Good Raster (Bitmap) to Vector program to use in Adobe PDFs?

[fleabag]

I discovered Scan2Cad which apparently should do the job I want but when I use it, it doesn't output to a format I could use. So I'm wondering if anyone is aware of a Raster to Vector program that will allow me to import it into Adobe Acrobat 6.0. I've got these pictures that are taking too much room and don't look high enough quality when I add them to my PDF and so I'd like them to be converted to Vectorized graphics in order to make them look better. I like Scan2Cad's ability to just simply convert the graphics into vectors and also the ability to let you adjust them, but it seems to fall short of making a really good duplicate of the original look (maybe I'm not using it right). Though the worst part of all is that it doesn't output to a format that is compatible with Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Acrobat 6.0 and I'm wondering what I should do. Is Acrobat compatible with Vectorized PNG files? What other automated/semi-automated ways are there to convert Raster Graphics into Vectorized graphics?

 

[Gooberlx2]

Good lord Scan2Cad is expensive!

Anyway, can it save as svg? I'd think svg would be the format you're looking for.

Check out AutoTrace

Online tool at: http://www.roitsystems.com/cgi-bin/autotrace/tracer.pl

HTH

 

[Trevelyan]

For tracing bitmaps I use Live Trace which is included in Adobe Illustrator CS4... (I'm sure it's in earlier versions.)

But if you're trying to do it as an automated process, I don't know...

 

[fleabag]

Well I just tried out inkscape and despite it being free, it seems to be the best Vector Graphics program I've ever used! The only thing that it is currently lacking is a way to automate the bitmap tracing, if it could do that, I'd be set!