How to get a Centerline Trace in Illustrator 🤔

[Jules]

@fugee13 - I’ve put up a little tutorial on the process in Illustrator - here:

How to Create a Cut Line around a bitmap Engrave in Illustrator

A question came up in another tutorial about how to add a cutting outline to an image that you want to engrave in Adobe Illustrator. https://community.glowforge.com/t/how-to-get-a-centerline-trace-in-illustrator/21392/19?u=jules There are several ways to do it. Some of them would involve using another program like Photoshop or GIMP, and those might be a little easier for beginners, but rather than having to bring yet another program into the mix, I thought I’d show how it can be done in Illus…

[pam4arts]

Thanks so much for posting this

[Jules]

No prob!

[tricia.brooks]

Adobe illustrator looks a little different on my screen so I am unable to follow these steps. Not sure what i am doing wrong.

[dklgood]

Welcome to the forum.

What looks different? How far did you get in this example before things looked different?

[remigi]

I already have an SVG that looks like this - not matter what I do I cannot get to the same outcome as you… any ideas?

[dklgood]

Can’t you delete one of the lines in node editing mode?

[GrooveStranger]

If dimensional accuracy is not critical this is definitely how I would do it.

[bwente]

The latest version of Illustrator still does the Center Line Trace. There is a preset (Line Art) that will get you close to where you want to be. But it only works on bitmaps.

[RobinAtFourcrows]

I’m so glad this was resurrected. Can I ask if anyone has the issue of it just going white when they do a trace? I even created a big fat lined bitmap just to try the line art thing. No matter what I do, no matter how thick the lines are, it goes white. In either instance.
(I don’t actually have a “live trace”. I have Image trace, and Live paint, and neither look like the example above. I did find the Line Art in presets, but it goes white too.) …ETA: Could the lines be too thick? I tried to do something that looked like a coloring book, and not like a line drawing. lol, I’m seriously lost.
I have to say that I know absolutely ZERO about illustrator. I can do photoshop with my eyes closed, so I understand the basics of adobe, but I’m absolutely clueless about this.
If anyone has even an inkling of an idea, I’d appreciate it so much.
Thanks in advance!

[RobinAtFourcrows]

You guys, I spent all day trying to figure this out, and I wanted to share what I found. Resolution makes all the difference! I have no idea why, but lowering the resolution from 300 to 72 finally made it work! (I’m not kidding when I say I ran image trace at least 500 times today. I had to figure this out.) So following @Jules instructions (thought line art might work too) and lowering the resolution gave me darn near perfect centerline. Thanks so much for this tread and sending me down a rabbit hole where a learned a ton!

[ekla]

Which version of AI are you using? (Live trace has been around for several versions)

[RobinAtFourcrows]

‘Image trace’ replaced it around CS6, I just learned that today. We’re on the subscription so all I know is that we’re up to date.
I think I learned enough today that I might start using it more. I never thought I would!

[shoplittleneighbors]

Hey Robin! Any chance you could screen record your process? I tried lowing the resolution and I’m still coming up blank, would love to see exactly what you’re doing!

[dklgood]

Welcome to the forum.

[henryhbk]

Omg thank you. I import svg tracings from illustrator all the time and the double path made fusion sad