Hello,

I have an image which I have obtained by using GIMP to convert a sketch to a black and white image.

Here's the black and white image (of a bird):



I am now trying to convert this image into a vector line drawing where the lines are smoother, and have the same width throughout.

Is there a way that I can do this relatively easily using Inkscape? I had asked at the GIMP forum, and I was told that the best option

I thought that the 'Trace Bitmap' tool would do this, but it didn't work; I think it ended up creating a rather complex trace of the outline of the image.

I also thought I might use the Bezier tool to trace over the image, but this seems a bit fiddly.

Please let me know if there's additional information needed to help to resolve this.

You want the lines smooth, as in no texture and roughness?
Tracing with the bez tool is the most likely choice, although if you have a graphic tablet the calligraphy pen or the pencil are also good choices.

The texture of the drawing seems to be an essential part of its charm, however. Losing it might result in something of no particular use...

In gimp you could try the following to clean up the image : gauusian blur then theeshold then enhancing contrast. Or repeat n times dilatation + dilatation + erosion

Hi Druban,

Thanks for your response. Yes - I want the lines smooth - no texture or roughness or charm.

The bez tool works, but it takes a longish time to adjust the bezier lines to match the outline of the sketch. It almost sounds like there should be some tool or plugin such that when you create the initial bezier nodes on the sketch, it should be able to auto adjust the lines connecting the nodes to match the outlines of the sketch, based on a black/white threshold. If there isn't, I'm surprised...

Hi V1nce,

Thanks for your response. I will try out your suggestion and report back.

OK V1nce,

I tried your suggestion, and it made the image a bit smoother, but it's not quite what I'm looking for:





The line widths vary quite a bit, and are kind of wobbly; what I would like are smooth lines of uniform width

I guess my fictitious plugin would deliver that...

The drawing is a bit too wobbly for the centerline trace plugin to work well, I think. But you could try:
https://github.com/fablabnbg/inkscape-centerline-trace

Why not take the tool and draw these few lines by hand in a couple of minutes?
Maybe I don´t know what you´re after in the end:


Cheers
P.

Polygon,

That's exactly what I'm looking for!

How did you do that in just a few minutes?

Either you are an expert, or I am not using the tool correctly...

I am hoping it's the latter... please outline the exact steps you took - I would really appreciate it.

I wrote a quick introduction to using Inkscape's path tools to draw a line. Before you follow this link, I'll warn you that it's a TON of text! It takes so much text to explain how to do something that takes 2 seconds to actually do. So you can just read the section for the Pen/Bezier tool, and not read the whole thing! ( I should learn how to embed little videos in that tutorial.)

https://forum.inkscapecommunity.com/ind ... ;article=7

Actually, you could skip down to "To draw a path with multiple nodes, made of curved segments" section, which is inside the Pen/Bezier section. (edit - It's approx halfway down the page.) And remember, don't be afraid of the text.

Off topic

Does anyone know why the ability to blur a drawing such as in this topic, to achieve a nice smooth auto-trace, with Trace Bitmap? That was such a useful feature, and would have been a perfect solution here. I don't know why that was removed, but it doesn't work anymore - 0.47 or maybe 0.46 since I last saw that feature.