Convert an image into vector shapes you can scale, edit and cut
"Vector" is less a file type than a claim about what a picture is made of. A photo is a grid of coloured squares measured at a fixed density, so enlarging it forces the software to invent the measurements nobody took. A vector holds the same picture as a list of shapes: each region of colour described by its outline, and that outline a handful of coordinates with curve handles between them. Three things follow, and together they explain why you keep being told to "send it as a vector". It re-renders at whatever dimension the device asks for. Every corner is a node you can drag, recolour or delete. And a cutter or plotter can follow the outline as a path rather than interpret a picture of one.
This page does that to a PNG, JPEG or WEBP and hands the result over in whichever container the next tool expects: SVG, PDF, EPS, DXF, or a re-rasterised PNG. The geometry is built once and every writer serialises the same shapes, so a different output is not a different trace; it is one set of outlines spelled in another language.
Doing the tracing is colour segmentation, an explicit anti-aliasing model and curve fitting: geometry, not a learned model, so results are predictable rather than inventive. Flat artwork (logos, badges, stickers, stencils, line art) comes through cleanly. Photographic shading has no outlines in it, so it arrives as many small flat regions.
Drop an image here
or click to choose one
How it works
- Choose one PNG, JPEG or WEBP file, up to 25 MB and 40 megapixels.
- Set the colour count between 2 and 64: low for flat marks and cut lines, higher for shaded artwork.
- Tick the outputs you need (SVG, PDF, EPS, DXF, PNG) and add a width and height in millimetres if the piece has a physical size.
- Compare the preview against your original, and change the colour count if shapes have merged or splintered.
- Sign in with Google (free) to download; pick more than one format and a ZIP arrives with them.
Who this is for
Most visitors get here because somebody else refused a file. The print shop asks for a vector because their workflow will blow the mark up to the width of a shop window and a 600 px PNG will not survive the trip. The laser or vinyl operator asks because the machine drives a head along a path and cannot follow a picture of a line. A colleague asks because they need to recolour one element without repainting the pixels around it.
The other common case is salvage: the original design file is gone, the designer moved on, and the best surviving copy is a JPEG lifted off an old invoice. Tracing will not resurrect the nodes the designer drew, but it gives you closed, editable shapes to clean up by hand, which beats redrawing the mark from nothing.
Settings we suggest
Colours (2–64) decides most of the outcome. Two give one flat silhouette and a single clean contour, what a stencil or a cut line needs. Eight to sixteen holds a flat logo's palette; twenty to thirty suits badges and stickers with shading. Near 64 on a photograph you mostly buy more small shapes and a longer conversion.
Draw style sets what gets drawn: fill_shapes for solid regions (the usual choice), stroke_shapes to outline each shape, stroke_edges for edges only, which is what pen plotters and some cutting workflows want. Shape stacking: cut-outs writes each region so it does not overlap its neighbours, safest when the artwork will be cut or recoloured; stacked lays them over one another. Grouping (none, colour, parent, layer) only affects how paths are grouped in the SVG.
The output is really a question about the next person or machine. SVG for the web, editors and most cutting software. PDF for a print shop: one page, real cubic curves, not an image pasted onto a sheet. EPS for older print and sign workflows that still ask for it. DXF for CAD and CAM: R2010 (AC1024), outlines only, LWPOLYLINE runs and degree-3 SPLINEs, one layer per colour, nothing inside them shaded in. PNG is not a vector but a clean re-render of the finished shapes. A width and height in millimetres (1–5000) reaches all four vector formats: the SVG and the DXF are written at that scale, and the PDF and EPS page box is set to the same physical size, so a 150 mm badge opens as a 150 mm page rather than as something to rescale at the other end. The DXF also states millimetres in its own header, so CAD and CAM software opens it at size instead of asking which unit to assume. Leave the field empty and the SVG falls back to 96 px = 25.4 mm, with the PDF and EPS page taking its size from the pixel dimensions.
Questions
Is a vector always better than the PNG I already have?
Not always. Flat marks, type and line art gain from it. A photograph that will only ever appear at one size on a screen gains little, and the traced copy looks flatter than the original. The test: if a person would draw it with a pen, it traces well.
Can I edit the shapes afterwards?
That is the point of the exercise. Each region arrives as a closed path with its own nodes, so you can pull a curve straight, drop a shape you do not want, or change one colour without touching the rest. A DXF opens in AutoCAD 2010 and later, Fusion 360, LightBurn, Inkscape or FreeCAD.
Is the PNG output a vector?
No. It is redrawn from the finished vector shapes at 3× supersampling, on a transparent background at 1:1 scale: a tidied-up raster, useful when what you wanted was a cleaner PNG rather than editable outlines.
Does a photograph vectorise well?
It converts, but judge the preview by eye: a portrait becomes dozens of flat colour regions, sometimes a striking poster, rarely a faithful copy. Logos and stickers typically convert in 3–12 seconds in our local measurements; fine-line or noisy images take longer. If a conversion does not finish within 60 seconds it stops and suggests fewer colours or a smaller image.
What can I put in, and what happens to big files?
One image per conversion: PNG, JPEG or WEBP, up to 25 MB and 40 megapixels. Images above 1.5 megapixels are downscaled before tracing, so the output's pixel size is that smaller size; use the millimetre field when the physical measurement matters. Transparent areas stay empty in the vector; semi-transparent pixels are composited over white.
What does downloading need, and how long are files kept?
The preview is open to everyone and carries no watermark; a free Google sign-in releases the files. Anonymous visitors get 10 conversions per hour, signed-in accounts 60 per hour and 300 per day. Download links expire after 1 hour, and uploaded images and generated files are removed by an automatic 1-day deletion rule.