I’m rather sad to be reporting this one, but Vector Magic, the awesome free online vectorizing service is no longer free. It looks like the creators behind the service have left Stanford to make a desktop version of the popular software, which will be selling for a price that has yet-to-be-decided. Personally, I prefer Vector Magic over Live Trace in Illustrator, but that may change if the price isn’t right. Vector Magic is a single-function software. It’s nice, but It only does one thing. I can’t see myself paying more than $50 for a software that only does one thing, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

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I’ve recently received quite a few emails about VectorMagic, a new online bitmap vectorizing service from a couple generous and ingenious minds at Stanford University. If you read the about page, VectorMagic seems to be the brain-child of two individuals, James Diebel and Jacob Norda. [Thanks Guys!]

My initial reaction. . . . WOW. If this is truly the work of 2 individuals, I couldn’t be any more impressed. Not only is VectorMagic (in my opinion) up-to-par/comparable to “Live Trace” in Illustrator and “Trace Bitmap” in Inkscape, but it’s 100% free, online, and to tell you the truth, seems to be as fast, if not faster than our desktop counterparts. Impressive.

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