Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!oliveb!amiga!cbmvax!mitchell
From: mitchell@cbmvax.UUCP (Fred Mitchell - QA)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: bitmap2vector
Keywords: vector, Mac, EPS, PostScript, wishful
Message-ID: <8017@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 27 Sep 89 15:26:07 GMT
References: <0040.AA0040@sosaria> <1112@taurus.BITNET>
Reply-To: mitchell@cbmvax.UUCP (Fred Mitchell - QA)
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 25

In article <1112@taurus.BITNET> iddos%math.tau.ac.il@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Iddo Ilan) writes:
>In article <0040.AA0040@sosaria> wizard@sosaria.ccs.imp.com writes:
>>>>What do you mean "maybe EPS"?
>>>>Bitmap to vector is never possible....

Sure it is!

>>How does this work? Can anybody explain to me? Is it simply done by
>>connecting lines that consist of the same color to a vector? Such as in
>>Interfont Designer?

loosely put, the program scans the bitmap line-by-line. When a non-background
color is found, that location is tagged and then the algorithm proceeds to
trace around the edge until it reaches where it began. The list of
coordinates from point to point of the scanned area is now processed to remove
excess vertices and perhaps to smooth it out some. And there you have it!

>There are a couple such programs, I hear, one I use. It does not work
>with color because you don't always get color bitmaps in Mac programs
>in the first place. This one (Aldus Freehand) is state of the art,
>yet V2.0 does not handle color bitmaps.

There are a couple of programs on the Amiga that will do that too- also, the
software that I am currently working on will be able to do that, too.
So sit tight!