Trace sharp corners?

[whamalamaboom]

I created a design in PS ages ago that I want to bring into AI. When I opened the file in AI to convert the layers to objects, it froze and crashed. As workaround, I opened my image in png format in AI to auto trace it. 

My original design is just solid colored squares in different sizes. No gradients, textures, etc. I thought the trace went well until I noticed a bunch of the squares had randomly rounded or warped corners.

In the end, I saved a copy of my original PS file with everything stripped down/shrunken and AI was able to open and convert it to objects without issue, so I don't need to trace it anymore. But for future reference, any suggestions on how to best trace shapes that have sharp corners like triangles and squares without AI deforming them? Thanks!

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

Autotrace is just not meant for tracing exact geometric shapes. It can't make sense of your artwork. For it it's just a bunch of pixels.

Here are some tips for optimiztion: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/image-trace-results-optimization.html

[whamalamaboom]

Thanks! I never noticed that optimize page before. I had hoped AI could manage it since my squares were solid and high contrast and not closely spaced together. But it definitely struggled to interpret them anyway. Three corners on a square would be fine but the last corner would be wavy, some squares were perfect, others, all four corners were screwy.

It's been a chore trying to move some of my old designs into AI but so far, it looks like opening those files to convert objects directly is my best bet even though it means I have to redraw a few things. Any file too beefy for AI to handle or that has an appearance AI can't replicate, I guess has to stay how it is lol

[Kurt Gold]

In case you are using a Windows operating system, you may want to take a look at a raster to vector conversion application called WinTopo.

It can produce very good results when it comes to exact geometry.