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VectorMagic BETA Online Vectorization

This morning, while reading one of the daily SitePoint emails that I subscribe to, my interest instantly peaked. A Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Laboratory research project by James Diebel and Jacob Norda has resulted in a free online application called VectorMagic which converts raster images to vector images in a far superior way than has previously been achieved by Adobe or Corel.

That’s no mean feat considering the money Adobe and Corel must have thrown at the problem over the years.

Some statistics (below) ripped straight from the VectorMagic comparison page show that the difference between the input bitmap and the re-rasterized vector result is 100% for VectorMagic, 215% for Corel and 255% for Adobe. While colour identification errors are 6% for VectorMagic, 66% for Corel and 50% for Adobe.

comparison between VectorMagic, Corel and Adobe show the superior product of the Stanford approach

Similarly, and these comparison images again are ripped straight from the VectorMagic comparison page, VectorMagic shows dramatic improvement over the output Corel and Adobe vectors. To get the full justice of what I’m saying you should go to VectorMagic and compare the output for yourselves.

I’m impressed and hope this becomes a standalone application on my desktop sometime soon. Awesome work. Input for the application are jpg, gif, png, bmp and tiff. Output are eps, svg and png.

visual comparisons between VectorMagic, Corel and Adobe also show the superiority of the Stanford approach

This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 4:48 pm and is filed under design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Articles are licenced under a Creative Commons Licence but copyright of images is retained by © Steven Clark 2007 - 2008

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Andy Clarke's Transcending CSS: the fine art of web design has been sitting on my bookshelf for several months and I've finally made the time to read it from end to end. My favourite thing about this book from the outset is that it's a designer's book, rather than a technician's manual, for web designers. The artwork and direction in Transcending CSS is enhanced by the attention to detail in the feel and texture of the book itself, the size of it's pages and the feel of the cover in your hands. It's definately a book that affords the act of being read. Looking forward to it.