Image Trace Online Free: Nothing Uploaded, SVG and 3 DXF Modes

Open Tracepen Online (free, no install) →

Image trace online, free: drop a PNG, JPG, JPEG, WebP, GIF or BMP into Tracepen and it turns the picture into vector paths in your browser tab – then download SVG, PDF, PNG or DXF (Lines, Hatch, Faces) for Figma, Illustrator, Cricut, Lightburn, CNC, AutoCAD, SketchUp or Blender. The picture is never uploaded, because the tracing runs in the page, and it is not AI: the same picture always gives the same paths.

Free means every feature, full colour and every format, with 3 free exports a day on a free 3dshouse account – try the online tracing tool. Tracing, previewing and re-tracing are never counted. The same tracer also runs as a SketchUp plugin, a Blender add-on and a Figma plugin, on one account and one shared daily allowance.

Online image tracer – video demo

How to trace an image online, step by step

1. Open the app and sign in with a free 3dshouse account (the button opens a browser tab; come back when it is done). On your first visit a strip of sample images sits under the app, so you can try the tracer without hunting for a file.
2. Click the picture area and pick a file, or drop one in – PNG, JPG, JPEG, WebP, GIF or BMP. A picture whose longer side passes 1500 px is scaled down first, so every export – SVG, PDF, DXF – lives in that pixel space. The picture traces as soon as it is in; you do not press anything.
3. Read the colour count it proposes. Tracepen looks at the picture and sets Color number to the number of colours it found. Slide it down for fewer layers.
4. Tune, then press Convert to re-trace. Noise filter (Off, 1-5), Merge min area (1-64 px) and Corner smooth (sharp to round) are the three knobs. Converting is never counted, so re-run it as often as you like.
5. Clean up the layers. Each colour is a swatch with a colour picker and a checkbox. Untick the background swatch and it is left out of every format you export; recolour a swatch and the export carries the colour you picked.
6. Download and pick SVG, PNG, PDF or one of the three DXF flavours. Each download counts as one export against the free plan’s daily allowance.

Crop trims the picture but does not re-trace it: after cropping, press Convert again.

What to trace online, what not to, and where the file goes

• A logo off a website or a business card – trace it, untick the background layer, export SVG. You get a logo that scales to a billboard instead of a blurry PNG. Step by step: logo to vector.
• A scanned sketch or an inked drawing – Color number 1, Corner smooth high, export SVG or DXF Lines. At 1 the dark parts come out as one shape: one silhouette, no grey fringe.
• A sticker, decal or vinyl cut – DXF Lines to Cricut or Silhouette; every contour is written closed, which is what a cutter needs.
• Laser work – DXF Lines for the cut passes, DXF Hatch for the areas you want filled or engraved; one DXF layer per colour, so each colour can get its own power and speed. More: PNG to DXF.
• CNC routing – DXF Lines into CAM. The outlines come in flat at Z = 0, which is where a DXF to G-code workflow starts; scale the drawing to real size first, because the DXF carries pixels, not millimetres.
• A print layout – PDF, one vector page, for InDesign or a printer who asked for vectors.
• A photo – it traces, but into flat colour patches, not a copy of the photo. Lower Color number for bolder patches.
• Not what it is built for: floor plans, technical drawings with hairline linework, and pictures made of many tiny colour patches. Patches smaller than Merge min area fold into the neighbouring colour, and anything past 1500 px on the long side is scaled down first, so fine detail goes first. Run the file once before you rely on it – converting is free and uncounted.

Every control in the online tracing tool

• Image – the picker takes PNG, JPG/JPEG, WebP, GIF or BMP, up to 50 MB and 250 million pixels. Past either limit the panel says so in words and names the number, instead of hanging or failing quietly.
• Crop – cut the picture down to the part you want to vectorize, which is also the fastest way to pull one icon out of a sheet of them. Press Convert afterwards.
• Color number – starts at the number of colours found in the picture and only goes down, so you can collapse a near-duplicate pair into one layer. At 1 the dark parts of the picture come out as a single shape – the quickest route to a stencil or a cut-out.
• Noise filter (Off, 1-5) – evens out a grainy photo or a hard-compressed JPG so a flat area does not come out speckled. Leave it Off for clean artwork.
• Merge min area (1-64 px, default 4) – the smallest colour patch kept. Smaller patches are folded into a neighbouring colour, not deleted, and every colour keeps at least one patch, so a thin outline stays.
• Corner smooth (0-100%, default 80%) – 0% keeps every corner sharp, 100% rounds them. Low for lettering and mitred shapes, high for a hand-drawn line.
• Color Layers – one swatch per colour, each with a colour picker and a checkbox. Recolouring here is a palette swap: fix a dull scan, or force a logo to brand colours, without touching the original file.
• N faces / M layers – how many shapes the trace produced, before you export. A number in the thousands means the file will be heavy in Illustrator or a cutter app: raise Merge min area or lower Color number.
• Line thickness (0-3) and Line color – the outline drawn around each colour region in the preview, and in the SVG and PDF you export. DXF has no stroke at all.
• Same picture in, same paths out – no AI, no randomness. Trace the same file again next month and you get the same cut file, which matters when a job has to be re-run.

What stays on your machine

The tracing runs locally in the browser, so the image itself is never uploaded. The page still talks to 3dshouse.com for sign-in, the plan check and the daily export count, and it loads Google Analytics like any web page – none of those requests carries your picture. It needs an internet connection to open and to sign in.

Export formats – what is inside each one

DXF has no real-world size here: the coordinates are the pixels of the traced picture (upright, Y pointing up), so a 1200 px wide trace arrives 1200 units wide – scale it to size after import. DXF curves are polylines: a curve is written as a short run of straight segments, so zoom in on a big circle in CAD and you will see the facets. The SVG and PDF keep true curves. For a real SVG instead of a wrapped bitmap, see PNG to SVG.

SVG and PDF carry a 1 px stroke in each region’s own fill colour, even with Line thickness at 0. It stops neighbouring colours from showing hairline seams in viewers that anti-alias each shape on its own. DXF has no stroke at all, so for cutters and engravers use DXF Lines or Hatch rather than SVG.

Import into your tool

• Figma – skip the SVG: the Tracepen plugin for Figma traces a file or the selected layer and adds the vectors to your canvas, one path per colour.
• Illustrator / Canva / Inkscape / Affinity / CorelDRAW – open or place the SVG.
• Cricut Design Space / Silhouette Studio – upload DXF Lines. Colour rides on each DXF layer’s true-colour attribute; how a cutter app treats layers depends on the app, so check the preview after upload and use SVG when the colours matter.
• Lightburn – DXF Lines for cutting (outlines → Cut), DXF Hatch for engraving (filled regions → Fill / Scan). Every Lines contour is written closed, and a shape has to be closed before Lightburn can fill it.
• AutoCAD / Fusion 360 / LibreCAD – DXF Lines for outlines, DXF Hatch for filled regions; every colour becomes its own CAD layer.
• Blender – skip the DXF: the Tracepen add-on creates mesh or Bezier curve objects, one per colour, directly in the scene.

Image to SketchUp: DXF Faces or the plugin

DXF Faces (this page): download the .dxf and use File → Import. Each region arrives as triangles; tick Merge Coplanar Faces in the import options, which SketchUp’s help describes as removing triangulated lines from planes. DXF layers become tags, and the import options ask for a unit – pick millimetres and one image pixel becomes one millimetre, then scale the group to size.

The SketchUp plugin builds the faces itself, so there is no triangle mesh to merge: a region with holes becomes one face with inner loops, each colour lands as a group with its own material, and you type the width in the model’s own units. It shows this same interface inside SketchUp, so it also needs a connection. Get it from the SketchUp Extension Warehouse, or read how image to SKP works in the plugin first.

One layer per colour, not one silhouette

Tracepen sets Color number to the number of colours it found and traces every colour as its own layer, so a flat-colour logo comes back in its own colours. Drop Color number to 1 and you get the opposite on purpose: the dark parts as one shape, for stencils and cut-outs. It is not an AI redraw either – a redrawn trace is a new picture that only resembles yours, while Tracepen is deterministic and returns the same paths for the same picture. A side-by-side run is in the image to vector tool comparison, which runs one photo through Illustrator, CorelDRAW, Vector Magic and Tracepen.

Free online image tracers compared on limits

Limits read from each tool’s own page on 2026-10-31; they change, so check before you rely on them. Vectorizer.AI describes its engine as deep-learning AI; Tracepen is not. Tracepen traces at up to 1500 px on the long side whatever the file size, so a very large scan loses fine detail.

Install

🌐 Open Tracepen

Nothing to install – the image tracer runs in the browser, free to use with a free 3dshouse account. The same tracer also runs as a SketchUp plugin, a Blender add-on and a Figma plugin.

Requirements

• Any browser from the last few years, with JavaScript on – the tracing runs locally in the page.
• An internet connection: the page loads from tracepen.3dshouse.com, and sign-in and the daily count go through 3dshouse.com.
• A free 3dshouse account. Exports are counted per account per UTC day and shared with the SketchUp plugin, the Blender add-on and the Figma plugin.

FAQ

How do I trace an image online for free?

Open Tracepen, sign in with a free 3dshouse account, drop in the picture (it traces by itself) and pick a format under Download. Tracing, previewing and re-tracing are unlimited; only a download counts as an export, and the free plan gives 3 exports a day.

Does the online image tracer upload my picture?

No. The tracing runs in the page, so the picture stays on your computer. The page only talks to 3dshouse.com for sign-in, the plan check and the daily export count, and none of those requests carries your picture.

What does trace bitmap online actually do?

It turns a bitmap – a grid of coloured pixels – into vector paths that scale without blurring. In Tracepen every colour becomes its own path with true curves and real holes, so you can scale it, recolour it, or send it to a cutter.

Can I trace a logo online and keep its colours?

Yes. Tracepen starts at the number of colours it found in the picture and traces each one as its own layer, so a flat-colour logo keeps its colours. Untick the background layer before you export SVG if you want a transparent logo.

Can I trace a photo online?

Yes, but a photo comes out as flat colour patches rather than a copy of the photo. Lower Color number for fewer, bolder patches; raise Merge min area to fold small specks into their neighbours.