README

tyt2y3 · tyt2y3 · commit 5f5a6c66485e · 2023-09-23T11:45:36.000+01:00
diff --git a/LICENSE b/LICENSE
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-Copyright (c) 2022 Tsang Hao Fung
+Copyright (c) 2023 Tsang Hao Fung
 
 Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any
 person obtaining a copy of this software and associated
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
 
 visioncortex VTracer is an open source software to convert raster images (like jpg & png) into vector graphics (svg). It can vectorize graphics and photographs and trace the curves to output compact vector files.
 
-Comparing to [Potrace](http://potrace.sourceforge.net/) which only accept binarized inputs (Black & White pixmap), VTracer has an image processing pipeline which can handle colored high resolution scans.
+Comparing to [Potrace](http://potrace.sourceforge.net/) which only accept binarized inputs (Black & White pixmap), VTracer has an image processing pipeline which can handle colored high resolution scans. tl;dr: Potrace uses a `O(n^2)` fitting algorithm, whereas `vtracer` is entirely `O(n)`.
 
 Comparing to Adobe Illustrator's [Image Trace](https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/image-trace.html), VTracer's output is much more compact (less shapes) as we adopt a stacking strategy and avoid producing shapes with holes.
 
@@ -118,6 +118,20 @@ VTracer is used by the following projects (feel free to add yours!):
   </tbody>
 </table>
 
+## Anecdotes
+
+> The following content is an excerpt from my [unpublished](https://github.com/sponsors/tyt2y3) [memoir](https://github.com/visioncortex/memoir).
+
+### How / when did VTracer come about?
+
+At my teenage, two open source projects in the vector graphics space inspired me the most: Potrace and Anti-Grain Geometry (AGG).
+
+Many years later, in 2020, I was developing a video processing engine. And it became evident that it requires way more investment to be commercially viable. So before abandoning the project, I wanted to publish *something* as open-source for posterity. At that time, I already developed a prototype vector graphics tracer. It can convert high-resolution scans of hand-drawn blueprints into vectors. But it can only process black and white images, and can only output polygons, not splines.
+
+The plan was to fully develop the vectorizer: to handle color images and output splines. I recruited a very talented intern, [Sanford](@shpun817), to work on VTracer. I grafted the frontend of the video processing engine - the ["The Clustering Algorithm"](https://www.visioncortex.org/impression-docs#the-clustering-algorithm) as the pre-processor.
+
+Three months later, we published the first version on Reddit. Out of my surprise, the response of such an underwhelming project was overwhelming.
+
 ## What's next?
 
 There are several things in my mind:
@@ -128,4 +142,4 @@ There are several things in my mind:
 
 3. Image cleaning. Right now the tracer works best on losslessly compressed pngs. If an image suffered from jpeg noises, it could impact the tracing quality. We might be able to develop a pre-filtering pass that denoises the input.
 
-If you are interested in working on them or willing to sponsor its development, feel free to get in touch.
+If you are interested in working on them or willing to sponsor its development, feel free to get in touch.
diff --git a/RELEASES.md b/RELEASES.md
diff --git a/cmdapp/LICENSE-MIT b/cmdapp/LICENSE-MIT
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-Copyright (c) 2022 Tsang Hao Fung
+Copyright (c) 2023 Tsang Hao Fung
 
 Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any
 person obtaining a copy of this software and associated

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`1`		`-Copyright (c) 2022 Tsang Hao Fung`
	`1`	`+Copyright (c) 2023 Tsang Hao Fung`
`2`	`2`
`3`	`3`	`Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any`
`4`	`4`	`person obtaining a copy of this software and associated`