Monday, November 12, 2007

VectorMagic

VectorMagic is a free, online service from the Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Laboratory that can convert bitmap or rasterized images to vector images. Since vector images are represented by geometric shapes such as lines, circles and curves, scaling these images to smaller or even larger sizes can be achieved without the usual blurring or pixelation associated with bitmap images.

Vectormagic bird comparisonThe sample comparison above shows the original raster image on the left and the vectorized result on the right. This technology isn't new and both Adobe and Corel have commercial products available to do the job but the Vector Magic team say that their solution is better than either of those.

As you might expect, it works best on somewhat flat images like logos, fonts, scanned cartoon art, etc. but it will work with photographs as well, you just won't get as rounded a result. Still those results do produce useful effects that you might actually like the look of.

Vectormagic poppy comparisonIt'll convert images in JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP and TIFF formats and you can save the converted images in EPS, SVG or PNG formats.

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