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  1. #21
    Join Date
    May 2010
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    Lam, Bavaria-Germany
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    799

    Default Re: Bitmap Tracer Blues

    Quote Originally Posted by Xhris View Post
    Xara's tracer does a great job with simple flat-coloured logos like this as evidenced by the attached mini tutorial. In fairness, it is absolutely not intuitive how to achieve this quality of result and it could be argued that many of these steps could be effectively performed automatically and intelligently by the Xara tracer in future updates.
    Does it realy? The result is more faulty then well. I took Your result and compare it with the result from Potracer in Inkscape. See for yourself.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

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  2. #22

    Default Re: Bitmap Tracer Blues

    It would be down to the individual to decide whether a particular result is good enough for them. You can use the retroactive smoothing slider in the shape editor tool to remove some of the rough edges in the Xara traces, but that's more work. I am interested in the Inkscape tracer now you've brought it to my attention. I wasn't able to reproduce your result however. To help me, please could you attach the exact image file you used for the trace above along with screenshots of the settings used in Inkscape's tracer? Thanks.

  3. #23
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Lam, Bavaria-Germany
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    799

    Default Re: Bitmap Tracer Blues

    Quote Originally Posted by Xhris View Post
    It would be down to the individual to decide whether a particular result is good enough for them. You can use the retroactive smoothing slider in the shape editor tool to remove some of the rough edges in the Xara traces, but that's more work. I am interested in the Inkscape tracer now you've brought it to my attention. I wasn't able to reproduce your result however. To help me, please could you attach the exact image file you used for the trace above along with screenshots of the settings used in Inkscape's tracer? Thanks.
    Hi Xhris,
    sorry I answer late but the last few days where very busy. I made a little video on how I did the trace in Inkscape. The voice quality isn't good because my microfon is defect. At the end, when I zoom in with the mousewheel the screen recorder zoomed in too and the edges arent sharp like in 100% view. I was lazy to record it again. I think You Xhris and everybody else can figure out how it work.

    Here ist the link to the video: http://www.franta-net.de/xara/trace/

    Servus Ernie

  4. #24
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
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    Harwich, Essex, England
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    21,895

    Default Re: Bitmap Tracer Blues

    Thanks for doing that Ernie. Great video.
    Egg

    Intel i7 - 4790K Quad Core + 16 GB Ram + NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1660 Graphics Card + MSI Optix Mag321 Curv monitor
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  5. #25
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    UK
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    21,283

    Default Re: Bitmap Tracer Blues

    aye thanks ernie
    -------------------------------
    Nothing lasts forever...

  6. #26
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Toronto, Canada
    Posts
    792

    Default Re: Bitmap Tracer Blues

    Thank you Ernie, great explanation.

    Ciao

    Roly

  7. #27

    Default Re: Bitmap Tracer Blues

    Thanks for the video showing how you reproduced your result. As I suspected, my inability to reproduce the same trace result was because the final image posted was post-edited and not representative of the tracer’s raw output. As such, it’s probably not meaningful to conclude much about the tracers based on a comparison of the earlier images because post editing and corrections will always improve the final result.

    In general, higher resolution images will always produce considerably better results due to the increased amount of information available for the tracer. Having played a bit more, both tracers seem to produce comparable levels of accuracy in their raw output relative to the original source image (in this example at least) as the attached file shows; the traces are overlaid on the original bitmap set to be all red pixels (can turn antialiasing off for clarity). I would argue that, at least in this case, the Inkscape tracer is easier to produce a final result given that it cuts out holes automatically. This is not surprising though given that Potrace is many years newer. Given that Inkscape is free and you can export to PDF, it’s probably the tracer of choice for this kind of usage as of Feb 2017.

    Logo comparison.xar

  8. #28
    Join Date
    May 2010
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    Lam, Bavaria-Germany
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    Default Re: Bitmap Tracer Blues

    Quote Originally Posted by Xhris View Post
    Having played a bit more, both tracers seem to produce comparable levels of accuracy in their raw output relative to the original source image…
    Hi Xhris,
    I dont agree with You. The poor quality output of Xara's tracer is not comparable to Potracer's output and is unacceptable for me as a professional graphic designer and printer..

    Click image for larger version. 

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    You can see how jiggy the trace from Xara is.
    I don't know when Xara build in the tracer but potrace was written by Peter Selinger and the initial release was 2001. More information about potrace you can find here: http://potrace.sourceforge.net/

    I attached an other example of a tracing job I got often to do. To trace a handdrawn logo from a customer like this one is a job for a tracer. Not so good idea to redraw it into Xara.
    Feel free to play arround with it. Maybe You got better results in Xara then my but I don't think You got a better result then with Inkscape/Potrace.

    Servus Ernie
    Attached Files Attached Files

  9. #29
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    21,283

    Default Re: Bitmap Tracer Blues

    if you go back to around 2007/2008 you will find a whole series of threads on TG about using bitmap tracers, often relating to the creation of vector for the dreaded spinning logos in xara3D, and the subject of which was best between xara and inscape was thrashed to death

    I use tracers a lot - the default settings on inscape/potrace make it easier to get a smooth egde than do the default settings in xara.. but smooth edges mean the edge deviates from it's original path more than if the edges are jagged with xara

    look at the attached file - I have highlighted where your inkscape trace has simplified the outline - I have also traced in xara and you will see how the outline follows the original more closely - I have also included the xara tracer settings that I used in the xar file
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

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    Attached Files Attached Files
    -------------------------------
    Nothing lasts forever...

  10. #30
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Lam, Bavaria-Germany
    Posts
    799

    Default Re: Bitmap Tracer Blues

    Sorry maybe I'm blind? Or You?
    Did You realy think the jigged trace from Xara will be better? If I tracing a logo i will have smooth but detailrich pathes with a minimum on nodes and not the sawtooth effect what Xara tracer made. That what You postet as an example is so terrible I wouldn't sell it to a client or let it plot for vehicle labeling.
    That is a no go!
    Xaras tracer is a piece of crap. I You are happy with it, o.k. For my purposes it's not suitable.

    Servus Ernie

 

 

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