> This raster image must then be placed into vector software capable of performing a bitmap trace, such as Adobe Illustrator, or Inkscape.
It seems like it doesn’t actually create a vector image by itself, which is what the title had me hoping. I’d be interested to see a process that links up these two parts of the problem.
From past experience, this is the hard part. The quality has gotten better in the last 5-10 years… but until very recently, you could easily get complete garbage trying to do basic two image to vector conversion with open source tools.
I’ve been on the SVG using train for what feels like forever now, so long that I’ve tried to do the raster to vector conversion dance countless times and watched the recent progress with much satisfaction, but it’s still not perfect, two colour gradients (a common enough logo element) are frequently a problem last time I checked, which admittedly could also just be really troublesome set of examples since it’s not like I’ve got a library of images I use to regression test this stuff, I just use it.
It seems to be an upscaler. I guess auto-vectorizing in Illustrator works better on large images. AI upscaling has been a thing for some time now, maybe this one is trained specifically on small logos?
Was hoping this would vectorize logos but it 4x's them instead, leaving the vectorization to external tools. Maybe they should consider revising the title.
I wonder how this compares with just directly dropping the logos into adobe converter or inkscape?
Also - does anyone know of a tool that does in fact vectorize logos with AI? As in, creates sort-of semantic svg elements instead of just paths for everything - given a circle-ish thing you get a <circle> out.
I’ve had pretty good success with vectorizing raster images in Inkscape (IIRC it’s a feature called “trace bitmap”) and then doing some cleanup and adjustments. There is some manual work involved, but it really depends on the source. I was once given a small, low-resolution gif and was told that was the only copy of the logo for the government agency I was doing the work for. A few days later, I had a fully scalable SVG that became the agency’s official replacement of the logo. As an aside, Inkscape is a wonderful tool and I have used it to easily create complete icon sets (hundreds of images), which is extremely impressive for FOSS. It even has an API you can use for things like batch processing.
I haven't used Inkscape in a while but you can compare them yourself. You can use Vector Magic's web interface to rasterize an image, you won't be able do download it though.
> ESRGAN was invented to help governments see more detail with older surveillance satellites, but eventually declassified and brought into the open source world.
Is that a question or a request? If a question, the answer is no, because it's someone's website, they can do what they want. If a request, the author of the article is not in this thread and cannot provide a citation.
Yeah I'd be similarly curious how that was arrived at. ESRGAN was co-developed by a researcher at Tencent, who has been involved in a range of similar things.
The only satellite related thing I saw in my brief searching is some separate project[1] based on ESRGAN used for satellite imagery.
>This model is entirely libre (free as in freedom), and can be used for any commercial or personal purpose. My only request is that you go forth and fill the world with SVGs.
Some people release OSS out of passion. Some release it out of pain.
I had to view them in maximised full screen to see the comparison, but it looks really good. Interestingly the scaled-up version of the IBM logo has made the right edges of the B stripes be—quite understandably—flat legs of a trapezoid rather than part of the rounded B shape, but everywhere else I looked it seemed like the program scaled just as you'd want it to. Nice!
That's so cool! I've used waifu2x countless times for that exact purpose (and it did a decent job actually, but a dedicated tool should perform even better).
Tracing logos back will still give subpar results IMO – I think you're better off just using the resulting hi-res logo bitmap.
Readit News
It seems like it doesn’t actually create a vector image by itself, which is what the title had me hoping. I’d be interested to see a process that links up these two parts of the problem.
I’ve been on the SVG using train for what feels like forever now, so long that I’ve tried to do the raster to vector conversion dance countless times and watched the recent progress with much satisfaction, but it’s still not perfect, two colour gradients (a common enough logo element) are frequently a problem last time I checked, which admittedly could also just be really troublesome set of examples since it’s not like I’ve got a library of images I use to regression test this stuff, I just use it.
I'm sure this is a solvable problem. For now though, a professional illustrator is still best for creating "parsimonious" logo designs
Parsimonious as in not an absolute nightmare to edit afterwards with nonsensical artifacts
I wonder how this compares with just directly dropping the logos into adobe converter or inkscape?
Also - does anyone know of a tool that does in fact vectorize logos with AI? As in, creates sort-of semantic svg elements instead of just paths for everything - given a circle-ish thing you get a <circle> out.
It’s not that hard to do automatically
[1] https://vectormagic.com/
Citation required?
The only satellite related thing I saw in my brief searching is some separate project[1] based on ESRGAN used for satellite imagery.
[1] https://github.com/Jakaria08/EESRGAN
Some people release OSS out of passion. Some release it out of pain.
Tracing logos back will still give subpar results IMO – I think you're better off just using the resulting hi-res logo bitmap.