The Vectorize node converts raster images, such as JPG, PNG, WEBP files provided by an Import node into editable vector geometry.

Parameters

Modes

Color Mode

• Color: Traces the image using a quantization palette. This preserves the colors of the original image but reduces them to a manageable number of layers.
• Black & White: Thresholds the image into a binary mask before tracing. This is ideal for high-contrast line art, logos, or scanned signatures.

Clustering Strategy

This setting determines how the resulting vector shapes relate to one another.

• Stacked: Shapes are generated on top of one another. This usually results in fewer gaps and is better for digital display, but creates overlapping geometry which may not be desired for fabrication.
• Cutout: Shapes are generated like a jigsaw puzzle with no overlaps. This is the preferred mode for vinyl cutting or plotting to prevent the machine from cutting the same boundary twice.

Curve Fitting

• Spline: Fits smooth Bezier curves to the geometry. Best for organic shapes and standard vector illustration.
• Polygon: Fits straight line segments to the geometry. Useful for technical looks or “low-poly” effects.
• Pixel: Maintains the exact stair-step boundaries of the original pixels. Perfect for scaling up pixel art without blurring.

Clustering Settings

These settings control how the raw pixel data is analyzed and grouped before geometry is created.

Filter Speckle

Controls the cleanup of small noise.

• Effect: Discards any shapes that contain fewer pixels than this value.
• Usage: Increase this to remove dust, scan noise, or compression artifacts from the image.

Color Precision

Available in Color Mode only. Controls the complexity of the color palette.

• Effect: Defines the number of significant bits to use for color quantization.
• Usage: Lower values result in fewer unique colors and a “posterized” look. Higher values retain more color fidelity but create more complex geometry.

Gradient Step

Available in Color Mode only. Controls how gradients are handled.

• Effect: The threshold for color differences to trigger a new layer.
• Usage: Higher values merge similar colors together, resulting in fewer “bands” in gradient areas. Lower values capture subtle color shifts.

Refine Settings

Fine-tune how vector curves are fitted to the pixel shapes. These settings are primarily available when Curve Fitting is set to Spline or Polygon.

Corner Threshold

Determines the sharpness of vertices.

• Effect: The minimum angle (in degrees) required to consider a vertex a sharp corner.
• Usage: If corners look too rounded, decrease this value. If curves have sharp kinks, increase this value.

Segment Length

Controls the resolution of the tracing grid.

• Effect: The minimum length of a segment.
• Usage: Smaller values capture fine details but increase the point count significantly. Larger values create smoother, more abstract shapes.

Splice Threshold

Optimizes long curves.

• Effect: The angle threshold (in degrees) for joining consecutive segments into a single line or curve.
• Usage: Helps create longer, continuous lines instead of many short segments.

Path Precision

Controls output data size.

• Effect: The number of decimal places used for coordinate values in the resulting vector data.
• Usage: Lower values reduce memory usage but may slightly distort very small shapes.

Post-Processing

This section refers to the global post-processing settings. Refer to the Vectorize Groups section below for group-specific settings.

Raw traces can often be messy, containing too many points or jagged edges. The Post-Processing aka Vectorize Groups helps you clean up the vectors to make them easier to edit and smoother to look at.

Ideal workflow: group shapes you want to post-process -> adjust settings -> repeat for other groups.

If not using groups, the global post-processing settings will apply to all shapes (whole thing) which might be a something you want, or don’t.

Resample

Think of this as ”re-topology” for 2D lines. Tracing algorithms often bunch points together in corners and leave long gaps on straight lines.

• Value: Sets the target distance between points. Smaller values mean more points, but may retain jittery noise, larger values mean less points but may lose fine details.
• Effect: It rebuilds shapes with evenly spaced points. This creates a clean slate before you apply simplification or smoothing.

Simplify

Reduces the number of points in shape to make it cleaner and “lighter.”

• Effect: It removes points that don’t contribute much to the shape (like points on a straight line).
• Usage: Increase this value to remove jittery noise from a hand-drawn scan. Larger value means fewer points while retaining shape siluette.

Smoothness

Polishes the sharp edges.

• Effect: It rounds off sharp corners and jagged pixel steps.
• Usage: Great for organic shapes. If trace looks “blocky” or “pixelated,” increasing smoothness will melt those blocks into curves.

Vectorize Groups

Global settings rarely work perfectly for an entire image. You might want the background to be very abstract and smooth, but the subject to remain sharp and detailed. Vectorize Groups allow you to target specific shapes and apply different post-processing settings to them.

1. Click Add Group.
2. Use Pick from Canvas to select the shapes you want to isolate.
3. Adjust Resample, Simplify, and Smoothness inside that group.

These settings will override the global settings for the selected shapes only.

See also

• Import
• Path