In a fresh Inskscape 0.48 as provided by Kubuntu, I am having trouble with the Trace Bitmap feature. When I press the OK button nothing happens, as if the button was not pressed. That said, _sometimes_ it "works", that is that the application performs the action when pressing the button. Other times it does not. I can see from the toolkit feedback that the button is in fact being depressed.

The behaviour seems indeterminate, I cannot figure out which combinations of events will make the button work or not. It does not seem to be dependent upon the input file (always the same file) or the Trace Bitmap options checked.

Welcome to InkscapeForum!

I haven't heard that complaint before. But I can mention a couple of the common stumbling blocks that people sometimes run into.

If you're doing a multiple scan, and they're stacked, sometimes it's hard to see the results. For example, black on black. You can just select and move it over to see it (and use undo to put it back).

I know that happens to me all the time when I'm really focussed on tweaking the settings to get just the right scan. I'll be changing the settings, scan, examine it, delete or undo, try different settings, etc., etc.. And somehow the raster image gets deselected. Then of course when I click OK, nothing happens.

I guess theoretically it would be possible to do the trace, and have either nothing, or a solid white object (or solid black) result. But if you use the preview feature, you can get pretty close to what you want (in that agonizingly tiny preview window ). Note that you have to click the Update button to see the result of changes to the settings, to have a current preview. Unfortunately, it's not a "live" preview.

I hope that's helpful. Let us know if the problem is persisting

brynn wrote:


I know that happens to me all the time ... somehow the raster image gets deselected. Then of course when I click OK, nothing happens.

Happens to me too many times. It's not foolproof. Buttons should disabled when there's nothing to trace (and menu should be greyed out)

Thank you, I will experiment to see if in fact the object is being deselected. That sounds plausible.

The problem does not seem to be the selection, I can verify that the object is selected before running the tool. Additionally, there seems to be two select modes, skewer and stretch, and I can reproduce the issue with both select modes.

1) Open the trace bitmap dialogue and select your options.
2) Select the object to trace. Check that it says "Image" in the status bar at the bottom of the Inkscape window.
3) Press the OK button. For small or simple traces on a fast machine it can appear not to do anything.
4) Check the status bar again. If it says "Path" then your trace has completed (and is selected), but it's sitting directly on top of the original. Move the trace down with the arrow keys to reveal the image beneath.

I know I've been caught out by the trace being placed directly on top of the original, giving the appearance of nothing having happened. That may not be your problem, but it's worth keeping an eye on the status bar as it may provide a little more insight.

Hello Xav,

That was a very helpful guide. I followed your steps, and after I click OK, it goes to "Trace: Starting trace..." then back to "Image". The Single scan works fine. The Multiple scans is producing this odd behavior. Do you or anyone else have more insight?

Can you show us the image? It may be that the result is on top of the image, and you can't see the trace because it blends in with the image. Oh oops, Xav said the same thing. If you still can't get it to work, also tell us which options you're using, so we can try to reproduce the problem.

Actually you can disable the option to stack the scans, then they'll be very obvious. And one last note, if you're doing more than say 10 or 12 scans in a multiple scan option, you might have to wait a minute or 2 for all the traces to be finished.