Hi! I am looking for a way to find the spine of a vector object. Just like Track Bitmap > Autotrace Centerline does but from a vector instead of a bitmap.
In the attached image, what I have is the yellow part, the black path is what I need.
Thank you Tyler, this solution does what I used to do but faster (I didn’t know about the shortcut Alt+B). I was wondering the program was unable to get the centerline without going through the bitmap step. Apparently it can’t. I think this could be a useful additional path effect.
It seems to me that if you have the original text file that created this image/object, the easiest solution would be to copy and paste the original text into a text field, set the font to Courier New (which is what it seems to be), convert to path, and it should then be easy to manipulate color etc.
otoh, if this is a scanned raster image, then it will take about as long as it took for carbon fiber to be invented (10K years).
Better alternative, if it is a raster image, and you just want to copy the effective image, then you should consider just getting a big pot of coffee and manually typing out what the original author did. Maybe 6 hours but I guarantee it's less wasted time than the time expended by the original author.
RockMo: I already have the text as a text field in Inkscape. I can manipulate it, this is not the question. What I need to do is to transform each character as a single line to print it on a plotter. I can achieve that by going through a bitmap but I was just wondering if it could be possible to do that from vector to vector for a better path accuracy.
Hershey text is not what I am looking for as my question does not apply to characters only but to shapes in general, see my first post. Thank you for your answers. I deduct Inkscape currently doesn’t allow centerline detection from a vector object.
Beyond the Basics Object to path: centerline detection
Inkscape.org
Hi! I am looking for a way to find the spine of a vector object. Just like Track Bitmap > Autotrace Centerline does but from a vector instead of a bitmap.
In the attached image, what I have is the yellow part, the black path is what I need.
Thanks!
Presuming the shape is a closed path, I'd use Alt+B (make bitmap) and centerline trace.
Thank you Tyler, this solution does what I used to do but faster (I didn’t know about the shortcut Alt+B). I was wondering the program was unable to get the centerline without going through the bitmap step. Apparently it can’t. I think this could be a useful additional path effect.
I'd invest in 6 clicks with the Bézier-tool. Bingo. 😁
Thank you Polygon, my goal is to find the path of 2500+ characters. See attached, doing so by hand properly would be impossible.
Dear Tarball,
It seems to me that if you have the original text file that created this image/object, the easiest solution would be to copy and paste the original text into a text field, set the font to Courier New (which is what it seems to be), convert to path, and it should then be easy to manipulate color etc.
otoh, if this is a scanned raster image, then it will take about as long as it took for carbon fiber to be invented (10K years).
Better alternative, if it is a raster image, and you just want to copy the effective image, then you should consider just getting a big pot of coffee and manually typing out what the original author did. Maybe 6 hours but I guarantee it's less wasted time than the time expended by the original author.
G.
RockMo: I already have the text as a text field in Inkscape. I can manipulate it, this is not the question. What I need to do is to transform each character as a single line to print it on a plotter. I can achieve that by going through a bitmap but I was just wondering if it could be possible to do that from vector to vector for a better path accuracy.
[Extensions > Text > Hershey Text] converts text into single line vectors for plotters and engravers.
Hershey text is not what I am looking for as my question does not apply to characters only but to shapes in general, see my first post. Thank you for your answers. I deduct Inkscape currently doesn’t allow centerline detection from a vector object.
Because it´s an bitmap image tracer as the name "Trace Bitmap…" suggests. ;-)