X4 Trace Problem

[Jeff Belany]

Some days I hate Corel!! Even though I have used it since v3 and used v8 for 10 years, X4 has more small "issues" than any software I have ever used. The latest -- today I scanned 5 pieces of art into Photoshop for vector cutting. I treated them all exactly the same as far as adjustments, one after another. Went to Corel and imported all 5 and proceeded to trace -- centerline -- line drawing. Adjusted the settings in Trace the same each time, brought each back into Corel. The first 3 came out perfect -- no problems at all. Then the next 2 came out so bad they were barely recognizable!! Tried them a couple times, tweaked settings and all I got was garbage. The original in the preview pane looks perfect but the finished pane was terrible, to put it mildly. (since this a family forum)

Don't know if anyone has any ideas. I know some of you use Inkscape. I have downloaded it and tried a trace (without really reading anything about it) and see that I have to do some reading beore I can do any tracing.

Just a rant -- not been a good day.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

[Frank Corker]

Jeff, you will probably be able to illiminate a lot just by running the files again in a different order and see if it is the same two that are causing the problem. If that is the case, it might well be a colour issue that you should look at. Try saving it in black and white or greyscale and see if it still does it. If it does not have the same result as the first time when it messed up then that will have been the cause.

[Jeff Belany]

I converted all the images to grayscale in Photoshop. When I did the trace I used all the same settings as the other ones that worked fine. Tale a look at the attached and let me know if you see anything I did wrong, which I'm sure is a distinct possiblility!

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

[Jeff Belany]

Well, I don't know why I didn't try this first, before ranting, but I redid the trace using a high quality trace instead of the centerline trace and it worked fine. I guess I just got hung up on the fact the 3 or the 5 worked fine and the other 2 didn't. Now if I could fix the rest of the little quirks I'm having with Corel. Speaking of which -- when you move an object, using the arrow keys, does your x,y numbers (object position) change as the object moves? Mine always used to but now they don't. To check the numbers I have to click off the object and then click back on it. A real pain if you are trying to exactly position an object. Anyone have any ideas??

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

[Roy Brewer]

Well, I don't know why I didn't try this first, before ranting, but I redid the trace using a high quality trace instead of the centerline trace and it worked fine. I guess I just got hung up on the fact the 3 or the 5 worked fine and the other 2 didn't. Now if I could fix the rest of the little quirks I'm having with Corel. Speaking of which -- when you move an object, using the arrow keys, does your x,y numbers (object position) change as the object moves? Mine always used to but now they don't. To check the numbers I have to click off the object and then click back on it. A real pain if you are trying to exactly position an object. Jeff,

Centerline is just for marketing; it has never worked (as far as I'm concerned in any R->V program). I believe in all situations you should use the outline and then delete one side or the other; if you really need the centerline, in 99% of the cases it's quicker to trace it manually than to clean up the corners/intersections that typically result.

I don't recall the property bar ever showing results of nudging. The Status line *does* show the position of the center as you nudge. Or, if you are trying to nudge one of the other available points of your selection, open the Transformation Docker (be sure Relative turned off), and it will show the results of each nudge in real time; but if you know where you want the object why not just type it in?

May I warn you that some of us that have worked hard to learn Corel are a bit offended by those who refer to corel quirks/bugs when a gigantic % of the time it's the user not understanding the proper usage.

[Dave Russell Smith]

Jeff,
May I warn you that some of us that have worked hard to learn Corel are a bit offended by those who refer to corel quirks/bugs when a gigantic % of the time it's the user not understanding the proper usage.

No one should ever be offended by someone else's lack of knowledge with some software, as this is how the forum works and with some friendly guidance we can all learn. No one is perfect

[Jeff Belany]

I'm not really offended by my "lack of knowlege" of Corel but my issues with Corel are real, not a "lack of knowledge". I have a long list of things that have happened in X4 that NEVER caused any problems in my previous 12 years experience with Corel. I'm certainly not an expert but with 12 years (full time) laser engraving with Corel I'm not exactly a 'newbie' Emails to Corel get stock answers like "Check our fabulous knowledge base". I have never once received an answer of any kind. Luckily the issues are more annoying than anything else so I don't spend a huge amount of time worrying about them.

My x,y object position has always moved as I nudge an object in all previous versions. Why it doesn't work in X4 I don't know. I realize there are other ways to do this but why can't I use the tool that is sitting on the toolbar?

I'm not going to question others skill levels without knowing for sure. I think everyone should do the same.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

[Dave Russell Smith]

I'm not going to question others skill levels without knowing for sure. I think everyone should do the same.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

Well said Jeff, could not agree with you more :)

[Mike Null]

But Roy's statement does make sense if you read it. He's not criticizing anyone for a lack of knowledge.

[Dave Russell Smith]

But Roy's statement does make sense if you read it. He's not criticizing anyone for a lack of knowledge.


Jeff,
May I warn you that some of us that have worked hard to learn Corel are a bit offended by those who refer to corel quirks/bugs when a gigantic % of the time it's the user not understanding the proper usage.


Yes Mike it does make sense, but the final paragraph can be read as a little patronizing. We all work hard in what we do, this is an open forum where people can ask for and get advice in a unbiased way and not feel bad about it. This is trouble with this type of technology (and cell text messaging) where you can not see and hear how this would have been said verbally and why it can been read out of context.

[Bill Cunningham]

The center line trace works very well for tracing simple center lines. For example, if you want to convert a scrollsaw pattern into a vector cut pattern, scan it in a black and white 'line art' (not gray scale) with the threshold set for the best line quality, then trace it using center line.. I get almost perfect results every time. The trick is, you can't centerline trace a grayscale or colour raster image, it has to be binary line art or all you get is a bunch of junk.. Try it, you'll like it..:D

[Jeff Belany]

Bill,

I use the centerline trace exactly like you do and, most of the time, it works great. I didn't understand what was meant by "Centerline is just for marketing; it has never worked". The problem I started with was that of 5 pieces of art that were all done exactly the same, 3 worked perfect and the other 2 were totally garbage. I hoped someone had an idea why. In the end, I got everything done and 'why' will remain a mystery.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

[Terry Swift]

Bill,

I have some scroll saw patterns that aren't able to be scanned in one pass - as they are too long for my scanner. Is there an easy way to piece them back together after centerline tracing them?

[Roy Brewer]

I didn't understand what was meant by "Centerline is just for marketing; it has never worked".Jeff,

Maybe I should have explained the flippant remark. &/or maybe you guys have figured out how to use the Centerline Trace.
Corel removed the Centerline Trace from 12 (or one version around there) and put it back because so many people asked "What happened to our Centerline Trace?" The reason they took it out was because many of us feel like it is faster to manually trace, especially if production is an issue. The two major problems is the roughness at intersections and the poor cutter path that is normally generated.

Corel put it back without any noticable improvements; hence I call that "for marketing." I'm not knocking Corel here, their Centerline trace is a good as anyone else's that I've tried. So either, I haven't learned to use it or I'm faster at manually tracing(?).

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

My x,y object position has always moved as I nudge an object in all previous versions. Why it doesn't work in X4 I don't know. I realize there are other ways to do this but why can't I use the tool that is sitting on the toolbar?


While I have not bothered to upgrade from X3, I have to agree with Jeff that I do use the nudge features every day and rely on the x/y object position to update the data in the property bar as I use the arrow keys to make changes. Yes, I could use some other methods to get around this loss if I upgraded, but why should I have to lose such a handy and useful feature?

[Dan Hintz]

I have found an excellent use for the centerline trace... which I will describe in an upcoming "newsletter" for SMC.

[Bill Cunningham]

Bill,

I have some scroll saw patterns that aren't able to be scanned in one pass - as they are too long for my scanner. Is there an easy way to piece them back together after centerline tracing them?

Scan them in sections(reduce them if you like), and piece them together using cut and paste in a paint program. You can fiddle around joining 'nodes' in Corel, but I always found this to be faster). Once their back together and all the gaps in any lines have been filled, convert them to black and white (2 bit line art, NOT grayscale) and save it as a .tif file (if you save as a .jpg you have just wasted all your time .jpg's can not be line art) once saved, import into Corel and trace using the centre line method. You can then resize the vector file to anything you like before cutting. I know trace will allow you to change any input drawing to line art, but you'll be patching and joining a lot of nodes.. The paint program will allow you to clean everything up before you save and trace it.. At least that's the way I do it.. Opinions and methods may vary, along with your mileage ;)