6/17/2023 0 Comments Find my vector magic key![]() And in about 30 seconds you see the results of the scan. VectorMagic analyzes the image then asks you to make certain decisions: Is the bitmap a photograph or a flat graphic? What degree of accuracy do you want? How many colors? When you have made these decisions, you press Next and the vectorizing process begins. I have manually traced numerous bitmap logos and logotypes and the VectorMagic trace has the same feeling of accuracy and logic. ![]() James Diebel was not able to give me any technical details about how VectorMagic does its magic-their application for a patent is pending, but it's almost as if VectorMagic looks at the design as a designer would and makes its distinction between areas of color based on the entire shape, as opposed to a pixel at a time. The results are often inaccurate and the software fudges when creating outlines. But because most bitmap images are anti-aliased, a process that creates inter-mediate pixels to create a smoother transition, these boundaries are sometimes quite vague. Bitmap tracing software tries to determine boundaries between colors. Most auto-tracing tools, such as Illustrator's Live Trace, work using a mix of preexisting techniques such as color quantization, color separation and curve simplification, none of which was designed specifically for translating bitmap images into scalable vector objects. As of this writing, the site is processing more than 15,000 images per day. After it was "dugg" on, the site went ballistic. Plus Diebel and Norda could monitor the types of bitmap images being traced by site visitors and quickly identify bugs and other problem areas. The two agreed to take the software to the next level and offer the bitmap-to-vector utility as a Web-based application there were several reasons for doing this including bi-platform access for site visitors. It was.ĭiebel showed an early prototype of VectorMagic to a friend, Jacob Norda, a professional software programmer who was notably impressed. Only after he had returned from his trip and completed his first prototype did he try Illustrator's Live Trace to see if his approach was viable. ![]() As a mental exercise, he visualized how such an application would be designed-and ultimately fleshed-out-during that long delay at the airport. Diebel had never used any auto-tracing software but knew it was an important tool for the professional design community. While he has no formal design background (the closest he'd previously gotten to professional design had been to use Photoshop and Illustrator to prepare school papers), his area of study includes image processing. James Diebel is a Ph.D candidate in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. The individual shapes were precise and the outlines amazingly clean with a minimal number of control points. The vector conversion was almost as accurate as my original vector drawing. I uploaded a simple, low-resolution GIF of a logo I had designed not expecting anything spectacular. There was a link to the VectorMagic site where you could upload and trace a bitmap image in real time. I first heard of VectorMagic from an enthusiastic post on an online graphics forum. The result is VectorMagic, and unlike most hyperbolic product names, VectorMagic is the real thing. ![]() For most, getting stuck in an airport is a waste of time, but for James Diebel a series of long delays at an airport in August 2006 offered him just enough time to craft some preliminary code for a breakthrough approach to bitmap tracing. ![]()
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