Trace bitmap improvement...

[mikelyon]

Have been having real headaches with Insignia's trace bitmap function -- in any moderately large and complex 2 color (single bit) bitmap, the resulting vectors would seldom tool as produced and often required several hours of repair (the vector doctor performs only very limited repairs)...

I found VextraSoft's "Vextractor" http://www.vextrasoft.com/index.htm an $89 downloadable tool for transforming raster images into vector formats by building centerlines and outlines... Extrememly fast and easy to use (compared to Insignia's Trace Bitmap function), it has all the features I needed -- despeckle using 'n' pixel average, remove isolated spots smaller than than 'n' pixels with ability to set independent tolerance in each color, blink-of-an eye WYSIWYG vector generation -- very intuitive interface... So far (16 images in which Insignia did very poorly) it's making optimal and toolable vectors 100% of the time...

What a relief!

[harold_weber]

Mike, I'd like to understand your statement "the resulting vectors would seldom tool as produced".

Do you mean that the toolpath generated and visible on the screen did not match the vector trace line? If this is the case, at least we would know that the toolpath will give bad results before cutting it.

Or do you mean that when you cut the part, it did not look like the toolpath shown on the screen?

In either case, this problem should be brought to the attention of the Insignia vendor.

[kerrazy]

Harold
I would interpret his comment as having open lines in his work, so he was not able to apply a tool path to the part?

[mikelyon]

Sorry not to have checked back for so long...

Dale's correct -- open lines, intersections, loops, overlaps -- hundreds of 'em!

The vectors produced by Insignia's <trace bitmap> function on one-bit bitmaps (but fairly large, like 2000 x 3000 pixels) can NOT be tooled because of both 'loops' and 'overlaps' so that the vectors can't be interpreted for tooling without 'doctoring' which Insignia's 'doctor' function is able to mark but not repair. I'm not talking about half a dozen intersections or overlaps, but HUNDREDS! I do not have that problem with Vextractor and am very content...

[kerrazy]

I was just discussing a similar incident this morning with a fellow who has artCam Pro. I can open up an EPS or DXF file in ProfileLab and it will not show the errors that ArtCam does. Does anyone have any suggestions I can relay to this fellow. It can litterally turn a ten minute job into a 2 hour redraw. I recall this happening when I had a demo of ArtCam last spring, and it was very frustrating for me at the time.
It will even cause errors in good vector art like the Mega Art collection.