poor results with raster to vector conversion

[cherokeechief79]

is there a tutorial somewhere on how to get good results using this? i find very detailed fine line clipart to use but im getting horrible results. i see there is now spline parameters and i think im just not getting it.

[#Rekd™]

Can you share your file?

[cherokeechief79]

this is not what im trying to do but it is a good example of what i an trying to convert.this looks very well defined with the black against the white.im really just looking for some help with the spline settings. maybe i am wrong and this is still a difficult design to convert from a raster to a vector.i have not used this in a long time but i remember using it back in ver 9 and i converted a very detaild picture of my jeep outside and it did a very good job even with the horrible color contrasts (i had to convert to b+w 1st of course) i would think something like this pic would be easy and come out very well.

thanks for any input or help!

mark

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rocketmachinist]

I had better luck with adobe illustrator. You can get a free license for a month but it works way better. I don't remember the exact steps but it was along the lines of

 

import the image

use the magic wand tool to get the color difference (this should trace the lines)

then delete or hide the main image (you will see the lines)

save and export as dxf (make sure you do it as a spline it will save you so much effort when trying to resize.)

import dxf into your part file

clean up geometry

done

[Chris Rizzo]

What he says with the Adobe. Ras-2-Vec is marginal any way you cut it.

[#Rekd™]

this is not what im trying to do but it is a good example of what i an trying to convert.this looks very well defined with the black against the white.im really just looking for some help with the spline settings. maybe i am wrong and this is still a difficult design to convert from a raster to a vector.i have not used this in a long time but i remember using it back in ver 9 and i converted a very detaild picture of my jeep outside and it did a very good job even with the horrible color contrasts (i had to convert to b+w 1st of course) i would think something like this pic would be easy and come out very well.

thanks for any input or help!

mark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is what I come up with from your file straight into Mastercam. I used X5 (not sure what version you are using). The second file is from Adobe.

DRAGON.MCX-5

DRAGONADOBE.MCX-5

[Thad]

Kinda looks to me like you're trying to do a vector to vector with raster to vector. Say that 5 times real fast!

 

Raster is a pixel based image (.jpg, .bmp) and vector is based on mathematical formulas that are scalable (scale them up 1000% and lose NO quality). Illustrator, while it has some raster tools, is a vector creating/editing software. Perhaps that's why it does a better job in this case? I doesn't sound like it's converting anything...just giving you the outlines. Maybe it also does a nice job at converting raster images since it possesses some of the magic of Photoshop (raster creator/editor with some vector tools)?

 

Your jeep picture you did with V9, Mark, was a real raster to vector conversion.

 

Thad

[cherokeechief79]

thank you!

that is about the same result i got in mc 10.6. the adobe one you did looked very good.i dont think i could have played around with the settings to get it as defined in mc. this is exactly what i wanted to know! although that dragon pic can be purchased as a vector the screenshot i captured is bust a bitmap and pixelated. i will try to dig up that old pic and file i did of my jeep years ago and post them.

[cherokeechief79]

ok so i was ready to buy one of these other programs to do my tracing.i figured let me try it the old way i used to do it in ver 9 which was not using splines and i got very good results! the reason i was using splines was because i read an art tutorial which stated the best method was to use the "new" spline function. maybe i just dont get the spline way but ive tried adjusting just about everything. im pretty happy with the results im getting in mc the "old" way now.

thanks for the replies!

[Müřlıń®]

I took the file and used 70 dpi and fine arcs and lines and no splines and smoothed it twice.

 

Looks better than Adobe.

 

 

ok so i was ready to buy one of these other programs to do my tracing.i figured let me try it the old way i used to do it in ver 9 which was not using splines and i got very good results! the reason i was using splines was because i read an art tutorial which stated the best method was to use the "new" spline function. maybe i just dont get the spline way but ive tried adjusting just about everything. im pretty happy with the results im getting in mc the "old" way now.

thanks for the replies!

I took the file and used 70 dpi and fine arcs and lines and no splines and smoothed it twice.

 

Looks better than Adobe.

[cherokeechief79]

^{that looks really good! when you said you used 70 dpi ,is that what it defaulted to when it came in? isnt the best resolution the actual size of the jpeg as it came in? what i mean is if the pic is very small say 1 x 2 the dpi would be very low and if the pic was say 14 x 16 the dpi would be much higher? im just trying to understand this a little better. also the art tutorial i looked at said to use the spline function because it would produce closed chains not necesarily the best conversion.}

[Müřlıń®]

^{that looks really good! when you said you used 70 dpi ,is that what it defaulted to when it came in? isnt the best resolution the actual size of the jpeg as it came in? what i mean is if the pic is very small say 1 x 2 the dpi would be very low and if the pic was say 14 x 16 the dpi would be much higher? im just trying to understand this a little better. also the art tutorial i looked at said to use the spline function because it would produce closed chains not necesarily the best conversion.}

 

Setting to 70 dpi made the picture the largest size it would go. It was not the default DPI. I forget what size it was when I ran the ras2vec...but it was much higher and the pic was tiny.

 

Then, by smoothing it twice, Mastercam was able to smooth it better because of the size of the pic.

[cherokeechief79]

i have adobe here now but im getting better results with the mc rast to vect converter. everything is coming out nice and crisp. they just dont come out well when i use the new spline function.