Great online vectorization tool, Vector Magic!

Posted on January 1, 2008
Filed Under Illustration, Resources

As we know, vector art is very useful and I love vector arts because we can scale it without making it blurry like pixel images. Some of my reader emailed me asking how to make original vectors, so I post this with a hope to help my readers.

Since Adobe Streamline in the early 1990’s we can auto-trace bitmap images into vector graphics with smart technologies. For example Adobe Illustrator live trace function, Coreldraw, Cocoaportrait..etc. Obviously they are not as good as doing it by hand, so ultimately hand tracing is the best way to make precise vector arts.

However excellent geeks at Stanford developed a fantastic online Flash-powerd tool designed to convert bitmaps to vectors, Vector Magic, and the quality is just amazing!

We can upload GIF, PNG, or JPG, that you want to vectorize, and all you need to do is just answer simple questions. Then, you can download auto-traced vector graphic in EPS, SVG or PNG. And, of course, it’s free to use. This is amazing isn’t it? It’s much better quality than Adobe Illustrator live trace function and I think this is the top quality so far in auto-tracing technology.

However, in order to have precise vector graphics, we still need to modify and adjust the auto-traced vector graphic by using Pen Tool and Direct Selection Tool in Illustrator, so ultimately as I mentioned, practice with the Pen Tool and the Direct Selection Tool in Illustrator is essential but the Vector Magic is definitely save your time a lot.

Cheers!
Takashi

Comments

2 Responses to “Great online vectorization tool, Vector Magic!”

mog said on January 11th, 2008 5:40 pm

Once again Takashi you are a superstar, …this will save me having to pay an illustrator person, or use my valuable hours, to draw around things to get them accurately into C4D.
…although i think you should have been doing something else on new years day other than writing blogs, ..and so does Maria …

….. 私のよい友人ありがとう

-mog
admin said on January 11th, 2008 7:47 pm

Thank you for the comment my respected friend. You probably right, there should have been something else to do on new years day…

I’m grad to hare the post was valuable for you. The Vector magic is very useful when if our clients have their logo in only pixel format or, as you say, for making 3D object from images.

By the way, your Japanese message is very sweet.

Thank you!

Takashi