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Before choosing any kind of vectorization parameters, you need to select which image or image sequence you want to import through the Import Drawings interface or through the Twain Scanning interface. You will then be able to open the Vectorization Parameters panel and adjust the parameters.

To import and vectorize an image:

1. In the top menu, select File > Import > Drawings or Scans
2. Do one of the following:
   • In the Import Drawings dialog box, select your image or image sequence to import.
   • In the Scan interface, select your Twain Source and scan your drawings.
3. Always in the Import Drawing or Scan dialog box, create an element and name it.
4. Enable the Vectorize option and click on the Edit Vectorization Parameters button.

People will most often import images to do traditional animation. They will vectorize the clean drawings with a 100% black vector line and create automatically a Colour Art layer to paint the drawings more easily. The user also has the possibility to automatically register animation done on industry standard animation paper, which means that the system will perfectly align the peg holes so that the drawings are stable and not moving around.

To vectorize drawings for traditional animation:

1. In the Input section, enable the One Pass option and adjust the Threshold level. The lower it is, the most information the vectorization process will keep.
2. In the Output section, enable the No Texture option to have a 100% vector black line.
3. If your drawings are done on industry standard animation paper, you can enable the Optical Registration option and set the DPI at the same resolution as when the drawings were scanned, the location where the peg holes are and the paper field size. This will automatically put your peg holes in register during the vectorization process.
4. Click on the Vectorize button to see a preview of the result.
5. Once set, click on OK in both Vectorization Parameters and Import Drawings dialog boxes to import and vectorize your images.

If you traced in black over a drawing done with a red or blue pencil, Digital Pro won’t consider the colour lines on your drawing unless your threshold level is very low. With a threshold level of 50, you will get rid of most of your colour lines which can be very handy.

If your drawing is a sketch or if your style includes texture and rough like lines, you can vectorize your drawings with bitmap texture. The contours will be vectors but the filler will be a bitmap texture.

To vectorize drawings with line texture:

1. In the Input section, enable the One Pass option and adjust the Threshold level. The lower it is, the most information the vectorization process will keep. For textured drawings, the threshold level will be fairly low.
2. If your drawings are done on industry standard animation paper, you can enable the Optical Registration option and set the DPI at the same resolution as when the drawings were scanned, the location of the peg holes and the paper field size. This will automatically put your peg holes in register during the vectorization process.
3. Click on the Vectorize button to see a preview of the result.
4. Once set, click on OK in both Vectorization Parameters and Import Drawings dialog boxes to import and vectorize your images.

A popular animation style is puppet created out of pictures. With Digital Pro, you can vectorize your pictures as colourful bitmap textures and benefit from the same rigging advantages as fully vector based drawings.

One of the best formats to save your images as is PNG files since they are light and keep the transparency information with you having to create an alpha channel.

To vectorize drawings for photo cut-out:

1. In the Input section, enable the One Pass option and adjust the Threshold level. In this case, the threshold level can be around the default value 50.
2. Always in the Input tab, increase the Expand bitmap value. If you have soft edges the default value will cut them sharp. So increase the value to get softer edges.
3. In the Output tab, enable the No Colour Art option since you will not be needing one and enable the Colour As Texture option to create a texture out of your image.
4. In the Advanced Options field, type: -no_break. This will avoid that the systems creates intersections through your images which is not necessary in this case.
5. Click on the Vectorize button to see a preview of the result.
6. Once set, click on OK in both Vectorization Parameters and Import Drawings dialog boxes to import and vectorize your images.