Smoothing vectors

[AndyMS]

I'm importing vectors and bitmap images for tracing. It's mostly just animals and common shapes. I'm finding that the vectors usually aren't very smooth, especially the tracing. It tends to be a blend of curved segments and linear segments. I try to "fit curves to selected vectors", but I can't get the overall result I am after. I can't seem to balance preserving the sharper, more detailed bits and still smooth out the longer, less detailed segments.

Say you import and trace a football. How do you keep the pointed ends and still get smooth arcs in between?

[FixitMike]

I use the fit curves to vectors tool with a .002" tolerance. Then I look at the vectors with the node editor. Often, one can eliminate loops and hooks by just deleting the errant nodes.

[Charlie_l]

I use the node editor, smoothing the points on the curved part of the ball, deleting some stray points. On the ends leave those nodes black indicating they are not smoothed.

[Adrian]

These two videos are well worth studying if you haven't done so already. Personally I manually trace bitmaps 90% of the time as the results are far better and it often works out much quicker than editing the automatic results.

http://support.vectric.com/tutorials/V8 ... _DRAW.html
http://support.vectric.com/tutorials/V8 ... _DRAW.html

[martin54]

I'm importing vectors and bitmap images for tracing. It's mostly just animals and common shapes. I'm finding that the vectors usually aren't very smooth, especially the tracing. It tends to be a blend of curved segments and linear segments. I try to "fit curves to selected vectors", but I can't get the overall result I am after. I can't seem to balance preserving the sharper, more detailed bits and still smooth out the longer, less detailed segments.

Say you import and trace a football. How do you keep the pointed ends and still get smooth arcs in between?

Your importing bitmaps for tracing, if you import vectors then they are ready to use. To help then try searching for vectors. Also the quality of the original image plays a big part in how well it traces. Line art often converts better than coloured pictures. Higher the resolution of the original the better (to an extent) the results.
Like anything there is a learning curve attached, learn to use the trace functions, there are no settings that work great for every image, case of trial & error & often no matter how much effort you put into finding the right artwork & setting it up there will be a degree of manual editing.

Like Adrian I tend to draw a lot of stuff from scratch manually but then I have been doing it long enough that I generally find it much quicker, simple shapes shouldn't be a problem even for someone just starting out & would be a good place to start learning to use the manual editing tools.

[LittleGreyMan]

IMHO, the tracing function does a great work. You'll have some learning curve, playing with the various parameters. Begin with simple bitmaps (line art), then try tougher ones.

After that, converting to vectors is very fast, and you'll quickly know if you'll succeed in converting the bitmap or not. In this case, drawing manually on the bitmap is fast and much easier than it looks when you begin.

To summarize:
-learn to use the tool, and once you are comfortable with it,
-try vectorizing your bitmap. If you quickly get a good result, go on with it, else
-draw manually your vectors

Maybe Adrian and Martin tried the trace function in an earlier version (I don't know it this function has evolved), which was less powerful, and took the habit of tracing manually.

But in all cases, manual tracing will provide better vectors than the tracing function.