--- In wintopo@yahoogroups.com, "captainsplace" <tmiles@m...> wrote:
>
> My problem is that many of our source images are isometric views of
> intricate mechanical objects... bitmaps displaying details which
> fill in and are made up of jagged, diagonal lines.
>
> Unfortunately, when I thin and vectorize the image in WINTOPO
> Freeware, the vector lines follow the "stairstep" path and create
> gazillions of "extra" lines and nodes
> Any ideas?

You could try increasing the Polyline Reduction Tolerance to
straighten out the vector lines... Click the "One Touch Vectorisation
Options" toolbar button (last on the right) and select the "Vector
Extraction" tab on the options dialog. The default tolerance is 8,
but you could try increasing it to 20, or maybe higher. Then Press
the "One Touch Vectorisation" toolbar button to re-vectorise.
Increasing the tolerance allows WinTopo to stray further from the
pixel lines in order to straighten the vectors out.

You could also try sending your raster image to us at the WinTopo
Support Team (support @ wintopo.com), so that we can see exactly what
you're dealing with and we can advise accordingly.

Best regards from The WinTopo Support Team.