

When you are asked by a company to modify a logo or make it larger this small programme will do it for you for you and you only need to spend 10 minutes tidying it up. Although I have not used it this way any one that goes on holiday and brings back a memorable picture and wants to blow it up, to frame it, could easily use this programme and get a good facsimile of their picture without any jaggies.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kurt8

Maybe a silly question, but what are the benefits of importing a traced image into Xara and what and what type of output are people usually striving for when doing this sort of thing?

Kurt

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Another example is the import into Xara 3D6 - you can only import vectors, so if you have a logo that you want to "enhance" it has to be a vector format.

Have a look at some of the complex shapes in this thread (especially the one in post 78 on page 8) http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=23208 tracing them by hand would take forever.

Some time back, I hand traced a TIFF image of an elegant script font logotype because my client (who designs wine labels in Napa Valley) needed to have a scalable vector version of the logotype for a new label she was designing. It took me about 3 hours to hand trace it in Xara. The client was happy and I was happy with the result.

I traced the same TIFF file in VectorMagic in 3 minutes and the results were every bit as good.

Now, if I charge $X for a hand trace that takes 3 hours, or charge $X for a trace of equal quality that takes 3 minutes... Let's see. 3 hours? 3 minutes? 3 hours? 3 minutes...?

Gary

It doesn't sound to me like Earwig needs vector art in this case.
Perhaps just a simple LineArt filter is the ticket.
You can very quickly apply the lineart filter from Xero to get this tracing effect.
- Andy

Professors get talky, and I don't want to bore you, but I spent many years wondering how it is that people believe in pictures and are sceptical about language. I make pictures that resemble illustrations because I find myself delightedly "believing" them more than I do the photos from which they're made. And there's even more pleasure when people ask to keep them because *they* find the pictures persuasive as well. On any number of lists you can find folks generating awful pics with filters, happy as clams because they think they look like "oils" or "watercolours". And by golly, sometimes they do, and they give pleasure in proportion as they do, far more than the mediocre color snaps that underlie the "paintings". Why? At least to some degree, it's because people manipulating bitmaps have stumbled on painterly tricks with lines or colours which some anonymous painter or etcher invented or unmasked a century or two ago -- or even in our own time. (Ask yourself how long it's been since we could convincingly represent birds, for example). At any rate, the play of lines embracing a subject have long invoked the worker's powers of invention, and delighted the viewer. Do it right, and you win his allegiance in a flash. (Take a look at the Denver Gillian illustrations here, for example: http://www.flickr.com/photos/leifpeng/sets/1624959/) People -- ordinary people -- bring an incredibly sophisticated apparatus to bear on a picture put before them, and a line that persuades is a lovely thing to command. I envy those who can make one with a pen, but I can't. These machines tempt me to hope anyway.
Earwig