SVG Me
VTracer alternative

A VTracer alternative for cut-ready SVGs

VTracer is a fast, open-source color tracer, and many free "PNG to SVG" websites run it with its default settings. It is excellent at following an image closely. That is also why a compressed JPEG can come back with over a hundred colors.

By the SVG Me team · Updated

What happens with JPEGs

JPEG compression adds faint noise and halos around edges. A tracer that follows the image faithfully keeps those near-identical shades as separate colors and shapes. On screen it looks close to the original; on a cutting machine, each color is another layer to cut and weed.

  • Colors: VTracer kept a median of 133 per design from our low-quality JPEGs; SVG Me kept 4.
  • Anchor points: a median of 1,450 with VTracer, 282 with SVG Me.
  • File size: a median of 104 KB with VTracer, 13 KB with SVG Me.
  • Accuracy: SVG Me was closer to the original design on all 15 images.
a "hello sunshine" lettering design, as uploaded
Your upload 200 px JPEG
a "hello sunshine" lettering design, traced by SVG Me
SVG Me default settings
a "hello sunshine" lettering design, traced by VTracer
VTracer default settings
a "hello sunshine" lettering design, traced by Potrace
Potrace 8-color scan, as in Inkscape
a geometric fox head, as uploaded
Your upload 200 px JPEG
a geometric fox head, traced by SVG Me
SVG Me default settings
a geometric fox head, traced by VTracer
VTracer default settings
a geometric fox head, traced by Potrace
Potrace 8-color scan, as in Inkscape

When VTracer is the better choice

  • Batch jobs and scripts: it is a free library and command-line tool, and it is very fast.
  • Tuning: color precision, speckle filtering and curve settings are all adjustable. Raising the speckle filter and lowering color precision reduces the color count.
  • Photos and detailed art where you want every shade, not a few flat colors.
  • Thin color bands: in our test VTracer kept a thin wave band that SVG Me merged away.

What SVG Me does differently

SVG Me first works out what the image is (logo, lettering, illustration or photo), how noisy it is, and which colors the design really has, then traces with settings chosen for that. You review the colors, merge or remove any you don’t want, and download as filled shapes, layers by color, or cut outlines.

See the full test and method.

Questions

Is VTracer free?

Yes, VTracer is open source. SVG Me is free to convert and preview; downloading costs 1 credit per project.

Which settings did you use for VTracer?

Its defaults (color mode, spline curves, speckle filter 4, color precision 6), because that is what most free online converters built on it use.