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Activity › Forums › Adobe After Effects Expressions › Auto-trace Script

  • Posted by Daniel Potthast on December 23, 2009 at 1:03 pm

    Hey guys, trying to find some info on generating an auto-trace script. Is there a way to call this function from a script. I cannot seem to find it in any documentation. It seems that not every menu function is accessible to scripting… (i.e. exporting from the file menu, as far as I can tell it is impossible to generate a script that will send a comp through the file menu –> export options)

    is auto-trace like this as well?

    thanks!

    dp

    Daniel Potthast
    Motion Graphics, Editing, 3D Animation
    http://www.danielraphael.info

    Daniel Potthast replied 16 years, 9 months ago 2 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • Dan Ebberts

    December 23, 2009 at 3:27 pm

    Well, this will bring up the dialog:

    app.executeCommand(app.findMenuCommandId(“Auto-trace…”));

    But then what?

    Dan

  • Daniel Potthast

    December 24, 2009 at 4:08 am

    Ah… I see the problem… Are you saying that I can pull up the menu, but I cannot send variables to the trace function as parameters, or initiate the trace via scripting?

    My goal here is to trace black and white stills at intervals of tolerance across its luminance values- kind of like a posterization. It is time consuming to repeatedly auto-trace the same image ten to twenty times– Even if I split the image into layers of various luminance values in Photoshop before tracing in AE, I am still stuck with the same boring trace-and-wait scenario.
    I was hoping to develop some scripting algorithm to handle the tedium for me… any suggestions?

    Thanks for the help!

    Daniel Potthast
    Motion Graphics, Editing, 3D Animation
    http://www.danielraphael.info

  • Dan Ebberts

    December 24, 2009 at 4:34 am

    I can’t think of a way to do that with a script. Sorry. Maybe someone else has an idea…

    Dan

  • Daniel Potthast

    December 24, 2009 at 4:42 am

    Barking up wrong tree—

    Illustrator will do the work I need here.

    Thanks!

    dp

    Daniel Potthast
    Motion Graphics, Editing, 3D Animation
    http://www.danielraphael.info

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