Vector pixelation filters ?

**morphonius_821** · 31 March 2009, 07:39 AM

Just wondering if such a plug-in exists or any plug-in that produces a vector representation of pixelation by employing allot of random little blobs?

Some Background:
After manually tracing a few raster images for projects i found my self putting in allot of detail and re-creating allot of the stray pixels to recreate the raster feel with my vector design....
(shown bellow

But anyway i wondered if there was some kind of plug-in that could produce a similar effect... as it is an approach I'm fond of but im not fond of spending a month of sundays digitizing every little blob....(like im currently doing for a few pieces I'm working on...

i think a plug-in to reproduce randomized small blobs would be awesome...
ideally i would like this plugin to have features simillar to the functionality that already exists in xara for blurring, feathering and blending....
ie instead of the smooth blends evident in all these examples in xara... this plugin would have the same functions but instead of smooth colour transitions the blend would be done by changing the density and size of small blobs... to imitate the manual pixelation effect i have demonstrated...below...

ie you could have a feather function which would put dotty fringes around objects... a blur function which would fill the shape with a dotty effect increasing in density towards the middle and you could also alter the density and size of the blobs with effects like linear and elliptical fill effects ie..except instead of controlling a colour transition these would control the density of the randomized blobs....

you could also have settings for min and max blob size and a profile for the dispersion of these sizes....
a random factor perhaps
and also perhaps a roughness factor to control the type of shapes it would produce ETC....

So anyway you could use such a plugin as this to recreate the blobby blending effect shown in this manual trace design....
just dreaming i guess......i would love this...(i dont suppose such a plug-in or anything like it already exists?)

**handrawn** · 31 March 2009, 07:43 AM

I think there is - however memory is not serving me well in this regard

however - this is one area in which the bitmap tracer might be used to trace a pattern to produce a gaggle of vector shapes? - just a thought, its probably one of the intended uses....

**morphonius_821** · 31 March 2009, 08:00 AM

This is a valid point i guess but i have an intense dislike for auto trace functions as there is no artistic element to it....so would never under any circumstance utilize such a thing...(to be honest i find the idea of utilizing these (personally) abhorrent.) But i dont mind manually doing it or controlling a plugin to manually re-produce such effects as this puts the artistic control back in...
as then you are building up to an image...

instead of reverse engineering an image that already exists.

But thanks anyway....if you can remember any details kindly let me know...
TY

**handrawn** · 31 March 2009, 09:35 AM

well my view point would be that the bitmap tracer is a plugin

if you use it on a pattern and then seperate out shapes - you have lots to play with without drawing them, that you can add to your actual drawing

if you want to pixelate an area of an existing drawing then in xtreme, by an large, you are going to have to use a live effect which will not give you a vector output .....