Hello everyone,
I just found out about this app developed at Stanford: http://vectormagic.stanford.edu/ which offers high quality bitmap vectorization/tracing through and online interface. There is a comparison of its output with Adobe and Corel's ones. The good part is that Inkscape's trace (well Potrace one actually) is already _way_ better than those two ;) However, VectorMagic takes it even a step higher. Their output is really nice. For comparison purposes I created a file with their test images, Inkscape's trace and VectorMagic trace: http://jo.irisson.free.fr/dropbox/inkscape/VectorMagicTests.svgz Bear in mind that their second image is hand tweaked in the middle of the tracing process and that mine are probably not the best Inkscape/ Potrace can do. I tried to tweak Potrace's parameters the best I could but I am no expert. Be that as it may, their output is still superior, particularly on the first image.
Since it is developed in a university lab I wonder how they would license it. Maybe getting them a bit exited about Inkscape would incline them toward putting their code under a license liberal enough for Inkscape to use it. I did not contact them but I think it would be a good thing if someone more officially involved in Inkscape contacted them and discussed a possible collaboration, or at least pointed them to the traces Inkscape/Potrace can produce. I would love to see a fifth column on their comparison page with Inkscape kicking Adobe and Corel's a.... ;)
Anyway, even currently their tracing service can be very useful to Inkscape users (they export SVG!).
JiHO --- http://jo.irisson.free.fr/