Vector files for laser cutting
A laser follows a path. Trace the artwork into closed polygon contours, decide cut versus engrave, and export DXF with real units.
- Preset
- Laser
- Palette
- Black & white
- Output
- DXF
- Price
- Free preview
Drop an image here, or paste
Your image is never uploaded. It is traced in this tab.Open the full converter
Preset
- 01Logo16 colours
- 02Line artBlack & white
- 03Photo64 colours
- 04Embroidery8 colours · Cutout
- 05Vinyl4 colours · Cutout
- 06Laser — set for this pageBlack & white · Polygon
- Output · SVG · PDF · EPS · DXF
- Preview free · download with Pro €9.00 / month
- Your file stays in this tab
What the trace looks like
What the software needs
- DXF the machine software reads
- The exporter targets AutoCAD R2000 (AC1015). It is the version LightBurn, LibreCAD, Fusion and most CAM importers list as their safe default.
- Real drawing units
- DXF carries units, so the drawing has a physical size before it reaches the machine. Set it here rather than scaling in the controller, where the rounding is invisible.
- Closed contours, holes included
- A cut path has to close or the part falls out mid-job. Interior holes are separate contours with opposite winding, which is how a cutter knows to keep the middle of an O.
- Cut and engrave are different files
- A traced outline is a region boundary, so a drawn line becomes two contours — one per side. Cutting that gives you a hairline sliver; engraving it wants a centreline your machine software generates.
- Kerf accounted for once
- The beam removes material. Apply kerf compensation in the machine software, not by scaling the artwork, or you will apply it twice.
Preset
The laser preset traces binary — the machine has no colours, only power settings — and fits straight polygon segments at high coordinate precision. A polyline says exactly one thing to a controller; a spline gets re-interpolated by every piece of software between here and the head.
Why vectortrace
- Ticket 1 / 3
In-browser and private
The engine is WebAssembly running in a worker on your own machine. Your image is never uploaded — so there is nothing to leak, nothing to delete, and nothing to take on trust.
- Ticket 2 / 3
Editable paths, not a wrapper
The engine groups the image into colour regions, takes the boundary between them and fits curves to it. What comes out is real geometry — one fill per region, every node yours to move — produced in the tab and never on a server.
- Ticket 3 / 3
Formats print and production use
SVG and PDF for artwork; EPS and DXF for cutters, engravers and embroidery software. Real files, opened in Illustrator, Inkscape and LibreCAD — not an SVG with a JPEG inside it.
Benchmark
Measured, not marketed. The corpus, the method and every figure the run produced are published in full.
Methodology → /benchmarks- boundary error, p95
- 0.09 px
- region-count error
- 0.000
- node-count ratio
- 1.00×
Questions
- 01DXF or SVG for a laser?
- DXF if the software takes it, because it carries units and every CAM tool reads it. SVG if you are going through LightBurn or a browser-based controller that prefers it. The geometry is identical; only the container differs.
- 02Why did my engraved line come out as two lines?
- Because tracing outlines regions, and a stroke is a thin region with two sides. That is right for cutting a shape out and wrong for engraving. Use the centreline option in your machine software for line work.
- 03What DXF version is written?
- AutoCAD R2000 (AC1015). Newer DXF versions add features a cutter never uses and drop compatibility with importers that were written once and never updated.