symmetrical hart shape in vectric v carve pro

[Neale]

Too many funnies and not enough smilies! And that is meant as a kind of compliment and nothing else. Very difficult to convey humour on a forum like this, or even say anything that has no chance of misinterpretation. So, my apologies for not spotting a deliberate funny.

As for sense of humour - how about, "I went for a job as a lathe operator once. They turned me down". Well, OK, maybe that one doesn't prove anything...

Going back to the original question - I've never had much success tracing bitmaps with software. Probably a mix of incompetence and inexperience, as it's not something I need to do very often, but as long as the shape isn't too complicated I've usually managed to import a bitmap and then draw and edit curves over it, possibly even as a series of short straight lines. Might be an alternative approach for a quick-and-dirty solution especially in wood where a quick run round with a bit of sandpaper takes out any lumps and bumps.

[magicniner]

As for sense of humour - how about, "I went for a job as a lathe operator once. They turned me down".

It's good, I like it!

As for bitmap to structured drawing I've found that most "trace" routines give less than perfect results unless the resolution is increased massively and then processed, then manually edited, and you still get over-complicated geometry. I suspect it's far better to use a CAD package which allows you to have the processed image in the background and construct your own geometry - a capability which came into consideration when adding Bob Art in my initial BobCadCam order,
Regards,
Nick

[Neale]

...and with Bezier curves so you can tweak points and directions, you can do reasonably well. I must take a look at some software my wife uses to convert bitmap drawings into vectors which then get digitised for a computer sewing machine. It seems to do better than things like Adobe Illustrator.