This repo contains cpp code to automatically trace bitmaps to svgs.

To build this tool, grab a copy of the inkscape source code:

git clone https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape.git
cd inkscape

Then copy the inktrace-main.cpp into the src/ folder of inkscape.

Now we have to add a new build target to the inkscape makefiles. Copy the cmakelists.patch to the inkscape folder (inkscape/, the one above src/) and run the following there:

patch -p1 < cmakelists.patch

After that you can build inkscape as described in its INSTALL.md:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make

Now you have the inktrace binary in the bin folder.

You can run the tool the follwing:

./bin/inktrace my_favorite_image1.png my_favorite_image2.png my_favorite_image3.png

There is no proper configuration (yet?). Check the inktrace-main.cpp file. The configuration is between ********* START PARAMETERS and ********* END PARAMETERS. I experienced that after setting multiScanStack to true, the paths were in the wrong order. A workaround was added, see the line with // ********** HACK: the layers in your output svgs are in the wrong order, switch which for loop is active

Like inkscape, this code is under GPL-2.0-or-later. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later, see COPYING for more.