Once an image has been imported into Inkscape and ,Object to Path, button selected I then select trace bitmap. why once the bitmap has Been traced I have 2 outlines on either side of what was originally a solid black line.
I have tried to reduce the number of scans and turned down the sensitivity settings but I still land up spending hours removing the double lines.
Also during the Scan Bitmap process it seems to generate vast quantities of node points. Using the simplify option caused considerable object distortion.
Any advise will be greatly appreciated

Hi.

Do you have a link to the original image please?

RGDS
Ragnar

You may have run the trace bitmap in edge detection mode?

http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL.html"viewtopic3f85.html?f=5&t=13929" class="postlink">this topic for a considerable workaround.

There's no need to do Object to Path on a raster image. It does nothing to the raster image. And after you trace the image with Trace Bitmap, you have true paths. So it doesn'st sound like you need to use Object to Path at all, for this project.

I think what you are seeing is expected. When an image of a solid black line is traced, the result will not be a single path open path, as the line appears to be. It will be a closed path.

Do this experiment. Draw a simple straight line segment using Inkscape's Pen or Pencil tool. Switch to the Node tool, and make the stroke fairly wide, like 20 or 30 px wide (to make it easier to see the result). Even though the stroke is wide, it's still one single path segment, because there are 2 nodes, 1 at either end. Now do Path menu > Stroke to Path. Look at it with the Node tool again. Notice what happened. It's no longer a single path segment. Now it's a closed path with probably 4 or 5 nodes. That's how Trace Bitmap works. It draws a path around what it sees, even if what it's looking at, to humans, looks like a line. The Trace Bitmap software can't make that determination.

Inkscape's Trace Bitmap cannot guess where the center of that line is, to create an identical single open path. But there are other trace engines which do have a centerline trace option. This is one that does: http://www.roitsystems.com/cgi-bin/autotrace/tracer.pl However, note that the centerline trace can't accurately reproduce things like text. It would make a long, wordy explanation, but you can give it a try.

One more note. You can usually use Path menu > Simplify once, without much distortion. But if you do it a second time, it will distort the path much more.

You may be able to adjust the Trace Bitmap (or RO IT trace) to result in as few nodes as possible, but we would need to see the image, to give specific suggestions. (Some options tend to produce a lot more nodes than others.)

thank you for your replies , I was going to attach the svg file as requested but the forum rules want to make it very small so here is a drop box link with the original,
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/t8t9z8enp685 ... zDVma?dl=0