Single-line SVG from a drawing
Turn a drawing, handwriting or a signature into one line down the middle of each stroke, so your pen, scoring tool, foil or engraver goes over it once instead of tracing both sides. Free, no signup, and it never leaves your computer.
One line, not an outline
Every image converter, including Design Space's own upload, traces the edge of what it sees. That is right for cutting, because a blade has to go round a shape. It is wrong for anything that marks along a line: a pen follows the outline and you get a hollow, doubled stroke; a scoring wheel scores both sides; an engraver burns the same line twice.
This finds the middle instead. The ink is thinned, one pixel at a time from both sides, until only its centre is left; that centre is followed into paths that stop at the ends of strokes and meet where strokes cross. Little side branches from a wobbly line are trimmed, marks that belong together are joined, and the paths are put in an order that keeps the pen moving as little as possible.
What it is good for
- Pen and marker drawing on cards, envelopes and place names, from your own handwriting.
- Engraving a signature or a child's drawing on metal, wood or glass with a laser or a Cricut engraving tip.
- Foil and scoring, which both press along a line and look wrong doubled.
- Plotters and CNC, from the DXF, where each line is an open polyline.
Where it stops. Filled shapes do not have a centre line worth drawing, and a photo is not a drawing. The result panel says when either is the case, rather than handing you a skeleton that looks like a mistake.
Questions
Why does my Cricut draw two lines instead of one?
Because the file has an outline, not a line. An ordinary trace follows the edge of every mark, so a pen stroke comes back as a thin closed shape, and the pen goes round both sides of it. A single-line file has one open path down the middle of each stroke, so the pen goes over it once.
How do I use the SVG in Design Space?
Upload it as usual, select the layer and change its operation from Cut to Draw (Pen), Score, Foil or Engrave, depending on the tool you have. In Silhouette Studio use a Sketch action; in LightBurn, a Line layer.
What images work best?
Drawings, handwriting, signatures, doodles, line art and hand-lettering on a plain background, photographed or scanned in good light. Strokes of roughly even width come out cleanest. A photo is not a drawing: run it through the coloring page maker first and trace the result.
Can it do a filled logo or bold text?
Not usefully, and it will tell you so. A filled shape has no single line down its middle worth drawing: a solid circle thins to a dot and a bold letter to a thin spine. For filled artwork, cut the outline with the converter instead.
Why does "Pen lifts" matter?
Every lift is a pause, a travel move and a place a pen can blob. Lines that meet end to end are joined into one, and the order is chosen so the pen moves as little as possible between them. The preview's Pen order view shows the moves as dashed lines.
Is my drawing uploaded?
No. The image is decoded and traced by code running in this page. Nothing leaves your computer, which matters when the drawing is a signature or a design you sell.