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AutoTrace

AutoTrace is a utility for converting bitmaps into vector graphics.

Features

  • tracing outline and midline
  • color reduction and despeckling
  • supports a lot of input and output formats

Licenses

The program can be used under the GNU General Public License (GPL), either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

The input and output functions (input-*.[ch] and output-*.[ch]) can also be used under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Some of code was partially derived from limn of GNU fontutils. However, almost all code has been rewritten.

Platforms

The program was tested using GNU/Linux, HP-UX, Solaris, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, macOS, and OS/2 4.0. It compiles with GCC, Borland C++ Builder, Visual C++, and many other compilers.

If you use Visual C++ 6.0 for compilation be sure to have at least SP 5 otherwise you could get memory access violations due to a bug in earlier versions.

Requirements

AutoTrace can be compiled standalone, then it can import pnm, pbm, pgm, ppm, bmp, and tga files. If you have installed libpng you can also read png files and with ImageMagick or GraphicsMagick a very broad range of input formats is available.

You will need at least libpng 1.0.6 and ImageMagick 5.2.1. Most output formats like dxf, emf, eps, ai, er, fig, svg, epd, dr2d, and sk are directly integrated in AutoTrace, but if you need swf export you need to install Ming. Also you can export to the p2e format. This format can be converted by pstoedit to a large number of other formats. If you have installed the latest pstoedit (3.32 or newer), AutoTrace uses pstoedit directly. However, direct pstoedit support is not stable enough. See INSTALL file for more detail.

Installation

See the file INSTALL.

Usage

AutoTrace comes in two parts: a command-line program and a library.

Here are the options you can use in the command-line program:

Usage: autotrace [options] <input_file_name>
Options:<input_file_name> must be a supported image file.
  You can use '--' or '-' to start an option.
  You can use any unambiguous abbreviation for an option name.
  You can separate option names and values with '=' or ' '.

-background-color <hexadecimal>: the color of the background that should
    be ignored, for example FFFFFF; default is no background color.

-centerline: trace a character's centerline, rather than its outline.

-charcode <unsigned>: code of character to load from GF font file.

-color-count <unsigned>: number of colors a color bitmap is reduced to,
    it does not work on grayscale, allowed are 1..256;
    default is 0, that means no color reduction is done.

-corner-always-threshold <angle-in-degrees>: if the angle at a pixel is
    less than this, it is considered a corner, even if it is within
    `corner-surround' pixels of another corner; default is 60.

-corner-surround <unsigned>: number of pixels on either side of a
    point to consider when determining if that point is a corner;
    default is 4.

-corner-threshold <angle-in-degrees>: if a pixel, its predecessor(s),
    and its successor(s) meet at an angle smaller than this, it's a
    corner; default is 100.

-despeckle-level <unsigned>: 0..20; default is 0: no despeckling.

-despeckle-tightness <real>: 0.0..8.0; default is 2.0.

-dpi <unsigned>: The dots per inch value in the input image, affects scaling
    of mif output image


-error-threshold <real>: subdivide fitted curves that are off by
    more pixels than this; default is 2.0.

-filter-iterations <unsigned>: smooth the curve this many times
    before fitting; default is 4.

-input-format: Available formats: ppm, png, pbm, pnm, bmp, tga, pgm, gf.

-help: print this message.

-line-reversion-threshold <real>: if a spline is closer to a straight
    line than this, weighted by the square of the curve length, keep it a
    straight line even if it is a list with curves; default is .01.

-line-threshold <real>: if the spline is not more than this far away
    from the straight line defined by its endpoints,
    then output a straight line; default is 1.

-list-output-formats: print a list of supported output formats to stderr.

-list-input-formats: print a list of supported input formats to stderr.

-log: write detailed progress reports to <input_name>.log.

-noise-removal <real>:: 0.0..1.0; default is 0.99.

-output-file <filename>: write to <filename>

-output-format <format>: use format <format> for the output file. Available formats:
    rpl, tk, cfdg, xfig, plot, svg, plot-svg, gschem, gmfa, text, epd, tek, rib, sk, plot-tek, gmfb, pcl, txt, asy, plot-pcl, tex, gnuplot, cairo, dat, plot-hpgl, lwo, pcb, xml, dr2d, pov, dxf_14, eps, tfig, mp, meta, java1, hpgl, ai, cgm, pdf, latex2e, ps2ai, p2e, java2, pic, svm, plot-cgm, plot-ai, plt, noixml, vtk, tgif, idraw, fig, emf, plot-fig, kil, er, m, dxf, obj, ugs, pcbfill, mif, mma, java, gcode, c, dxf_s, ild, mpost, pcbi

-preserve-width: preserve line width prior to thinning.

-remove-adjacent-corners: remove corners that are adjacent.

-tangent-surround <unsigned>: number of points on either side of a
    point to consider when computing the tangent at that point; default is 3.

-report-progress: report tracing status in real time.

-debug-arch: print the type of cpu.

-debug-bitmap: dump loaded bitmap to <input_name>.bitmap.ppm or pgm.

-version: print the version number of this program.

-width-weight-factor <real>: weight factor for fitting the linewidth.


You can get the source code of autotrace from 
https://github.com/autotrace/autotrace

The library is named libautotrace. To learn about the usage of the library see autotrace.h. Here is a sample program that uses libautotrace. To compile, invoke the following commands (on POSIX):

gcc sample.c `pkg-config --libs autotrace` `pkg-config --cflags autotrace`

/* sample.c */
#include <autotrace/autotrace.h>

int main()
{
  char * fname = "img/triangle.png";
  at_fitting_opts_type * opts = at_fitting_opts_new();
  at_input_read_func rfunc = at_input_get_handler(fname);
  at_bitmap_type * bitmap ;
  at_splines_type * splines;
  at_output_write_func wfunc = at_output_get_handler_by_suffix("eps");

  bitmap = at_bitmap_read(rfunc, fname, NULL, NULL, NULL);
  splines = at_splines_new(bitmap, opts, NULL, NULL);
  at_splines_write(wfunc, stdout, "", NULL, splines, NULL, NULL);
  return 0;
}

GUI Frontend

Frontline, a Gtk+/Gnome-based GUI frontend, was under development until 2002. See https://github.com/autotrace/frontline

More Information

See https://github.com/autotrace/autotrace

Contribution

Programmers wanted!!!

See the issue tracker, or the TODO file and contact the author.

Author

Martin Weber (martweb@gmx.net)