"Centerline Trace" feature in 2024?

Is there any chance that a “centerline trace” feature could be added to Lightburn in 2024? Users have been requesting this feature since 2020 from what I can tell. :slight_smile: I guess I’ll see if I can find the voting system for new feature requests . . .

It was great hearing Jason (aka Oz) at LBX 2023 relate some of the marvelous new features coming out with version 1.5 – but also hearing some of the backstories about the challenges of developing some of the features (as well as the breakthroughs).

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If/until that feature gets added- free Inkscape does it already. Then import/open into Lightburn.

Rapid Resizer Free Online Raster to Vector Converter (rapidresizer.com) also has a trace/centerline option. You can import your image and then save it as an SVG, DXF or PDF file.

Yes (LOL), but anything Inkscape can do, Lightburn can do better.

Besides that, I don’t want to have to install one more program on my computer, and I’m too impatient to have to go through “so many” steps.

Lightburn has “spoiled” me by having so many superb features readily at hand that I tend to “whine” at minor inconveniences like not having centerline trace available.

But I also appreciate hearing from the LB engineers (if they can be bothered with such) what sort of “problems” addressing a feature request like this presents.

I don’t just take for granted that every LB feature is easily produced. I appreciate the features even more when I take to heart the efforts and expertise it took to provide them.

I had mentioned RapidResizer back in an earlier LB Forum post “Splitting the Difference” after Trace Image? but most of us agreed at that time that the results were rather unspectacular. I haven’t tried it since then to see if RapidResizer had improved at all.

You make a valid point. Whenever I try to use Inkscape it makes my brain hurt, so I hop around between Rapid Resizer, ImagR Vectorize and Lightburn trace. One of them usually gives me a result I can work with, and since the first two are online I don’t have to install another program on my PC. Inkscape, for me anyway, isn’t very intuitive and I struggle with it every time I try to use it.

Inkscape vs Lightburn. Inkscape is great for designing. It’s free and can make almost anything you want to design. But learning curve is steep due probably because it is open source and everyone wants to add some niche addon to do something that 99+% would ever use. Personally I think the best improvement Inkscape could do is allow you to go in and hide any feature. That for me would eliminate about 3/4 of the things I would ever use and make it much less intimidating.
Lightburn is the only software I have purchased. And a lot had to do with their design side. I didn’t feel the anxiety and was able to jump right in and start doing things.
Having said that of course once you start using it you do see things that are lacking and it’s a tradeoff between functionality and learning curve. I think Lightburn still has room to add more functionality without upping the intimidation factor.

I reply to all of you who replied to my “reply.”

I wholeheartedly agree with the useability and features in Ligthburn! Jason and his workers have added so many features in the 3 years that I have been using it. They are responsive to bug reports and explain features that users may have missed that solve a problem.

So, for Thanksgiving [in the US]- I am thankful for the developers of Lightburn!

The LB approach to handling Nesting by programming a routine which copies file name and then linking to SVGNest.com is a rather creative one - maybe borderline genius.

It’s probably not possible or feasible, but it would be interesting if a similar routine could be written for center-line trace if there were some way to link it to Inkscape (Cameo Ink/Stitch plugin) or SAiCloud or fConvert or RapidResizer or Online Vectorizer (like fConvert, select centerline trace option) or Illustrator or Corel Draw.

But in the time in took me to write these posts, I could have centerline-traced ten graphics in Inkscape. Just label me as annoyingly obsessive compulsive and note that I promise not to bring up the subject again until 2028.

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You can easily hide things in Inkscape.