Homebrew PCBs

At 03:18 AM 5/28/2008 -0000, Dave wrote:
>A while ago I looked for a good bitmap to vector conversion program
>but did not find anything that worked for me in the open source world.
> My search was not exhaustive and I may have missed something.  

The newer versions of the open source Inkscape (www.inkscape.org) 
have a "tracing" capability that might provide a workable approach. 
The program's preferred format is .SVG, but it can import plenty of graphic
formats (including .BMP), and export plenty of others (including .DXF).

When tracing you can tweak values for brightness, edge detection, and
color quantization, then when you have a good line representation of
the original, apply "simplify path" which will smooth curves and reduce
the number of line segments in the output.

I used the feature once when converting a company logo from bitmap
to vector and was surprised at what it could do.  The input had lots of
curves and text... think of a 60-tooth gear with serif font text on the
inner circumference, just about zero straight lines... which gave the
program a good workout.  I think if the input was mostly straight lines
and regular angles, like a pcb layout, it might do a great job.

When working with the program's user interface I have a little difficulty
switching my brain from engineering mode to artist mode, but that's
probably good mental exercise.  It ain't no CAD program, that's for sure.

Mike