Converting a PNG to SVG: what actually happens

A PNG is a grid of coloured pixels. An SVG is a set of instructions: draw this curve, fill it this colour. Converting one to the other means guessing the instructions from the pixels.

Raster versus vector

Scale a PNG up and the pixels get bigger and blurrier. Scale an SVG and the shapes are redrawn at the new size, so edges stay sharp at any size. That is why logos and icons belong in SVG.

Tracing

Real conversion is called tracing. Software finds the edges between areas of colour and fits curves to them. Potrace, written by Peter Selinger, is the best-known algorithm and sits inside Inkscape's Trace Bitmap tool.

Watch for fake converters. Some tools wrap the original PNG inside an SVG file and call it done. The file ends in .svg but it is still pixels, and it will blur exactly like the PNG.

What converts well

• Converts well: logos, icons, line art, text, anything with flat colour and clear edges.
• Converts badly: photographs, gradients, soft shadows, anything with texture. The result is either huge or looks like a poster.
• Tip: start from the largest, cleanest PNG you have. Tracing a small JPEG produces the JPEG's artefacts as shapes.

What you could build here

Three directions that would work on this name. None of them is the only answer — it is your name once it is yours.

1. A free converter. Upload a PNG, get a clean SVG. Run the tracing in the browser and nothing leaves the user's machine.
2. A paid tracing service. Automatic tracing handles simple logos; people with messy files pay a human to redraw them.
3. A design tools site. Converters, optimisers and format guides, all under one exact-match name.

Tools that do it properly

• InkscapeFree vector editor with Trace Bitmap built in
• Text Diff OnlineFree side-by-side text comparison

Who you would be buying from

We build and run the sites below. That is the whole pitch: this name is not sitting in a speculator's spreadsheet — it comes from people who make things on the web and know what a good name is worth to someone who is going to use it.

• OMXUSThe studio behind all of this — software, licensing, and the infrastructure the rest of these sites run on.
• DnD Dice RollerA dice tool with no ads, no sign-up and no loading screen. It exists because every other one is exhausting.
• Legend RollerCharacter sheets, campaign rolling and party state, built for people who actually run games weekly.
• HorrorMoviesListCurated horror with real writing behind the picks, not scraped metadata dressed up as a list.
• MyNESGamesYour own NES ROMs, playable in a browser tab, with nothing uploaded anywhere.
• VoteAussieDigital identity with no central authority — Australia already runs elections without ID, so this asks why the internet cannot.
• The Price of WarA 3D memorial that makes the number of dead something you have to move through rather than read.
• NumeroscopeNumerology written honestly — for reflection, not prophecy. Proof that a mystical niche can be done without lying to anyone.
• Text Diff OnlinePaste two things, see what changed. Free, instant, nothing leaves the browser.
• NeuAIs ObservatoryA modular observatory for watching how AI systems actually behave.

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