# pic2svg > Deterministic raster-to-vector tracing. Drop in a photo, logo or scan and get real > SVG paths back, plus PDF, EPS, AI and DXF from the same trace. Used via > pic2svg.com, the image is posted (base64) to pic2svg's own server at > api.pic2svg.com and traced there by a vtracer-based engine; no third-party > vectorizer or AI service receives it. There is no offline or self-hosted > build today. ## What it does - Traces JPG, PNG, WEBP, TIFF, BMP and GIF into filled SVG paths (in the web app, any image your browser can open, including ICO, is converted before upload; TIFF, which most browsers cannot open, is uploaded as it is and read by the engine) - Exports one trace to SVG, PDF, EPS, AI and DXF - Accepts up to 12 images per batch after a free sign-in (one image while anonymous); the server traces them one at a time and each result appears as it finishes - Tracing, previewing and the SVG download are free, with or without an account, with no credits or per-image fee. PDF export needs Starter ($9.99/mo or $79/yr) or higher; EPS, AI and DXF need Pro ($19.99/mo or $159/yr) or Advanced ($49.99/mo or $399/yr). Every new account starts with 7 days of Pro. What each plan lets you download is listed on the pricing page - Starter's 200 PDF exports are per billing period: a month on the monthly plan, a year on the yearly plan ## How a trace runs 1. In the hosted app the browser draws the image onto a white background, fits it to about 0.6 MP and uploads it as a lossless PNG when that is at most four times the size of a quality-0.85 JPEG (flat artwork), otherwise as the JPEG (photos). The engine opens that with Pillow and converts it to RGB; transparency is composited onto white, and palette and CMYK images are normalised to RGB. 2. The server also caps the canvas by area so a trace fits in its memory. Smaller images are never upscaled, and artwork gets no smoothing or denoise pass; a photo (when a few colours do not dominate a small sample) is lightly smoothed and reduced to 32 flat colours before tracing, so it comes back as colour bands rather than one flat block. The engine's own preset width caps (3840px Sharp, 3072px Balanced and Compact) never bind on the hosted app: there, Sharp and Balanced gave identical output, so the converter offers Balanced (default) and Compact (fewer colour layers), the only preset that changes it. 3. Mode is detected automatically by counting distinct quantised colours on a 256px thumbnail: 48 or fewer means flat artwork (traced as polygons), more means photographic (traced as splines). Anti-aliased edges can push simple artwork over 48. The canvas is then reduced to a palette: flat artwork to its own few dominant colours, anything else to 256 colours, so smooth gradients trace as bands rather than one flat fill. 4. vtracer builds stacked colour layers into filled paths. The SVG keeps vtracer's per-path translate transforms (viewers apply them), a viewBox is added, and the path data is pretty-printed; the PDF, EPS, AI and DXF exporters fold those transforms into absolute coordinates while parsing that SVG. 5. PDF, EPS, AI and DXF are generated from that SVG only when requested. ## Known limits - Transparency does not survive: alpha is flattened onto white before tracing. - The hosted app traces at about 0.6 megapixels; the request cap is about 45 MB, and the engine refuses to decode sources above 16 MP (about 7.2 MP for WebP). - An animated GIF or WebP is traced as one frame; a multi-page TIFF as its first page. CMYK is converted to RGB without a colour profile, and 16-bit greyscale is scaled to 8 bits. - DXF has no Bezier primitive, so curves are flattened into AutoCAD R2010 polylines: 12 samples per curve on Pro, 32 on Advanced. A photographic DXF can be much larger than its SVG. - The AI export is EPS-compatible PostScript, not a native Illustrator document. - Backgrounds are traced as shapes. There is no background-removal step. - Every line in the image becomes a filled outline; there is no centerline (single-stroke) output and no text recognition. - Agents and scripts can trace through a public API (POST https://api.pic2svg.com/api/v1/trace) or the pic2svg MCP server, documented at https://pic2svg.com/mcp/. It returns SVG only and has its own daily allowance, separate from the website's free converter. A remote MCP endpoint is at https://pic2svg.com/api/mcp and the API's OpenAPI description at https://pic2svg.com/openapi.json. ## Converters English at the unprefixed URLs listed here; each of these pages is also published, fully translated, under /zh-cn/, /zh-tw/, /es/, /de/, /fr/, /pt-br/, /ja/, /ko/, /ru/, /ar/. - [Image to SVG converter](https://pic2svg.com/): the main converter; traces a photo, logo or illustration into filled SVG paths and exports the same trace to PDF, EPS, AI or DXF - [PNG to SVG](https://pic2svg.com/png-to-svg/): tracing PNG logos, icons and screenshots, including how transparent areas are flattened onto white - [JPG to SVG](https://pic2svg.com/jpg-to-svg/): tracing JPEG photos and scans, including how compression noise turns into extra shapes - [Image to DXF](https://pic2svg.com/image-to-dxf/): DXF export as AutoCAD R2010 polylines for CAD, CNC, laser and plasma cutting - [Batch image to SVG](https://pic2svg.com/batch-image-to-svg/): up to 12 images in one run after a free sign-in, each result shown as it finishes - [JPG to DXF converter and JPEG contour comparison](https://pic2svg.com/jpg-to-dxf/): convert JPG to DXF with free tracing and outline preview; DXF download requires Pro. Two measured PNG/JPEG comparisons show when compression adds contours and when it does not, with downloadable inputs and outputs - [ChatGPT image to SVG: converter and measured assistant test](https://pic2svg.com/chatgpt-image-to-svg/): trace a ChatGPT or Gemini image into free personal-use SVG, with a dated one-image-per-assistant test, original files, production browser traces and XML/path/overlap measurements - [Pricing](https://pic2svg.com/pricing/): the Starter, Pro and Advanced plans, the formats and licence each includes, and the Pro trial ## Format guides English only. Each page carries the converter and real traces measured from the engine's own output. - [PNG to DXF](https://pic2svg.com/png-to-dxf/): converting a PNG into a DXF of closed outlines in millimetres for laser, CNC and CAD; holes are separate contours - [WebP to SVG](https://pic2svg.com/webp-to-svg/): tracing WebP stickers and web graphics; measured: the site's JPEG upload step matters more than lossy versus lossless WebP - [GIF to SVG](https://pic2svg.com/gif-to-svg/): tracing GIF logos and clipart; what happens to animation (one frame), on-or-off transparency and dithering, measured - [TIFF to SVG](https://pic2svg.com/tiff-to-svg/): tracing scans and print TIFFs; how large, CMYK, multi-page and 16-bit TIFFs are handled, measured ## Use cases English only. Each page carries the converter and real before/after traces measured from the engine's own output. - [Image to SVG for Cricut](https://pic2svg.com/image-to-svg-for-cricut/): turning a decal or sticker design into a layered SVG cut file, and the background shape to delete before cutting - [Image to SVG for Silhouette Studio](https://pic2svg.com/image-to-svg-for-silhouette/): converting PNG to SVG for Silhouette Studio: edition limits, free Basic Trace, measured SVG/DXF files and derived sizing; Studio imports untested - [Image to SVG for laser engraving](https://pic2svg.com/image-to-svg-for-laser-engraving/): tracing a logo or line drawing into filled paths for engraving or cutting, why there is no centerline, and SVG versus DXF - [Signature to SVG](https://pic2svg.com/signature-to-svg/): turning a scanned signature into a clean vector, how paper grain multiplies shapes, and why a traced signature is not a digital signature - [Logo to vector](https://pic2svg.com/logo-to-vector/): turning a PNG or JPG logo into the file a printer or sign maker asks for, and the clean-up a trace still leaves - [Drawing to SVG](https://pic2svg.com/drawing-to-svg/): tracing ink drawings, pencil sketches and hand lettering, and why lines become filled outlines - [Reduce SVG nodes](https://pic2svg.com/reduce-svg-nodes/): why a traced SVG has too many nodes and what removes them, measured on one logo: clean file versus scan, JPEG, presets, raster clean-up, Inkscape Simplify thresholds and SVGO ## Comparisons English only. Claims about other tools are quoted from their own pages with the date they were read. - [Vectorizer.AI alternative](https://pic2svg.com/vectorizer-ai-alternative/): pic2svg and Vectorizer.AI compared on engine, free use, formats, size limits and uploads; every Vectorizer.AI claim sourced and dated, no output measured - [Vector Magic alternative](https://pic2svg.com/vector-magic-alternative/): pic2svg and Vector Magic compared on price, formats, settings, offline use and uploads; every Vector Magic claim sourced and dated, no output measured - [Inkscape Trace Bitmap alternative](https://pic2svg.com/inkscape-trace-bitmap-alternative/): Inkscape's Trace Bitmap and the pic2svg engine measured on the same three images: colour layers, embedded bitmaps and file sizes - [Vectorizer.AI vs Vector Magic vs pic2svg](https://pic2svg.com/benchmarks/): how Vectorizer.AI, Vector Magic and pic2svg differ in tracing engine, privacy boundary, DXF output and batch handling ## Free tools Runs in the browser; nothing is uploaded. Also published, fully translated, under /zh-cn/, /zh-tw/, /es/, /de/, /fr/, /pt-br/, /ja/, /ko/, /ru/, /ar/. - [SVG cut-file checker](https://pic2svg.com/svg-cut-file-checker/): a browser-only checker that reads an SVG and lists what a Cricut, Silhouette or laser will trip on: open outlines, stroke-only shapes, live text, embedded bitmaps, missing physical units, clips and hidden objects ## EPS conversion and inspection Tracing and SVG are free; EPS export uses Pro. The free EPS check runs locally in the browser. Fully translated under /zh-cn/, /zh-tw/, /es/, /de/, /fr/, /pt-br/, /ja/, /ko/, /ru/, /ar/. - [Image to EPS converter and vector check](https://pic2svg.com/image-to-eps/): trace PNG or JPG into vector EPS (Pro trial or plan), with a free browser-only EPS vector check, a measured downloadable example, and print-size and RGB colour facts ## Research - [Offline image to vector converter benchmark](https://pic2svg.com/offline-vector-converter-benchmark/): Inkscape, potrace and the pic2svg engine run locally on three inputs (measured 2026-09-28), with commands, raw JSON and a claim ledger - [How to check if an SVG is a real vector](https://pic2svg.com/how-to-check-if-svg-is-a-real-vector/): four checks that tell a real vector from an embedded bitmap, with measured tool output (measured 2026-09-29) ## For developers and AI agents - [MCP server, CLI and trace API](https://pic2svg.com/mcp/): the MCP server and command-line tool for AI agents and scripts, and the public trace API they call (POST /api/v1/trace): setup, request and response, and its own daily allowance ## Company and policies - [About](https://pic2svg.com/about/): who operates pic2svg, the open-source tracer it is built on, where images are processed and how data is handled - [Changelog](https://pic2svg.com/changelog/): dated changes, newest first, each dated by the day it was made in the code; also as an RSS feed - [Terms of Service](https://pic2svg.com/terms/): the terms of use, including that Waffo Pancake is the merchant of record - [Privacy Policy](https://pic2svg.com/privacy/): what is stored and for how long; the hosted app posts your image to api.pic2svg.com to trace it - [Refund & Cancellation Policy](https://pic2svg.com/refund/): cancelling a paid plan and requesting a refund - [Contact](https://pic2svg.com/contact/): the support email and what to include ## Machine-readable files Generated from the pages' source by scripts/generate-llms.mjs and scripts/generate-sitemap.mjs. Every page with a Markdown copy also links to it from the page head as `text/markdown`. - [llms-full.txt](https://pic2svg.com/llms-full.txt): the English text of every page listed under Markdown copies, in one file - [sitemap.xml](https://pic2svg.com/sitemap.xml): every indexable URL, with hreflang alternates for the translated pages - [changelog.xml](https://pic2svg.com/changelog.xml): the changelog as an RSS feed ### Markdown copies - [JPG to DXF converter and JPEG contour comparison (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/jpg-to-dxf.md) - [ChatGPT image to SVG: converter and measured assistant test (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/chatgpt-image-to-svg.md) - [Image to EPS converter and vector check (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/image-to-eps.md) - [Image to SVG converter (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/index.md) - [PNG to SVG (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/png-to-svg.md) - [JPG to SVG (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/jpg-to-svg.md) - [Image to DXF (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/image-to-dxf.md) - [Batch image to SVG (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/batch-image-to-svg.md) - [Image to SVG for Cricut (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/image-to-svg-for-cricut.md) - [Image to SVG for Silhouette Studio (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/image-to-svg-for-silhouette.md) - [Image to SVG for laser engraving (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/image-to-svg-for-laser-engraving.md) - [Signature to SVG (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/signature-to-svg.md) - [Logo to vector (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/logo-to-vector.md) - [Drawing to SVG (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/drawing-to-svg.md) - [Reduce SVG nodes (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/reduce-svg-nodes.md) - [PNG to DXF (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/png-to-dxf.md) - [WebP to SVG (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/webp-to-svg.md) - [GIF to SVG (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/gif-to-svg.md) - [TIFF to SVG (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/tiff-to-svg.md) - [Vectorizer.AI alternative (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/vectorizer-ai-alternative.md) - [Vector Magic alternative (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/vector-magic-alternative.md) - [Inkscape Trace Bitmap alternative (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/inkscape-trace-bitmap-alternative.md) - [Vectorizer.AI vs Vector Magic vs pic2svg (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/benchmarks.md) - [Offline image to vector converter benchmark (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/offline-vector-converter-benchmark.md) - [How to check if an SVG is a real vector (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/how-to-check-if-svg-is-a-real-vector.md) - [MCP server, CLI and trace API (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/mcp.md) - [About (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/about.md) - [Changelog (Markdown)](https://pic2svg.com/changelog.md)