Vector Magic from Stanford (creates vector images from bitmaps)

[fixumdude]

This looks pretty amazing!

http://vectormagic.stanford.edu/

Has anyone tried this on any arcade artwork yet?  If so, how is the quality?

[ChadTower]

I just uploaded the jpg of an old Zork map that Mr C posted... let's see how it does with all of those hand drawn curves.

Edit: the results

[XyloSesame]

I just uploaded the jpg of an old Zork map that Mr C posted... let's see how it does with all of those hand drawn curves.

Edit: the results

Better results than I had expected to see, but still quite a bit of cleanup needed for a hand-drawn original...

[ChadTower]

Yep.  Look at it this way... it's a scan of a hand drawn original from 25 years ago that was never drawn with this in mind.  That's pretty good.

[XyloSesame]

Yep.  Look at it this way... it's a scan of a hand drawn original from 25 years ago that was never drawn with this in mind.  That's pretty good.

Agreed. I would expect it to choke on the text, but the strokes look very good.

Has anyone tried the crappy Illustrator Live Trace on this for comparison?

[ChadTower]

One thing that should be noted is that I chose this because it is high contrast without any gradients.  Tons and tons of lines but easily detectable.  We should try something more photo-like next.

[FrizzleFried]

I just processed the MULTIPEDE logo I got that was relitively low res...

...lets just say I'd likely use the vector this website made over the original I submitted!

This...my friends...ROCKS...eliminates HOURS of work!

[billf]

The Vector Magic site does have a comparison page where they compare their conversion against Adobe and Corel.  The Vector Magic conversions do look pretty amazing and true to the original image.  Here is the link to the comparison page:
http://vectormagic.stanford.edu/vectorize/comparisons

Chad - they do have samples of a few photos that were vectorized.

[ChadTower]

They do but there's no telling how many passes those samples took, or how large a sample it was they were taken from... definitely better to test with our own images than to trust their examples.

[patrickl]

Just my luck ... down for maintenance 

[zorg]

My god we will see a lot of crappy vector trace poping out 

thoose tool must be used knowing their limitation let see what wil happens.

[mcfreak]

My brother has a US Dirtfox with World Rally side art and there isn't anything out there for dirtfox except the flyer.  I converted a small graphic I found and it turned out pretty good.

http://vectormagic.stanford.edu/vctr/vctr_flex?g=14956&k=C6hEPpaq1bRsevw1&p=g

[FrizzleFried]

My god we will see a lot of crappy vector trace poping out 

thoose tool must be used knowing their limitation let see what wil happens.

Zorg...surprisingly the result of this tool is DAMN GOOD ... easily 90% of the work is done for you. 

Here is a MULTIPEDE marquee I did...it's original size was maybe medium res....

http://vectormagic.stanford.edu/vctr/vctr_flex?p=g&k=EP9SHFjSjBfkmE3I&g=15599

Here is a Xevious marquee I just did.  It was originally a 70K file pulled from MAWS...in other words,  its about as low res as yer gunna get...and the conversion is't great....so real low res stuff it aint gunna help too much...

http://vectormagic.stanford.edu/vctr/vctr_flex?g=23644&k=MDoOEdqcJTtMjilc&p=g

...and don't forget to zoom in on these images to see what the REAL benefit of this tool is.

[WunderCade]

This program could do wonders with a high-res (no flash reflection) scan of classic arcade side-art. Makes you wish you could go down to Wally-World and buy a 72" x 36" flatbed scanner. 

A lot of people must be tinkering on the site now as it's server doesn't seem to be keeping up.

[ChadTower]

It has a pretty small max filesize, you know.  The file I put in was like 475k and it reduced that before it started the work.  To do full sideart it would have to be done in a ton of small chunks and stitched together manually.

[FrizzleFried]

Chad...it's vectorizing.  Send it whole side art at 10 megapixel and it will convert to a vector that can be scaled with zero degradation.   You then scale it to HUGE size and save it as a raster image.  Then go in with photoshop and fix it up a bit.  Send that file to MAMEMARQUEES and you are good to go.

[ChadTower]

Chad...it's vectorizing.  Send it whole side art at 10 megapixel and it will convert to a vector that can be scaled with zero degradation.   

It reduced the source image when I uploaded it.  That has potential to blur the image, depending on how good their algorithm for filesize reducing is... and of course, when you reduce source quality you reduce output quality.    If you send it whole side art at 10 megapixel it will reduce that giant file down to something like half a meg if that.  That's what it appears to want to do, anyway, and a 10 megapixel full sideart reduced to half a meg would look like oatmeal before the vectorizing even started.

[bfauska]

My god we will see a lot of crappy vector trace poping out 

thoose tool must be used knowing their limitation let see what wil happens.

But for people who do know the limitations, the system will save hours of time and leave you with an image that needs touch-up not full vectorization.  The bus may not get me ALL the way to work, but it still beats the hell out of walking the whole way.

[WunderCade]

Hmm...I just took an image (SF Chun Li) from the WIP string, It didn't translate that well to vector, although it did get alot of the detail:

Here: http://vectormagic.stanford.edu/vctr/vctr_flex?p=v&k=elTdngOmOnvR9VMtD7oIUpTKK2DfCIlh&v=26086

[zorg]

But for people who do know the limitations, the system will save hours of time and leave you with an image that needs touch-up not full vectorization. 

I let you experience the difference of time needed to <i>touch up</i> versus from scratch hand vectorisation, and we'll speak about the utopical time gain.

[WunderCade]

Just FYI....the File Size Max for that site is 8 Megapixels.

It did an impressive job with the Anniversary Pac-Man Logo on the AAL Unclean Section:

http://vectormagic.stanford.edu/vctr/vctr_flex?p=v&k=1dViz0FKxSe2lJHJgpcvx5qle4wgvQtA&v=26280

[ChadTower]

8 megapixels is not a file size.

I put in a ~475k file... it reduced it before starting to vectorize.  That is what I saw.

[WunderCade]

  Chad.....this is the message I got:

Error: Image size is too large. Your image is 21.0 megapixels, max allowed upload size is 8.0 megapixels.
Please try another file.

[patrickl]

Megapixels is not a filesize. It would mean they capped the resolution/size of the image (Note how the message speaks of "image size" and not "file size")

Image size and file size are different things. As an example, I tried and squeezed a 21 megapixel image in a 144kB file.

[zorg]

just a simple test in order to see how automatic versus manual will perform.

I choose a really difficult task to perform

a solide red square, a solid red circle (perfect one) and a smooth shape. each shape have a solid black border.



reminder: to produce a perfect circle in vector format you  only need 4 points, same rule apply for the square.

let see how the auto tool can trace it.
I uploaded the file  and played with the settings.here's the result


if at this point you don't see difference, well I will not try to convice you, but I think you should go (err run) to the ophtalmologist closest to you

now let check more deeply, just a comparison about the square and the circle.



LOL did you remind how points are needed to produce a circle ?? and a square.
Also plase notice that the square is not really square, is it ??
regarding the circle, I let you count how much are need with the auto crap

but this is not the whole crap we obtain with this kind of tool.

if you want to cry, take a look at the whole result using the following. select everithing(ctrl-A), hit ctrl-Y and take a look. lots and lot and lots of anchor points....



this was a simplistic example, imagine the result with a more complex art.

my conclusion: CRAP

[patrickl]

Zorg,

I think you might have used the tool incorrectly. I tried some parts of the Galaga bezel and the results looked great. Not directly usable, but correcting the result sure takes a lot less work than drawing from scratch.





I used anti-aliased logo, medium resolution, less than 12 colors and this was done on low (high gave too many artifacts) I tried a more detailed section like the planet and that needs to be reprocessed on high.

The vectorized version may not look 100% identical, but it's so close that I would almost say "who cares?" I have several scans of (parts of) the Galaga bezel and they are not identical either.

In my example, I'd say the vectorized version is actualy better looking than the bitmap and it will scale to a print a whole lot better too.

[patrickl]

let see how the auto tool can trace it.
I uploaded the file  and played with the settings.here's the result


if at this point you don't see difference, well I will not try to convice you, but I think you should go (err run) to the ophtalmologist closest to you

Ehm, you're comparing a low res poorly scaled jpg version of the result with a a low res jpg of your upload.

Here is my result:


Maybe you should try to use the tool properly before you dismiss it.

I found it had some problems with the black edge you put around the objects, but I'm sure that to fix this result to look like an exact copy it would take less than 10% of the time it would take me to draw the whole example exactly the same by hand.

[zorg]

hummm

just by looking at this I notice the following problems.



anyway I'm (unfortunatly) pretty sure a lot of auto traced vector will pop out

[FrizzleFried]

Considering I have ZERO experiencing in tracing,  this tool is a godsend... for anyone who knows what they are doing,  it's likely not as big a deal as it is for us newbs. 

Mr. Do over at mameworld seems like he "gets it"...and will be using it as a starting point for some of his future artwork...

[zorg]

did you read the whole  Mr Do posts

http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=129584&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1

[FrizzleFried]

Nope...he posted that after my last visit there...

Compared to his 99.8% accuracy of his own work I guess you are right,  this isn't anywhere near that...but for those with no knowledge of Illustrator,  it's something.

[zorg]

but for those with no knowledge of Illustrator,  it's something.

then make yourself a favour, grab the Frostillicus tutorial and start playing with illsutrator instead of relying in auto trace tools

PS this is not directed to you, but to "those with no knowledge of Illustrator"
PS2 some years ago, before reading the tutorial I even did not know a software called illustrator

[patrickl]

hummm

just by looking at this I notice the following problems.



anyway I'm (unfortunatly) pretty sure a lot of auto traced vector will pop out

How much time does it take to fix those few errors as opposed to drawing the whole thing yourself?

To be honest, out of the things you circled only the ones in the nose and eyes would really be errors and the others would be up for de discussion. You can't be sure that they are wrong. You would just be guessing that it might have been different, but it might also be that the software was right.

Those few minor vectorizing errors are really only detectable by someone with a magnifying glass and the original bezel. Besides , I will say again, that I have several scans/pictures of the bezel and none of them are the same.

Another scenario is someone wanting to print that bitmap. Someone who has no desire/time/skills to vectorize the whole thing to minute detail, but who wants a bezel that looks good and fits in with the vectorized art that he already has.

The bitmap itself has a lot more and much more obvious flaws (the whole thing is noisy, has incorrect colors and it's fuzzy)  So if someone is simply thinking of printing that bitmap, which would look better in print: that original bitmap, or the vectorized result?

This software can save a tremendous amount of time in vectorizing art. At the very least or it can help in scaling/printing bitmaps for people who don't feel the need for a pixel perfect copy of the art, but who do want it to look "tight".

:edit: also don't forget that the scan that you get is imperfect itself. I redid the Galaga sideart, because the version done before was vectorized just fine, but it was based on a very distorted picture.

The best (complete) scan of the Galaga bezel I have is the one from localarcade. This image has been digitally cleaned up though. This means that a lot of detail has already been lost (stars are gone, the blue nebula are eroded etc etc ). I have been trying to fix that from other pictures, but that takes a huge amount of time and it's keeping me from finishing the thing. So at a point you have to say it's as good as it gets.

It's never going to be perfect anyway and even perfect means something else to every person. Some people will clean up edges and improve on the original (which were done in haste, low budget and thus poorly). Other more purist vectorizers will vectorize to the pixel and copy that one example they got a scan off (which might have printing errors to begin with too) and introduce errors that in fact need to be corrected.

[fixumdude]

I agree with Zorg, that there is nothing that compares with hand tracing, and probably never will be. 

But if you need some artwork for your cabinet and can't talk someone talented like zorg into redrawing it as a vector for you, and don't want to spend the time learning illustrator, etc., then this could be a passable option for you.  As patrickl said, if you just want some artwork for your cab and all you have is a grainy 300K bitmap, then this might be good enough for you, not necessarily everyone else out there.

I'm not suggesting that everyone start uploading their results to the arcade art library by any means.  It's just one more tool in the arsenal.  I don't think we need to divide the community into the anti-auto-vector and the pro-auto-vector groups.  Can't we just see this a tool, like many others, that some people will use correctly to create beautiful vectors that others will want to use.  And some will use it incorrectly to create crap, but if it works for them, and they are not forcing others to use the results, then what is the big deal??

[ChadTower]

I think the best use of this is for doing things that aren't reproductions... take a picture of a car and run it through this tool... boom, you have a reasonably vectorized car you can tweak a bit and call art.  There's no right or wrong there, only making it look good to yourself, and being able to do that from a jpg in a short amount of time like this is tremendous.

[patrickl]

I agree with Zorg, that there is nothing that compares with hand tracing, and probably never will be. 

But then what's keeping "vectorizers" from using this as a starting point?

I'm not saying it should replace handwork either, but it will save a lot of time and in the end it would result in more art being done in the same amount of time.

[fixumdude]

Patrickl,

I agree, that for someone who knows what they are doing in illustrator, etc. AND understands how to configure/use this tool, it would be an awesome starting point! 

I have used autotrace, where it did take longer to fix all of the mistakes than it would have to draw the artwork from scratch...so you have to know how to use the tool to get the best starting point, or else you are not saving yourself any time.

But judging from some of the samples people have been posting here, it looks like this blows away adobe's autotrace, corel trace, etc.  I think it would definitely be a great jump start for a lot of projects!!

[WunderCade]

This would be a great ROUGH DRAFT TOOL for vectorizing then? Followed by a hand trace correction? I'm wanting to learn AI.

 

[ChadTower]

That's the debate... it really depends on the person doing the work and the image being used.  Some will be more work to correct than to do from scratch... others will be done quite well and only need minor correction.

[zorg]

I agree with Zorg, that there is nothing that compares with hand tracing, and probably never will be. 

But then what's keeping "vectorizers" from using this as a starting point?

I'm not saying it should replace handwork either, but it will save a lot of time and in the end it would result in more art being done in the same amount of time.

quality versus quantity

[patrickl]

I tried some example from the galaga bezel, but there is one big problem with this tool for using it on artwork. It really does not deal well with big files (or big images). I tried a large chunk of the bezel and the result was seriously poor. When I give it a small piece of the bezel the result is a lot better (like above). Not sure what happens. Maybe they assume bigger images need less detail?

This really undermines the use of this for doing something like sideart. It would make it suitable only for doing logo's and characters.

[WunderCade]

This is a BETA version, so I wonder if they're gonna package it as download-able software. If they do, it will probably have the file size restriction removed.

[ChadTower]

Guessing from how they have it implemented now, I'm going to say it won't be downloadable.  It's a web service.

[WunderCade]

I went ahead and contacted them asking if they'd have someone click over here and answer some of our questions.....we'll see.

[patrickl]

This is a BETA version, so I wonder if they're gonna package it as download-able software. If they do, it will probably have the file size restriction removed.

It's not just the image size restriction. The file I uploaded was well within the limit. It's just that uploading a small piece of a larger image gives a different result as the same piece in the vecotrized result when you give it the full image. This means you need to cut your image in a lot of small pieces to get a satisfactory result.

[zorg]

I tried some example from the galaga bezel, but there is one big problem with this tool for using it on artwork. It really does not deal well with big files (or big images). I tried a large chunk of the bezel and the result was seriously poor. When I give it a small piece of the bezel the result is a lot better (like above). Not sure what happens. Maybe they assume bigger images need less detail?

they downsize large files, thus there is a loss in details.

[WunderCade]

So Patrick, wouldn't a full program be able to vector the image at 100% size? I mean, just because you could only see what's on screen, it should be able to vector the image at 100% size and then you could shrink/scale it down to see it all on your monitor.

The source image you input into the program would have to be at 100% actual size though. If you take a scaled down raster image and input that, then you're asking the program to vectorize an already degraded image. The key is to input a 1:1 image for best results, right? That's why I said it'd be nice to have a 6' x 3' scanner.

[patrickl]

It's obvious they downsize the uploaded files, but I'm not sure why. It depends if they downsample the files as part of the algorithm or if they are doing it to save diskspace/processing power/network bandwidth. If they just are trying to save resources indeed a downloadable version would not have that issue.

On the other hand, with other vectorizing software I have tried I first had to go through tons of settings to get any useful results. VectorMagic works with hardly any settings. So perhaps they downsample as part of the algorithm. It makes sense that they might be expecting larger images to be of higher resolution and thus assume they could be more loose with their vectorizing.

It's very likely that they downsample to save resources, but it might also be part of the algorithm.

[patrickl]

The source image you input into the program would have to be at 100% actual size though. If you take a scaled down raster image and input that, then you're asking the program to vectorize an already degraded image. The key is to input a 1:1 image for best results, right? That's why I said it'd be nice to have a 6' x 3' scanner.

Make sense yes. Usually the higher the resolution the better it will look.

With this type of software you never know though. Sometimes it actually performs better with slightly fuzzy images. Especially if you have flowing shapes (or circles) instead of sharp angled art. Still you'd probably be better of with slightly fuzzy high resolution images rather than low res slighly fuzzy images 

[ChadTower]

They only reason they'd limit the functionality to a certain size would be to save resources... or perhaps worry about abuse of copyrighted material and they think this will stop people from trying to profit from the app.

[WunderCade]

FWIW, James from Vector Magic team emailed me back after taking a look at the issues we've brought here on this thread. He asked me to post his response on their behalf so here it is:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi [WunderCade],

Thanks for your email, and for your interest in our project.  I took a
look at your forum discussion and I'd be happy to answer the questions
that I saw there.  If you don't mind, would you be willing to post
them on my behalf?

1) There was some question about the comparisons
(http://vectormagic.stanford.edu/vectorize/comparisons) and whether we
cherry picked them.  We selected images that we thought fairly
demonstrated the differences between our algorithm and the algorithms
available in the Adobe and Corel products.  In some cases all the
programs did essentially just fine and we avoided including those
images, since it is not very interesting to see essentially the same
result three times.  In no cases from the 124 user-provided images we
tested did we find that the Adobe or Corel results were actually
better.  An important thing to keep in mind here is that we did not
set out to solve all vectorization problems.  We are mostly interested
in re-vectorization, where the original was at some time, and in some
sense, vector art.  We have therefore restricted our sample set to
those examples.  As noted on the comparisons page, we compared our
results against those of Adobe and Corel on 124 user-provided images
and in not a single case did they produce results that both used fewer
shape primitives and had a lower re-rendering error (measured in root
mean squared error).

2) As several posters noted, the site did experience some difficulty
in meeting user demand.  This is because we were posted on Digg.com
and got flooded with Digg users.  The site is back up now and should
be working fine.

3) The file size and image size restrictions are because we are having
to do all the processing on our servers, and given the high level of
user demand we've been seeing, we can't afford to process jobs that
are too large, as it will tie up one of our processors for too long.
That restriction may be relaxed at some point.  How large are typical
scans that would be of interest to this community?

4)  A user named zorg posted an interesting comparison.  He seems to
have used different settings than I would have selected (indeed, if he
would provide a link to the result that he posted, I could perhaps
clarify which settings he might want to experiment with).  Here is a
link to the result that I got when I tried his source image:

http://vectormagic.stanford.edu/vctr/vctr_flex?g=37532&k=j481UGXJRae6nNOe&p=g

I've also attached the resulting EPS.  The results are not perfect, of
course, but I also don't think that a low-res low-quality JPEG with
sub-pixel-width outlines is typical input.  Indeed, most of our users
are providing much higher quality input and are getting much higher
quality output.  It is also important to select the options correctly.

If you would be so kind as to post the attached EPS, I think it would
help clarify the issue.  I would also be interested to see how well we
do on the same image, but at a slightly higher resolution and saved as
a PNG rather than a JPEG.

Regarding the broader issue of whether our tool is a substitute for
human vectorization, I would give the following remarks:  Human
vectorization will always remain essential for difficult images in
which the quality of the input is too low for a computer to do the
tracing, or images that were not originally vector art in spirit, and
require judgement and interpretation to produce a good result.  Our
tool is meant to help convert fairly clean, fairly high-quality
images, and to provide a starting point for marginal cases.

If you or any of the other posters have any further questions, please
feel free to email me at this address.  We are always trying to
improve the tool and welcome constructive feedback that will help us
do just that!

Very Best,
James

[ChadTower]

Excellent. 

[patrickl]

Cool that they respond.

We are mostly interested in re-vectorization, where the original was at some time, and in some sense, vector art.

That makes sense yes. Should be good for arcade artwork too right?

file size and image size restrictions ... we can't afford to process jobs that are too large

Is there information available on what kind of image size we should use for optimal results? I guess they cap the images at some fixed size. Which size is that?

For instance I uploaded a 969x828 image and it looks like it was downsampled to about a quarter of that resolution (when I zoom in on the bitmap image in the viewer). 23 pixels in the viewer relate to 40 pixels in my uploaded image wich would indicate that vectormagic is limited to a 0.25 Megapixel image (or around 557x476 in my example)

Or is only the viewer limited and is the bitmap actually used at full resolution?

Right now I don't know what to do to get optimal results.

BTW the Galaga bezel is 23"x 21" scanned at 300DPI and is about 44 Megapixel in total. Sideart scans will probably get even be bigger than that.

:edit:

Perhaps they could check some samples from localarcade? For instance the Galaga bezel is http://www.localarcade.com/arcade_art/r857.search.htm

[shardian]

Well now that I have messed with it a while, it is a very neat program, but also kind of frustrating. Still, it has now been extremely helpful in getting something I needed badly.

My wife custom made a Marshall cheerleader outfit for our little girl. I needed a logo graphic for an iron on, but have never had any luck finding a high enough resolution graphic to keep it from looking like crap. Using this software, I have been able to make a quite good, though not totally accurate logo.




As you can see, there are glaringly obvious errors in the horns and eyes. I did my best, but find the editing function very lacking. I made the two eyes perfectly identical in the edit mode, but the program still interpreted them differently. Maybe I am missing something, but there is no way to edit any layer but the top most. Simply painting over does not help when it comes to re vectorizing. I did have a little bit better version, but had unacceptable problems getting rid of some clutter at the bottom.

So my final evaluation of this program is it can be very helpful and quick for small projects that simply do not have a decent resolution image available. Still, it is not on the same level as a complete vectorizing package. However, put into the perspective of cost, this software kicks ASS.

[ChadTower]

When you consider that took probably 5 minutes of real time effort on your part it is a ---smurfing--- fantastic result.

[shardian]

When you consider that took probably 5 minutes of real time effort on your part it is a ---smurfing--- fantastic result.

Well in reality I tried with varying success with about 6 different low res images. In all, I'd say I spent a little over an hour total.

[shardian]

Oh, and I forgot to mention it does not handle text all that well. I mean it did okay. I could read it and all, but it just looked weird and unnatural. It would be neat if you could highlight a part of the picture and tell it "there is text here. Analyze as such".

[ChadTower]

I bet if you eliminated the artifacting in the source it would... maybe take that section of the image and reduce it to two colors.

[patrickl]

I also noticed it doesn't work very well on text. Even on a 300DPI scan.

[ChadTower]

Text, in a lossy format, has too many jaggies for a vectorizer to be perfect on... you'd have to clean up those jaggies manually before putting it in.  The question is would it be easier to clean up the jaggies in the source or to fix the vectorized output.

[patrickl]

The problem is more that text is really sensitive. You can always tell if there is something wrong. When you trace some irregular shape, people will only see that you got it wrong if they compare it to the original artwork. When you look at text you can simply tell that it's wrong by looking at it.

It's seriously difficult (timeconsuming) to get it right when you trace it by hand too. I've tried to trace text a few times, but always just looked up the font and used that.

[shardian]

Text, in a lossy format, has too many jaggies for a vectorizer to be perfect on... you'd have to clean up those jaggies manually before putting it in.  The question is would it be easier to clean up the jaggies in the source or to fix the vectorized output.

I did correct the text in their editor. But like I said before, their editor leaves much to be desired.

[ChadTower]

Illustrator isn't hard to get... or checkout Inkscape, it's not bad, and it's free.

[HaRuMaN]

They output .svg files, right?  Just grab SodiPodi...  its a free vector program, and its pretty good.  I used it to create my two entries to the arcade art library.

[WunderCade]

Does anyone know of a way or a program that will convert an .ai file into and .svg file?

[XyloSesame]

Does anyone know of a way or a program that will convert an .ai file into and .svg file?

Inkscape will open an Illustrator ai - you can then save the file as an svg.

Illustrator will, of course, as well.