Best way to convert the Spirographs generated in FF to vectors?

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It would be good that you could export directly these vector from FF, but of course to be able to do this FF must support vectors, so I wish that in FF 4.0 this could be possible

I agree. +1 Spaceray !

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Morgantao wrote: Actually, even if FF had vector support, you'd porbably have to reconstruct the filter to use vectors from the start.

Yes, you are right that most probably it could happen that the filter would need to be rebuilt to be able to save the result as a vector unless there could be an new export option that could convert the result to vector, but this I think would be difficult and probably not possible.

BUT do you think that if FF ALREADY had support for vectors would you NOT make this filter from the start using vectors that I think would be perhaps easier to make?

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Morgantao wrote: There's no real good way to convert full color raster images to vectors. Even Adobe Illustrator, with all it's might, doesn't do a very good job at this.

YES, is true and I have some bad experiences trying to convert photos or color graphic images and illustrations to vector with very bad result, even using the most advanced converters.

When making this thread, I did NOT had in mind at all making COLOR conversions of the Spirograph results, because it would be like calling for problems.

The real intention of this thread is to convert the spirographs in just in BLACK AND WHITE solid lines or with some plain defined colors.

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Morgantao wrote: The best way to getr vectors out of rasters is to have very defined lines, with lots of contrast between them and the background. You need a medium resolution image, as low res will give you poor vector, and huge images will be VERY slow, and not necessarily better results. Gradients are a big NO NO in raster to vector conversion. Try to use only solid colors.

Thanks very much for this tips and suggestions. You are right in what you say and now thanks to you I remember some things I already learnt about this but have forgot that I knew.

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Morgantao wrote: Gradient in the pink won't translate well at all. you'll get weird blobs of light colors on the pink.

Yes, Gradients, shades and transitions of colors can never be converted well because there can´t be a mix of vectors like you can mix the pixels to create that gradient or shade.

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Too many colors in a small space. You need solid colored areas.

Magic does not exist in Vector world and would be impossible to convert this kind of graphics to vector

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Morgantao wrote: Lines are too thin. You need thick, defined lines.

Absolutely true and you need very defined, clear and bold lines that can be translated and converted easily and right. As above the vector converter can´t make magic and be able to make vectors from this thin lines.

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Morgantao wrote: Here's an example that COULD become a nice vector: While the white lines could be a bit more tricky, they are defined anough to work with. The rest of the image is built of large chunks of solid color. Just what raster-to-vector programs like.

YES, is true that this could be converted well because as you have said very well, it contains all the needed and what the vector programs like.

It should be noted that these are relatively easy to reproduce and control in Adobe Illustrator (and more likely in various other vector based programs). The issue with converting bitmap to vector has always rested on whether if the output is useful or not. Obviously the more complex the shape, the less likely you'll get a clean result and even with simple shapes, nice, clean bezier curves are far from possible (at this point in time).

Here's my thought: do it in Illustrator. Conversion is only going to give you more trouble, less possibilities, and you'll less likely get the desired look. It won't be as "procedural awesome", but the amount of control you have is obviously greater just using Illustrator.

Bottom picture: did that in illustrator in a couple seconds. We can also assign color, assign line weight, and so on.

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Skybase It should be noted that these are relatively easy to reproduce and control in Adobe Illustrator

Well, this is because you already know how to use Illustrator, I have ONLY used it two days for 2 hours, so I do not know how to create this kind of spirographs, although I can learn to do it.

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ddaydreams For clean results doing conversion I use "Vector Magic"

ddaydreams, how are you using the Vector Magic?

I have seen now the website of Vector Magic and they offer to use the software 3 ways

1 - use it online buying tokens (one token = 1 use), You can buy tokens in packs of 5 tokens, 10 tokens, and 20 tokens (does not put the price for each token or pack)

2 - monthly subscription of $7.95 with unlimited use online

3 - buying the desktop version that you can install in your computer BUT at the expensive price of $259