bmp to cuttable vector?

[Phill Fenton]

You need software that can trace the image into a cuttable vector. The cheapest option is Corel draw which has a feature called “Corel Trace” but better to use a dedicated sign software program such as Signlab (which has an extremely effective vectorisation tool), or Casmate, flexisign and most other dedicated sign software programs.

[John Childs]

There’s Adobe Streamline as well.

[Darryl Seager]

Thanks guys,
i must play with the settings more, and try out all the options.
i use flexi’ anyway and knew about its trace tools, Corel i am a recent convert to and had tried one or two of its options. for what i want to achieve will take a lot of practise i think, and it will mean manually drawing i think.

I’ll see if i can remember to bring some piccies home, or find time to post wednesday at work of what i want to finish up with.

regards
Darryl

[curt]

Its not always just a matter of tracing some bitmaps. There are a few techniques that will make your job easier.

In Corel draw…from the menu bar.. Bitmap/ mode /blackandwhite 1 bit. This gives the tracing proggy something easier to look at. While there select “line art” and then adjust the thresh hold to make it optimum.

Now your bitmap is black and white. Select the bitmap by Lclick on it. Then from the menu bar in corel,, bitmap/tracebitmap which opens corel trace.

Then do your trace.. You have several selections there. Try outline or advanced outline to see what gives you a good trace.
When done close corel trace and it will save it back to coreldraw for you.

This is not an all inclusive how to. But it will get a novice into the arena for getting a much better trace.
curt

[John Childs]

I was thinking about this last week.

I bought Adobe Streamline in about 1989 and it was an essential tool which got used all the time, if not every day, then certainly several times a week. I couldn’t have worked without it.

This thread made me wonder because I realised that I can’t remember the last time I used it and I don’t know why that is. Maybe we are getting more vector files from our clients so that they can avoid paying the charge or maybe as my vectorising skills have got better so I am more inclined to do it manually. Maybe it’s just the type of work I do.

Whatever, although it can still be a useful tool, it is certainly not as important as it used to be.

[Darryl Seager]

Thanks for that Curt, i’ll give it a try using your directions

Apparently Streamline is still in the market place John.

Darryl