You’d have to use something like Inkscape’s Trace Bitmap to vectorize the image and get the advantages of vector.īelow, I’ve used a staggering 50 scans to get this result, but it still doesn’t even come close to the detail of the raster image, not to mention some unavoidable defects. The SVG will still render it as a rectangle pixel matrix. Sure, you could import the same image into Inkscape, but it still wouldn’t be vector. This makes GIMP an excellent photo editing tool because it’s meant to deal with raster. In case you didn’t know, digital photos are similar to the way raster graphics work in that they are composed of individual pixel data, just like GIMP. While Inkscape may seem like a knight in shining armor at this point, there are plenty of drawbacks to vector. It’s also worth noting that since these circles are composed of only a few points, the final SVG file size will be tiny compared to a JPG.

The circles below are also at 1600%, but remain crystal clear and sharp because vector formats such as SVG or AI will re-render the graphics each time you zoom in, move, stretch, etc. Instead of the pixel based rendering of GIMP, Inkscape uses the geometry of points, lines, and curves as a basis of graphics - vector. At this point, it’s very clear that when I drew circles using GIMP, what it really did was create a bunch of colored squares (pixels) to give the illusion of a circle. Rasterīelow are the circles I drew in GIMP zoomed in 1600%. This is the basis of file formats such as JPG and PNG. This is because GIMP uses raster graphics, which in this case is a pixel-by-pixel grid where each individual pixel’s color value is saved and then displayed on your monitor/screen. So how come Inkscape’s circles are so much sharper when zoomed in? You probably can’t tell the difference, can you? Vector vs Rasterīelow, I’ve drawn a few circles in each program. The difference between Inkscape and GIMP is that Inkscape uses vector graphics while GIMP uses raster graphics. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.” - 2. “GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is used by design professionals and hobbyists worldwide, for creating a wide variety of graphics such as illustrations, icons, logos, diagrams, maps and web graphics.” - GIMP “Inkscape is professional quality vector graphics software which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. While Inkscape and GIMP do have some similarities as far as open source graphic software goes, they actually have different technology entirely. Whenever I hear somebody ask about the “Inkscape vs GIMP” comparison, I think it’s safe to assume that they may not know the difference between vector and raster graphics.

Inkscape vs gimp for dxf