Using Help
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Adobe Illustrator Help
Drawing
Using Help
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Contents
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90
Tracing with the auto trace tool
The auto trace tool traces any image shape automatically. With this tool, you can click the
edge of a shape you want to trace, and Illustrator draws the entire outline of the shape.
You can use the auto trace tool to trace lines as well as shapes. When you use the auto
trace tool to trace a line, it travels all the way around the line and comes back to where you
clicked, forming a closed path.
The auto trace tool is especially suited to tracing simple shapes and lines. For the best
results when tracing artwork, trace simpler shapes with the auto trace tool and draw more
complex shapes with either the pencil tool or the pen tool. You can also use a dedicated
tracing program such as Adobe Streamline
™
.
To trace a bitmap image shape:
1
Open the file that contains the bitmap image you want to trace.
2
Select the auto trace tool .
3
Position the cross hair on the object you want to trace. You must position the cross hair
within 6 pixels of the edge of a bitmap shape. The auto trace tool is guided by the
boundary between differently shaded areas.
4
Do one of the following:
•
To trace the entire object, click the object. Illustrator draws the path, beginning where
you clicked, and follows the shape,
keeping the shape on its right.
The path may be drawn clockwise or counterclockwise, depending on where you click and
on the shape of the path.
•
To trace part of the object, drag the pointer from the place on the bitmap shape where
you want the path to start to the place where you want the path to end. When tracing
only part of an image, you must start and stop dragging within 2 pixels of the edge of
the shape.
•
To connect a new auto trace path to an existing auto trace path, start dragging at the
anchor point where you want the paths to connect.
Setting the auto trace gap distance
The lines and shapes in bitmap images often contain gaps that become visible when you
enlarge your view of the image. You can control the accuracy with which the auto trace
tool traces these gaps using the Tracing Gap option in the Type & Auto Tracing Preferences
dialog box.
The gap distance setting tells the auto trace tool to ignore gaps that are equal to or less
than the number of pixels you specify. For example, setting the distance to 1 tells the auto
trace tool to ignore gaps of 1 pixel or less.
To set the auto trace gap distance:
1
Choose Edit > Preferences > Type & Auto Tracing (Windows and Mac OS 9) or
Illustrator > Preferences > Type & Auto Tracing (Mac OS X).
Enter 0 (the default), 1, or 2 in the Tracing Gap text box. The value is calculated in number
of pixels. Click OK.
