Hi folks,

doing fancy and beautiful images isn’t my thing, I use Inkscape to do some basic graphics.
No I came across a raster graphic I’ve to redo as vector graphic. It basically is a line with steps:


Sure I can create individual paths with varying thickness and fiddle them together. But maybe there’s a way to achieve this effect on one path without to much manual work (the shown is only an example of the quite long and tedious whole). Unfortunately neither height nor thicknes is constant.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Robert

Sorry I don't think you can use a single line there. Unless you need antialiasing and this is all one smooth line and not steps but because of the bitmap/vector difference.

I think this is possible with the SVG line element but AFAIK it's not implemented in Inkscape.

You can use subpaths though. Use Bezier tool (Pen) in straight line mode and create one horizontal line for each step, then combine them together (Ctrl + K), or hold Shift when drawing the next line to add it as a subpath to the previous one. The thickness seems to be the same so I think this can work.

You can also use grid and snapping to speed it up.

kind of blotchy but fast, you could try using Trace Bitmap. Select the image you want to use as the SOURCE of the trace.

then open the Trace Bitmap Menu.. >Path >Trace Bitmap... (Shift+ Alt+ B)

''

To get rid of the speckles, use this menu's OPTIONS tab and Check the [Supress Speckles] with a tolerance of ~3 to 5.

Uncheck the smooth corners options, your choice.. , Click OK..

Not very clean but it is fast, select the new path and then run the new "Snap Pixels" option, >Extensions >Modify Path >PixelSnap. I had to zoom in on the path for it to kick in and work

Thanks for all your suggestions.
I tried tracing the scan before and now did it again with your settings. Sadly the results aren’t much to my liking.
I drawing them all is quite heavy because they’ve to fit really neatly. But if you say there’s no other way in Inkscape, I’ll go with this.

To extend that, you can start with a simple path 1 px wide and aligned to the pixel grid/half grid (or use the pixelsnap extension).

Then copy and paste a bitmap copy.

And then use trace bitmap on the bitmap copy to get the outlines of the pixels.

-Rob A>

Sorry I don't think you can use a single line there.

I think you could, but you'd have to be sure to use Fill Rule: Non-Zero. I don't know if you could use a grid or not, because I can't tell for sure, from your example image, if the lengths are all equal. But if so, it would be a simple matter, using Snap to Grid, with the Bezier tool in straight line mode, like so:

Well, this also works. But you'd need to have a fast CPU.

Go to Path > Path Effect Editor... or press CTRL+Shift+7
Make a square with the Rectangle Tool on the top-right and have it as an outline.
Apply Construct Grid to the rectangle and make the Grid X and Grid Y fill the size of the paper.
Use the Fill Tool to fill in the squares, and delete the grid when you are finished.