Potrace
Encyclopedia
Potrace is an open-source
, cross-platform
computer program which converts bitmapped
images into vector graphics
. It is written and maintained by Peter Selinger.
Various frontends are available for Potrace. Notably, it has been integrated with Inkscape
, giving Inkscape its Trace Bitmap action. CR8tracer is a simple Windows GUI based frontend. FontForge
can use Potrace to import a bitmap image into a font. Potrace is also used by the music engraving program LilyPond.
Potrace's input and output is black and white (colored images are converted to bitmap before processing). However, Inkscape is capable of producing color images by decomposing each channel into several black and white images and tracing them separately with Potrace. The commercial Total Vectorise program also uses Potrace as its core.
Potrace is licensed under the GPL
.
Open-source software
Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...
, cross-platform
Cross-platform
In computing, cross-platform, or multi-platform, is an attribute conferred to computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented and inter-operate on multiple computer platforms...
computer program which converts bitmapped
Raster graphics
In computer graphics, a raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of color, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium...
images into vector graphics
Vector graphics
Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon, which are all based on mathematical expressions, to represent images in computer graphics...
. It is written and maintained by Peter Selinger.
Various frontends are available for Potrace. Notably, it has been integrated with Inkscape
Inkscape
Inkscape is a free software vector graphics editor, licensed under the GNU General Public License. Its goal is to implement full support for the Scalable Vector Graphics 1.1 standard....
, giving Inkscape its Trace Bitmap action. CR8tracer is a simple Windows GUI based frontend. FontForge
FontForge
FontForge is a typeface editor program developed by George Williams. FontForge is free software and is distributed under the BSD license. FontForge is available for several operating systems and is localized in several languages.- Features :Fontforge supports many font formats, including...
can use Potrace to import a bitmap image into a font. Potrace is also used by the music engraving program LilyPond.
Potrace's input and output is black and white (colored images are converted to bitmap before processing). However, Inkscape is capable of producing color images by decomposing each channel into several black and white images and tracing them separately with Potrace. The commercial Total Vectorise program also uses Potrace as its core.
Potrace is licensed under the GPL
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
.
Further reading
- Karel Píška, Creating Type 1 Fonts from METAFONT Sources: Comparison of Tools, Techniques and Results in TeX, XML, and digital typography: International Conference on TeX, XML, and Digital Typography, held jointly with the 25th Annual Meeting of the TeX Users Group, TUG 2004, Xanthi, Greece, August 30 - September 3, 2004 ; proceedings, LNCS Volume 3130, Editor Apostolos Syropoulos, Springer, 2004, ISBN 3540228012, pp. 240–256, preprint
- Peter Selinger, Potrace: a polygon-based tracing algorithm, Sep 2003
External links
- Potrace home page
- Vince Vatter, How to make slides from handwritten notes using potrace
- Inkscape tutorial: tracing (on using potrace from within Inkscape)