I'm trying to convert an old (from 2020) design document to a vector drawing. But when I try to use Trace Bitmap with Centerline Tracing as the Detection mode Inkscape aborts with the message: "Inkscape encountered an internal error and will close now."

I must admit that the image I made is not very sharp so Inkscape may not be able to handle it. Although when I traced the image using Brightness cutoff mode it succeeded. But because of the quality of the drawing the trace had very complex paths and was not very usable. I'm trying to get just the basic lines and handwritten text converted. That would save me a ton of time instead of having to construct all elements from the drawing.

The original image was taken with my camera as a JPG from the 38" x 24" drawing. The bitmap was created by using Photoshop Elements. I took the JPG, used a threshold adjustment layer to reduce the image to black and white. then saved the file as a bitmap file.

What are my options to capture this and convert it to a svg file with Inkscape? Is this something Inkscape can do?

All suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

Inkscape shouldn't crash like this regardless of the Trace Bitmap settings or the image used, so perhaps you found a a bug. I looked in the bug tracker but didn't find anything comparable. If you attach your image (or something similar) we can try to reproduce this and hopefully offer a workaround.

I wouldn't think so, but I read about quite a few instances of people saying Inkscape is not as reliable as we'd like. And I've hit a few myself. That said, here's my zipped up svg file. I await word on if anything is found.

Thanks for getting on this.

I tried centre-line tracing with your bitmap and it worked without any problems. Unfortunately I can't reproduce your crashes on my system. (Inkscape 1.3 beta running on a 10-year-old MacBook.)

Using the default options, Inkscape produced an enormous path with 64783 nodes which I think is unusable. I experimented with the settings but couldn't really improve the output. The screenshot below shows the northeast corner of the drawing with the text "PROPERTY LINE" illegible at the top. It looks like the original bitmap is too low quality for a useful centre-line trace.

Oh well, Thank you for trying. It's not unexpected that you wouldn't be able to reproduce the crash. Also, I've come to the same conclusion about the usability.

Thanks again.