2025-06-09
Hello, Potrace
Potrace, by Peter Selinger, is a tool for automatic tracing, for digital illustration.
I discovered it only recently when the idea came to me that one could write a software program to somehow turn handmade line drawings into nice computer drawings. I was glad to discover that this idea has been explored (I mean, of course). And Potrace, is just the kind of thing I was dreaming of.
See for yourself
If you're like me, you'll want to start with a drawing. Here's one done with ink pen on paper:
Take a picture of it with a digital camera. Get it on your computer. Then convert it to a BMP and run it through potrace like so:
potrace --svg --tight in.bmp -o out.svg
And, out comes a majestic SVG:
I still can't get over how cool this is. And in a simple, tidy, command-line tool, that's been around since 2001.