What's your vector Victor?

[slycat]

I remember ages ago there was supposed to be a way of turning bitmaps into vectors meaning they're totally scaleable into as high resolutions as you like without a loss of quality. I think I did it with Corel Draw or something. I had a look on the internet for the best way to accomplish what I was after and I came across a very nifty site called Vector Magic which takes a bitmap and vectorises it for you giving a free PNG and the option of having a vector EPS file which can be read by Adobe Illustrator.

The reason why I was doing all of this was because the great pic Muzz did of my character was so small and I wanted a higher resolution copy for wallpapers and stuff. So I took the original 550x635 image and turned it into this 4181x2609 image (16:10 aspect ready to be downsized for wallpaper use).

Before and after comparisons:

Comments

[giro-batol.livejournal.com]

that is very impressive:)

[timato.livejournal.com]

That's awesome!

[sphelx.livejournal.com]

Illustrator does it. Originally I think they made Streamline specifically to do this sort of thing but I'm pretty sure they discontinued it and just built the functionality into Illustrator - to be honest it was a bit pointless having the 2 programs separately.

[slycat.livejournal.com]

I've got Illustrator, I couldn't find any way of automatically turning a bitmap into a vector like that website did. I'd be happy to be shown how as the internet didn't provide any help.

[sphelx.livejournal.com]

It's called LiveTrace and LivePaint, the difference being the former just does B/W lines the latter does full colour.

You import the image as a new layer, select it and then you can either press the LivePaint button on the toolbar at the top - or find it in the effects/filters options somewhere.
You'll more than likely want to bring up the settings first and enable the preview; or otherwise it'll just vectorise it with whatever default settings it has.

[slycat.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that, tho I couldn't replicate the look that Vector Magic accomplishes. Illustrator seems to result in a water painted type look.

[sphelx.livejournal.com]

You have to learn to tweak the settings, it's usually the corner sharpness and patch sizes that affect it the most.
I can't remember what the individual settings are called but when I get back to London I can talk you through it.

[slycat.livejournal.com]

Hmm, sounds like a lot of work when I know that Vector Magic can just do it for me. Then again, Vector Magic only gives you your first two vectorings free.

[slycat.livejournal.com]

Ah, it looked like it was drawn in that kind of way, probably why it converts back so easily. Does seem a bit odd that Muzz would delete the master file after finishing a piece of art.

[lazerus101.livejournal.com]

I think Muzz works in flash.

[fyphfoko.livejournal.com]

i think psp can do it

i know you can take tiny images and blow them up as high as you like, and it somehow gets rid of all the pixels, making it seem smoother, much lik ethat which i find quite impressive

[jaff-fox.livejournal.com]

Theres lots of software that claims to do this. Up until now i have been using an acient adobe software called Strealine. nothing else could manage it, as for illustrator.. well..
But this looks even better then streamling. Looks like they made some vector software with some sense!

[tilt-longtail.livejournal.com]

It's a completely type of flying, ALL TOGETHER!

[slycat.livejournal.com]

Erm, I don't get the reference...

[tilt-longtail.livejournal.com]

From the movie, "Airplane"
"What's your vector, Victor?"


http://youtube.com/watch?v=15XlSbGzGTk&feature=related

[slycat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what I was quoting, still don't get your reference tho :P Maybe it's a bit of the film I don't remember.

[mattlazycat.livejournal.com]

Nice one :)