Illustrator is developed by Adobe and it is not free. I downloaded a trial version valid for 30 days.

I scanned the draft of my final project last week. This week, I transform the soft copy into a vector image with colours.

Trace and expand are steps to convert the photo into elements. There are many options and parameters for image tracing depending on how detailed the vector image you want.

In my case the default works very well. However I still see some texts are not formed correctly but I can handle them later. After examining the traced image, I click on “expand” to generate anchors points and paths.

Anchors and paths are the elements to form shapes in Illustrator, namely dots and lines. I use Lasso Tool to select the unwanted anchors points and path next to the text and delete them.

Before editing.

After removing unwanted path.

Then I use pen tool to create some anchors to complete the missing points.

Before editing.

After adding some anchor points.

Next step I want to fill in colors. Select a closed area bounded by anchor points and path and choose the background color.

Before filling.

After filling.

I am still struggling here because the anchor points result in many open area that cannot be filled.

Pixel Perfect Tracing in Adobe Illustrator

Illustrator Help / Painting with fills and strokes

Illustrator Help / Editing paths

I use Rhino to build a architecture of my work. On Rhino's official website there are Rhino's official website of good quality.

I create control points to form lines and curves, and then construct them together to form a closed curve. I extrude the curves into surfaces. I create solid cuboid and drill a hole on it. Techniques like rotating, cloning, and grouping are very helpful. A tip when manipulating objects is to operate in one dimension at one time.

You may download the .3dm file

Installed, but still need time trying.

Installed, but still need time trying.