pixel2svg - convert pixel art to crisp blocky SVG

[fberger]

Hi folks,

I've just released the first version of the pixel2svg tool.

It takes a pixel art image and converts it to SVG in a pixel by pixel fashion, creating a vector square for every pixel (i.e. it's not a tracing program).

The rationale is to be able to conveniently enlarge pixel art for printing, creating PDF etc., or simply to have a pure-vector representation of the image.

The tool is at http://florian-berger.de/en/software/pixel2svg

This is the very first release, and I think it's rather inconvenient if you are on a MS Windows box. It's a command-line tool and currently requires Python, the Python Imaging Library and the svgwrite module to be installed.

If someone is interested, I could bundle up a version with all prerequisites included or even create a binary .exe version for MS Windows in the next release.

Regards,
fberger

[michelcote]

Certainly looks useful from your website's description. I'm running Windows, so no luck for me but I am interested in an .exe release. 

[Argyle]

Looks intriguing! I would love having a way to convert pixel data to vector, but I too am only running windows workstations. Have been many instances where I've had to size things up to 3000%  just to have a decent raster output for shirt graphics, but this would be handy.

[Mathias]

I came across a similar if not identical site just the other day searching some solution to some problem at work - http://www.drububu.com/tutorial/bitmaptovector.html

I have not personally tested it.

Argyle, have you ever gotten Illustrator's live trace to work for this? Maybe scaling up by increments of 100%, like you just alluded to, before attempting the trace?

Then there's this of course, but it kinda ruins everything hehe.

[NickZA]

Actually, Flash is able to convert bitmaps to vectors, using the "break apart" feature IIRC. Then you can export these to eg. Illustrator.

[PypeBros]

I've just released the first version of the pixel2svg tool.

It takes a pixel art image and converts it to SVG in a pixel by pixel fashion, creating a vector square for every pixel (i.e. it's not a tracing program).

The rationale is to be able to conveniently enlarge pixel art for printing, creating PDF etc., or simply to have a pure-vector representation of the image.

That could be helpful to merge adjacent pixels into larger shapes, esp. for "mid-tones" while highlight and shadows would be overlaid over the larger "flat picture". but that might already be handy to avoid default JPEG compression killing pixel art here and there