VectorMagic: on-line vectorisation

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Many vector drawing programs do include a vectorisation tool so a vector representation of a bitmap can be obtained. I have used many times the one that comes with Inkscape program.

However, I've just learned of another tool you can use. The fact the tool comes from Stanford makes you hope for very good or superb results.

The picture on the left is a bitmap of a vectorised bitmap. The usefulness of that is just as a sample (but, of course, you do not want to get a bitmap of your vectorised output). The picture was taken from a recent Google Talk at our university.

What makes this new tool unique is the fact it is an online service. You upload the bitmap from your web browser and after a few selections you download the result in either EPS, SVG or PNG format (the latter is a bitmap format though).

The comparison you can find on the tool site shows an impressive performance compared to other vectorisation tools on commercial software (from Adobe and Corel).

Update: Since this entry was written the project has become a commercial venture. You still can get one free vectorisation but that's all.

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