Potrace () is

cross-platform Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several Computing platform, computing platforms. Some ...

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

which converts bitmapped images into

vector graphics Vector graphics are a form of computer graphics in which visual images are created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, curves and polygons. The associated mechanisms may include vector displ ...

. It is written and maintained by Peter Selinger.

Properties

Various graphical frontends are available for the command-line application Potrace. Notably, it has been integrated with

Inkscape Inkscape is a vector graphics editor. It is used for both artistic and technical illustrations such as cartoons, clip art, logos, typography, diagrams, and flowcharts. It uses vector graphics to allow for sharp printouts and renderings at ...

, giving Inkscape its ''Trace Bitmap'' action.

FontForge FontForge is a FOSS font editor which supports many common font formats. Developed primarily by George Williams until 2012, FontForge is free software and is distributed under a mix of the GNU General Public License Version 3 and the 3-clause ...

can use Potrace to import a bitmap image into a font. Potrace is also used by the

music engraving Music engraving is the art of drawing music notation at high quality for the purpose of mechanical reproduction. The term ''music copying'' is almost equivalent—though ''music engraving'' implies a higher degree of skill and quality, usually f ...

program

LilyPond LilyPond is a computer program and file format for music engraving. One of LilyPond's major goals is to produce scores that are engraved with traditional layout rules, reflecting the era when scores were engraved by hand. LilyPond is cross-pla ...

. An open-source

progressive web app A progressive web application (PWA), or progressive web app, is a type of web app that can be installed on a device as a standalone application software, application. PWAs are installed using the offline cache of the device's web browser. PWAs w ...

that uses Potrace is SVGcode. Potrace's input and output is black and white (colored images are greyscaled before processing). However, Inkscape is capable of producing color images by decomposing each channel into several black and white images and tracing them separately with Potrace. The commercial Total Vectorize program also uses Potrace as its core. Potrace is licensed under the GNU General Public License v2.0 or later. A non-GPL version of Potrace called "Potrace Professional" is available under license from Selinger's company, Icosasoft Software, Inc.Dual licensing program for Potrace
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Examples

Image:Polydactyly 01 Lhand AP.jpg, Source image

JPEG JPEG ( , short for Joint Photographic Experts Group and sometimes retroactively referred to as JPEG 1) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degr ...

grayscale In digital photography, computer-generated imagery, and colorimetry, a greyscale (more common in Commonwealth English) or grayscale (more common in American English) image is one in which the value of each pixel is a single sample (signal), s ...

(891×1,077 pixel, 119 KB) Image:6fingeredhand-potrace.svg, Traced with Potrace in Inkscape to an eight-color

SVG Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML-based vector graphics format for defining two-dimensional graphics, having support for interactivity and animation. The SVG specification is an open standard developed by the World Wide Web Consortium sin ...

image in 2006 (50 KB) Image:Polydactyly_01_Lhand_AP-vectorized-8color-new.svg, Traced with Potrace in Inkscape to an eight-color SVG image in 2012 (336 KB) Image:Polydactyly_01_Lhand_AP-vectorized-12color.svg, Traced with Potrace in Inkscape to a twelve-color SVG image in 2012 (608 KB) Image:Polydactyly_01_Lhand_AP-vectorized-16color.svg, Traced with Potrace in Inkscape to a sixteen-color SVG image in 2012 (743 KB)

References

External links

* {{official website, http://potrace.sourceforge.net on

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service founded by Geoffrey B. Jeffery, Tim Perdue, and Drew Streib in November 1999. SourceForge provides a centralized software discovery platform, including an online platform for managing and hosting open-source soft ...

* Vince Vatter
How to make slides from handwritten notes using potrace

Online version of Potrace
ported with

WebAssembly WebAssembly (Wasm) defines a portable binary-code format and a corresponding text format for executable programs as well as software interfaces for facilitating communication between such programs and their host environment. The main goal of ...

Free raster to vector conversion software Free software programmed in C Software using the GNU General Public License

Properties

Examples

See also

References

Further reading

External links