I have a black-and-white drawing almost entirely consisting of lines (cut from a scanned PDF; top image in attached screenshot), which I would like to trace in Inkscape, so that I can adjust some things (e.g. replace text). Trace bitmap - Single scan - Centerline tracing (autotrace) seems ideally suited for that purpose, but I haven't quite figured out the settings yet, see the bottom image in the attached screenshot: the result is far too coarse.

So far, I was unable to find an explanation of what the different settings mean; the tutorial on tracing in my Inkscape version (Ubuntu 22.04, Inkscape 1.2.2 (1:1.2.2+202305151914+b0a8486541)) seems to belong to an older Inkscape version, as it doesn't contain Autotrace and Centerline tracing (autotrace). Playing around with the settings didn't have any noticeable effect. How can I achieve a more detailed tracing?

P.S. If you'd prefer to have the original png image, as I cut it from the PDF, please let me know and I can perhaps share it in a private message. It's from a publication by one of my former colleagues, which is behind a pay-wall, so I'm afraid that by posting it here I might be violating all sorts of copyright.

A significant portion of the image is text, so I'd draw the diagram again by hand. The IV needs to only be drawn once, duplicated and flipped,

Thanks for the suggestion, I might do that in the end. It's just that this flow & dilution sensor is putting me off; it looks to be a lot of work...

sitadrost

It's from a publication by one of my former colleagues

Maybe ask for a copy of the original; pretty sure it´s SVG based - don´t you think?

Polygon

Maybe ask for a copy of the original; pretty sure it´s SVG based - don´t you think?

That would have been the ideal solution, except that this colleague is no longer with us (this paper was published in 1995), and I'm not even sure he made the illustration himself. Hence my attempt to trace it in Inkscape. But it's only for an internal report, so if tracing in Inkscape isn't as easy as it looks, I might just leave it as it is.

I guess this would be 20 min effort in drawing from scratch - but I´ll need a more high res image to work on instead just this screenshot above.

Thanks, yes, I might actually do that. I was hoping this centerline tracing functionality might be helpful, but as everyone here seems to be thinking otherwise, I guess I'd better drop that idea.

Takes ten minutes.

Here's a start... Just add text and arrows.

Right-click on the picture to save/download.

Awesome, you're a star! Thanks a million for that!