Image to DXF Converter
Whatever format your picture is in, PNG, JPG, BMP, GIF, TIFF or WebP, this page traces its dark shapes into DXF polylines. The format matters less than the picture itself: contrast, sharpness and size decide how clean the drawing comes out.
CAD Converter
or drop DWG, DXF, DWF … files here ·
Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes
Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.
Model space is the full drawing. All layouts exports each paper-space sheet as its own page, as set up in AutoCAD.
Fit to page scales the drawing to fill the sheet. Actual size keeps drawing units 1:1 (1 mm in the drawing = 1 mm on paper) and may span a larger page.
Same as source uses the size set in each layout. A1 and A0 are the usual plotter sheets for architectural drawings.
Auto turns the page to match the drawing's longer side.
Monochrome prints every line black, like plotting with a monochrome.ctb style — best for printed plans on white paper.
White suits printing. Black looks like the AutoCAD drawing area; transparent works for placing the drawing in other documents (not available in JPG).
300 DPI is print quality; 150 is enough for screens. At A1 and 600 DPI an image is 14,000 px wide, so higher values make very large files.
Only used when the input is a photo or scan (JPG, PNG). Outline draws the edges of shapes, good for logos and laser cutting; centreline draws single lines through strokes, good for scanned line drawings and plotters.
Pixels darker than this become lines. Raise it if faint lines are missing, lower it if background noise turns into shapes.
Higher values give fewer, smoother curves; lower values follow the pixels more closely but create more points.
How to use this tool
- 1
Upload one or more images
Mix formats freely in one batch of up to 20 files, 95 MB each. Each image becomes its own DXF.
- 2
Leave the trace settings or adjust them
Defaults are Outlines, a Black/white threshold of 50% and Smoothing of 50. Expand Image tracing to change them if the first result has gaps or specks.
- 3
Convert to DXF
Press Convert to DXF and download. Files are saved as Release 12 unless you pick another AutoCAD version.
How do I convert an image to DXF?
Upload the image and press Convert to DXF. The dark areas are traced into closed polylines and saved as a DXF that CAD, laser and CNC software can open; scale it to a known size before cutting.
What an image-to-DXF trace gives you
Every image file stores the same thing in the end: rows of pixels. Tracing reduces them to two values, ink and background, follows the border of each ink region and writes those borders as polylines. A DXF made this way is a set of shapes on one layer with no dimensions, no text entities and no real-world scale. That is enough for a laser to cut a sign, a router to carve a plaque or a plasma table to cut a bracket silhouette.
It is not a CAD model. Plain AutoCAD has no command that turns a picture into editable geometry; Autodesk keeps that in a separate toolset. When you need clean lines and arcs you will edit for years, use the trace as an underlay and redraw over it. For artwork headed to a design program rather than a machine, image to SVG uses the same idea with SVG output.
Three steps that make any image trace cleaner
Start from the best copy
An original export or a flatbed scan, never a screenshot, a thumbnail or an image re-shared through a messaging app.
Make it dark on light
Crop to the artwork, remove the background, push contrast until lines are solid black. Colors lighter than mid-gray drop out.
Give it enough pixels
A shape about 1,500 px across traces smoothly. A 100 px icon gives lumpy curves however you set Smoothing.
PNG, JPG, BMP, TIFF, GIF or WebP to DXF
| from ↓ · to → | Lossless edges | Transparent background | Good trace source |
|---|---|---|---|
| PNG | PNG to Lossless edges: yes | PNG to Transparent background: yes | PNG to Good trace source: yes |
| BMP | BMP to Lossless edges: yes | – BMP to Transparent background: no | BMP to Good trace source: yes |
| TIFF | TIFF to Lossless edges: yes | TIFF to Transparent background: yes | TIFF to Good trace source: yes |
| GIF | GIF to Lossless edges: yes | GIF to Transparent background: yes | GIF to Good trace source: yes |
| WebP | – WebP to Lossless edges: no | WebP to Transparent background: yes | – WebP to Good trace source: no |
| JPG | – JPG to Lossless edges: no | – JPG to Transparent background: no | – JPG to Good trace source: no |
ANY I
Any image
This tool accepts common image formats, including JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, GIF, BMP and TIFF. The format is detected automatically from the file, so you do not need to know what kind of image you have.
DXF
Drawing Exchange Format
DXF is a CAD data exchange format published by Autodesk in 1982. It describes drawing geometry and layers in a documented text (or binary) structure, so many programs that cannot read DWG can read DXF. It is widely used for laser cutters, CNC routers, plasma cutters and vinyl cutters. DXF files are larger than DWG and may lose some advanced features during exchange.
- Compression
- –
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- 1982 · Autodesk
Most people who search for an image to DXF converter have a picture of something they want cut, routed or drawn in CAD and no vector original to start from.
A JPG is still worth uploading when it is all you have; a lower threshold and more smoothing hide most of its noise, and JPG to DXF starts with settings tuned for that. Release 12 is the default output because it is the DXF dialect machine controllers read most consistently; pick AutoCAD 2010 or 2018 under AutoCAD version if the file goes to current CAD software instead.
Image to DXF questions
Which image format traces best into a DXF?
Lossless formats with hard edges: PNG, BMP and uncompressed TIFF. JPG and lossy WebP add compression noise around edges, which turns into small stray shapes. If you have the same artwork in several formats, use the PNG.
Can a screenshot of a CAD drawing become a usable DXF again?
Partly. Centrelines turns each drawn line into one path, but dimensions and notes become shapes rather than text, and arcs become polylines. If anyone still has the original drawing, converting it with DWG to DXF is far better than tracing a picture of it.
What does Autodesk's Raster Design toolset do that tracing does not?
Raster Design, a toolset that comes with an AutoCAD subscription, lets you pick raster lines, arcs and circles in a scan one by one and turn them into true CAD entities. It is slower than tracing a whole image at once but gives editable geometry, which matters for drawings you will keep revising.
Can I trace a color photo of a person or a pet into DXF?
You will get blobs that follow light and shadow, not a portrait. For a photo engraving, laser software such as LightBurn can engrave the bitmap directly with dithering, no DXF needed. Tracing works when the photo has first been reduced to a bold two-tone graphic.
Is there a free way to do this on my own computer?
Inkscape's Trace Bitmap, built on Peter Selinger's Potrace, traces images to paths, and Inkscape can save the result as DXF. That gives you more manual control; this page saves the install and handles batches of up to 20 images.
| JPG to DXF | PNG to DXF | SVG to DXF |
| DWG to DXF | Image to DWG | CAD converter |