Hello,
I just uploaded an application that extracts linear gradients from raster images and saves to SVG. I was hoping someone would please try it out to determine if is useful. It does not trace at this time, but I found it convenient to use existing raster images to draw inspiration from.
http://code.google.com/p/rastertovector/

ok , i'll try it , it's under GPL license right? , can u tell us some more information about how to get use of it beside inkscape?

I believe that both Illustrator and Corel Draw take SVG as input as well as Inkscape. The sole idea of the application is to save the user the time of creating linear gradients from scratch. Google image search can be used to shop for the gradient within any image. For example "glossy purple" can lead to this: http://www.glasstileimports.com/image/i ... glossy.jpg. A user can also re-vectorize the raster output of SVG from an image like this: http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/images/pservers/lingrad01.png. This weekend I will work on creating a tutorial.

In the command prompt (Windows) am I supposed to just type the following:

java -jar runsxz.jar

or am I missing something?

That's it. Make sure you have Java6 installed, although it will probably run with Java5 too. I will create an installer soon, hopefully.

Was opening the command prompt on the wrong directory. Kept receiving an error that the command was not recognized.

Just one question does this work only horizontally? When I make a vertical selection on this image



the gradient ends up looking like this