potrace and snowflakes

[bsittler]

potrace is a neat program that converts bitmap images to vector images. recently i used it to convert pictures of some paper snowflakes i made:

Comments

snowflakes and other beutiful creations you are at least partially responsible for.

[anonymous]

As always, enjoy so much looking at your precise scissor work. Still don't understand the program you used to get them here - not a scan I presume??

Re: snowflakes and other beutiful creations you are at least partially responsible for.

[bsittler]

i took a photo with a digital camera of the snowflake on a window (the "original" version), then did some image processing to boost contrast and convert to grey-scale, then used "potrace" to convert the pixellated grayscale image into scalable vector artwork which can be zoomed into indefinitely without becoming pixellated (the "eps", "svg" and "pdf" versions all have this property.) there's also a recreated greyscale pixellated version (which is what you see above) -- this was converted from the vector artwork and so looks a bit different from the original.

the first snowflake pictured is a special case -- it was converted from my very-low-resolution livejournal userpic, and i took advantage of some of the symmetry of the snowflake to overcome some of the detail restrictions of the livejournal icon format.

[anonymous]

Yes, dad gummit, I am a human, and my comment, witty and cogent, got cut off!! OK, recreate.

[smws]

Hey, I remember doing this exact thing with commercial software (Illustrator I think) back in 1998. I'm glad to know that there are free tools for it.

I also really enjoy your scissor work. A few days ago I taught two kids to make 6-flakes, and I thought of your work. The second one is two pieces, right?

[bsittler]

yes, it's the negative of the fourth flake plus a tiny flake in the middle.