Convert gif to svg using inkscape

Question

Is there any way to convert a gif file to svg using command line inkscape? I would like to convert the gif to a "real" svg but bot just embed the gif into the svg. Or any other command line tool to do that?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Yes, there is ... using trace bit map. It is not perfect, but sometimes works. But this is really not a programming questions...

To do this, click on the Path menu and choose Trace Bitmap.

on the command line, or server side:

Check the original potrace program. Notice: this could be very demanding to your server.

Answer 2

The GIF format is a raster format (it gives the color/brigtness pixel by pixel), SVG is a vector format (it describes lines by mathematical curves, and specifies to fill certain regions with color). To transform GIF to SVG you have to detect the lines in the figure, and work from there. Not impossible, but hard to do (and probably always with much human guidance).