picture tracing help

[Brocksdad1]

I am wanting to learn how to trace pictures so I can do my own files and be more beneficial to the site and myself. I have a drawing program for sheetmetal, but there are other things like pictures I would like to turn into DXF files. How do I go about doing that? what programs? Here Is a pic I am wanting to simply outline and turn into a dxf.

[plasmanewbie]

First things first you need to start with a MUCH larger picture than that. The bigger the better in this case which will allow you to zoom in on the detail without it getting blurry and pixelated so you can do a good trace. With a large picture I use Corel Draw to do a manual trace. Get a good size picture, choose a drawing program, post back with what your working with, and then you will be ready for some tracing advice

[Larry83301]

First thing I do is convert to a B & W pic, delete the background and trace what I want of the rest.

dan toyota 2.jpg (21.3 KiB) Viewed 506 times

Larry

PS As someone else said, a larger picture would give better detail.

[acourtjester]

I use Inkscape look on YouTube for Inkscape trace tutorials refining the search to Hand tracing of pictures. An image like that will not work very well as the contrast is not enough for good tracing. And as Plasmnewbie states small images are harder to trace due to the detail needed for a complete trace. Another place is
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... am+tracing
This one helped me created by member rdj357
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEzVGRx ... e=youtu.be

[Brocksdad1]

Thanks guys, I will do my best. I was hoping that there was a program that you all used instead of hand tracing. thanks for all the advice. I really appreciate it.

[ben de lappe]

You've got some great advice here. Would have been great for me to get back in the day when I was getting started, regardless how it worked for me. Just take it one step at a time. We each have software we prefer. For me it's TM cad as it's what I started with. Scan trace features are great, nothing against em. I just find through much experience and drawing practice that hand tracing gives MUCH better results. Even on incredibly low res images such as this the profile can be traced and scaled to size in a few minutes. As stated above higher res images give better detail allowing one to generate a better cut file. Depending on the pic and what you're doing with it manual tracing can be quicker in some instances, others not so much as we all know we get out of something exactly what we put in. Which is precisely why I do em the way I do.

Unfortunately there's no real easy button for this stuff. Especially if you want your art to be unique or otherwise stand out from the rest.

[beefy]

Thanks guys, I will do my best. I was hoping that there was a program that you all used instead of hand tracing. thanks for all the advice. I really appreciate it.

What many beginners don't seem to consider, is that you are trying to get cut lines, nothing more, from an image where colour tones can gradually blend. At the end of the day the auto tracing software can only GUESS where it thinks a line should be based on distinct contrast of colours in the drawing, like where black meets white. Once there's no DISTINCT transition from one colour to another the software can produce some really interesting results, which may look good in an art gallery.

Then you have the issues of "drop outs", e.g. a circle within a circle. Auto tracing software has no programming to try and produce stencil like (one solid piece) files that are suitable for a plasma cutter.