Creating a 3D image from imported PNG with transparent background

I am wanting to create 3D image out of an imported file which is nothing but text with a transparent background (I have currently tried png & gif).

My reason for wanting to do it this way is because I have the "perfect" gold lettering available (attached) to me in my Adobe Photoshop program. Regardless of how much I try and how many imported textures, fill colors and tutorials I follow I cannot match the perfection and beauty I can acquire in my Adobe program for this gold lettering. So... I was wanting to import my text produced in Adobe PS, and then turn it into a 3D image of text in Xara. The problem is, that it takes my transparent background and fills it in with white. I've tried erasing it, but it is just replaced all over again when I hit the 3D button (attached).

I've contacted customer support and they were VERY nice, but they were unable to help me after several tries. So, I thought I'd place it on this forum for suggestions I had not considered.

Thank you so VERY much for any attention you can give to this dilemma.

You can only convert a vector shape to 3D (at least with a transparent background). So you need to see if you can export your text in a vector or postscript format instead of a bitmap.

You can do a bitmap trace to convert the image to a vector but you need a larger high res bitmap to get any kind of decent results.

I know nothing about web stuff, but, the image on the right looks like it is skewed and extruded, you might check your settings in both Xara and Adobe to= see if that may or may not be the case.

Yrs, what Gary said.

Larry - The second image is the result of trying to apply a 3D effect to a bitmap. The 3D is applied to the rectangle not to the content of the bitmap.

OK thanks Gary. Then couldn't he erase the white background and keep the text? I know it would then be a bitmap and not vector and the white parts in the text would be gone too.. Just a thought.

I think that a bitmap trace might be the way to go, but not Xara's, which has a steep learning curve. Illustrator's trace tool is pretty good, probably as good as Vector Magic. I understand that the latest iteration from CorelDraw is getting there, too.
Bob.

I did a bitmap trace in Vector Graphics and then had to do a lot of cleaning up to get the characters. Attached is the Xara file.

As Bob has noted a bitmap trace at this low resolution requires a lot of work. But you can play around with this.

If it wasn't already painfully clear I am very new to both Xara and this forum, but Wow...I really appreciate the help on this thank you all!

I will give these suggestions a try. Unfortunately, none sound practical in that I would need to be able to do this semi-frequently without a lot of time investment. I'm assuming that if there was a simple method of converting a bitmap image to a vector image in Xara that it would have been mentioned already...right?

You can do this but to be honest it is a feature that is just not very well developed.