Could this "convert image to surfaces" extension be made?

Extensions
1

I am not (yet) a programmer, so please don’t shoot this messenger :innocent:

Is there an extension (or would it be possible to have someone make an extension) that can convert an image consisting of approximately 40 colors to a maximum of 6 different surfaces/layers/tags?

Brief explenation of my goal:
We receive an image with terrain roughness in which various terrain roughnesses are shown by means of approximately 43 colors. However, our analysis tool can only recognize 6 different roughnesses. At the moment I raytrace the imported original manually until I have a usable file with the 6 layers/tags that we need, but it is pretty time consuming.

Example:
On the left the received original and to the right my (simplyfied) raytraced results with the layers/tags needed.

image
image1380×143 73.2 KB

I’ve tried several converters that claim to convert raster images to vector images. They can convert the image much faster than if I raytrace it. But (a big BUTt) they mess things up in a way that makes even my manual raytracing results much better. Also, the time it takes to improve their output is again more time consuming than raytracing the image.

If anyone knows if this is possible with an extension, or if anyone knows of a converter that can do this for me, please let me know.

A huge bundle of thanks in advance!

2

How pixelated is the image you receive and work with?

3

It represents a realtime area with a radius of approximately 7 km, the original ps file is 7MB, irfanview shows the image is 793x1123x24 BPP, so low res.

4

By ‘manual’ do you mean that you use Freehand or Line tools and draw over the image?

Too low res image.

One method (semi-auto):

  • I upscaled the image 4x times, to 3K;
  • In Inkscape I auto-traced it and exported as SVG;
  • In Affinity Designer I cleaned up vectors/colors and exported as DXF;
  • Imported in SketchUp.

Second method (semi-auto):

  • almost as the first one, only that I extracted the colors in Affinity Photo and prepared the desired image for vectorization. And then in Inkscape auto-vectorization and exported for SketchUp.

2 Likes
5

Yes, that is how i raytrace the image, lines, curves, freehand, what ever suits best.

Again yes, i agree, but it’s what i get and have to work with.

I also tried something similar to convert it to vector with Photoshop, but my results weren’t that promising. Maybe I need to improve my workflow somehow.

Spend some time at home doing ‘monks work’ resulting in somthing like this:

image
image515×276 72.1 KB

Anyway, thanks for the effort and the comments, very much appreciated! :+1: