Vector to Vector halftone effect

[steve.ledger]

Richard Roseman halftone plugin.

Not strickly an Half tone effect as all the dots are they same size and are using hue control for colour changes. Thermal printers cannot do this.
Colour variations are produced by overlaying varying dot sizes.

Here's a PS Plugin that creates proper half tones

[steve.ledger]

Stumbled apon this

"You can use Repligator PRO's Newsprint Effect (otherwise known as a half tone effect) to output half-tone vector images in PS format. Simply select the Newsprint Effect and choose your settings. Then when you have a raster image which you like choose, under the PRO menu, Vector Output and create your PostScript version."

[David O'Neil]

Why?

Because a square isn't a circle. You are also limited to pixel boundaries, and can only simulate halftoning as a result. So, as I said, you'll never get a true halftone.

[steve.ledger]

I remembered I had a disc of PS filters I purchased some years ago and what do you know, Repligator Pro (V11, 2004) was on it too.

Happily it works even on Vista so I could give it a go.
Not a very pretty application, reminds my of Win95 - but appears so far to function. Maybe the latest version (v14) looks more up to date.

I output the results to EPS and imported it into CoredlDraw as Xara would not open it (neither would Inkscape, though AI handled it fine).
From CorelDraw I copied to the clipboard and Pasted in to Xara.
This is all Vector half tone dots (of varying sizes).

The lower coloured example is made up of cloned copies coloured as CMYK and shifted/nudged slighty.

[salaam]

I'm semi online now.
Halftone effect with the brush tool:

Draw a small vector circle with no line and make it into a brush.
Click on 'edit brush' and adjust the spacing to something reasonable (you can edit it later to change the spacing and colour etc.)

Draw vector shape or shapes (if you want to manipulate individual shapes later then make sure you spread them out so that they do not merge into each other later).

Group these shapes and copy them into another layer and work on this copy only (hide the original).

Give the shapes a 'transparent fill' and a line using your dot brush (using 'freehand brush tool')
Adjust the line size and spacing for the smallest (outer ring halftones)

Select your group or shape and set 'line width' to 'none'.
Now click on the 'contour tool'.

The 'inset path' should be off.
Select the 'round join'.

Using one of the the arrows, drag to set the contour width.
If you want 4 halftone gradients, then you will have to double this (4x2=8) and type in 8 for the 'number of steps in contour'.

This will also create an equal number of lines which we don't want.

Once the width is set go to 'Arrange' then 'convert to editable shapes'.

Now 'ungroup'.

Delete outer lines.

Select your halftones and go to the 'freehand brush tool'.
'Edit brush' to set the correct spacing.
The circle sizes can be adjusted using the 'set line width'
If changes do not seem to take place, save the brush and switch to any other brush and then straight back to your halftone brush.
All the spacing and sizes should be correct for the smallest (outer ring) halftones. The inner rings will be altered later.

Select all and then go to 'Arrange' then 'convert line to shapes'.

Ring by ring, increase the circle sizes using the 'contour tool'
Click on 'inset path' and 'round join' and type in the 'contour width' to increase the halftone circle sizes.

[salaam]

I wanted to achieve a more realistic halftone.

The original wine glass image was made in X3D.
This was then traced in inkscape.
Halftoning was achieved using the grid/ node method in XX.

I think that I should have made more halftones as the finished image left me with some small ugly artifacts (which I deleted from the bulb but not the base).

[Xhris]

Alien Skin's Snap Art plugins allow halftoning via their comic plugin.

[steve.ledger]

Alien Skin's Snap Art plugins allow halftoning via their comic plugin.

Looks very good. Wouldn't be sure how well that could be vectorised however.