JPG to DXF Converter

Turn a JPG into a DXF of clean, closed outlines for CAD, laser cutting, vinyl or CNC, without uploading it. JPG files are compressed in small blocks, which leaves specks and ragged edges that most converters trace as noise. Here you start from a preset, such as Logo, Photo of a sketch or Scanned drawing, that smooths and cleans the picture before tracing, and you see the cleaned picture and the traced outlines side by side. Set the exact width of the design in millimetres or inches and the DXF is drawn at that size. Black and white gives one layer of outlines; colour logos get one layer per colour. Photos taken on a phone are traced upright, using the camera’s rotation tag. Your picture never leaves your device.

100% private — everything runs in your browser. Your pictures are traced and saved as DXF files on your device; nothing is uploaded or stored.

How to convert a JPG to DXF

1. Drop your JPG on the box, or click Try a sample.
2. Pick the preset that matches your picture, then adjust the threshold or despeckle if needed.
3. Type the width the design should have, in mm or inches.
4. Click Download DXF, and check it in the DXF Viewer if you like.

What you can use it for

• Make a laser-cut or engraving outline from a JPG logo
• Trace a phone photo of a sketch into CAD lines
• Turn a scanned drawing into DXF outlines for a CNC router
• Get a vinyl or plasma cutting file from a silhouette
• Separate a colour logo into one layer per colour
• Size a traced design exactly in millimetres

Presets for JPG pictures

Preset	Colours	Smoothing	Despeckle	Good for
Logo or flat art saved as JPG	2	1 px	24 px	Logos, icons, silhouettes
Photo of a drawing or sketch	2	2 px	64 px	Phone photos of pencil or ink drawings
Scanned line drawing	2	1 px	16 px	Clean scans with fine lines
Colour logo	4	1 px	32 px	One cutting layer per colour
Light design on a dark background	2 (inverted)	1 px	24 px	Chalk, neon or white-on-black art

Smoothing blurs the picture by that many pixels before the black-and-white decision; despeckle removes spots smaller than that area. The automatic threshold picks the split between dark and light from the picture itself (Otsu’s method).

DXF (Drawing Exchange Format) is the plain-text drawing format that almost every CAD, laser and CNC program reads. The files made here are AutoCAD R12 DXF, the oldest and most widely read version: lines and curves as POLYLINE outlines, text as TEXT, each colour on its own layer, and the units written in the file.

Size and units

Picture	Width you type	DXF size
600 × 400 px	100 mm	100 × 66.67 mm
1,200 × 1,600 px	150 mm	150 × 200 mm
800 × 800 px	4 in	4 × 4 in

The height follows the picture’s proportions. Large pictures are traced at up to 1,000 px on the long side; the DXF is then scaled to your width, so the size is exact whatever the resolution.

For a PNG with transparency, use PNG to DXF; for an SVG, SVG to DXF. To get an SVG from a JPG instead, use JPG to SVG or the Image Vectorizer, and open the result in the DXF Viewer to check it.

Tested on real JPGs

Our test JPG	Read back from the DXF
A logo saved at JPEG quality 40 (600 × 400 px): a square and a ring	3 closed outlines (the hole kept), 100 × 41.8 mm at 100 mm wide
The same logo at 4 inches wide	4 × 1.67 in, units = inches
A phone-style photo of a sketch on grey paper with noise	4 outlines with the sketch preset, 16 with no clean-up
A photo with a camera rotation tag (stored 300 × 200, turned 90°)	Traced upright at 200 × 300 px

Every DXF made in testing was also read by an independent DXF reader, dxf-parser, and its outlines and extents were checked.

Not affiliated with Autodesk.

Sources

Sources: Autodesk DXF Reference (group codes, $INSUNITS, POLYLINE, TEXT); ITU-T T.81, the JPEG standard (8 × 8 blocks, lossy compression); CIPA DC-008 Exif 2.3 (the Orientation tag); imagetracerjs on GitHub (public domain).

Frequently asked questions

Is this JPG to DXF converter free?

Yes. There is no sign-up, no watermark and no daily limit. The tracing happens in your browser, so your JPG never leaves your device.

Why do JPGs need a clean-up first?

JPEG compression stores pictures in 8 × 8 pixel blocks and throws away fine detail, which leaves faint specks and soft, blocky edges. The presets blur the picture slightly before choosing black or white and remove small spots, so the outlines follow your design, not the compression noise.

Which preset should I use?

Logo or flat art suits most logos and icons. Photo of a drawing or sketch removes paper texture and uneven light. Scanned line drawing keeps fine lines. Colour logo gives one layer per colour. Light design on a dark background traces the light parts.

What size will the DXF be?

Exactly the width you type, in millimetres or inches; the height follows the picture’s proportions. The units are written into the file, so CAD and laser programs open it at that size.

Does it make centre lines or outlines?

Outlines: every shape becomes a closed POLYLINE around its edge, which is what laser and CNC cutting usually need. A line drawn with a pen becomes a thin closed shape around the line, not a single centre line.

Can I trace a photo of a person or a landscape?

Photos with soft shading do not trace well into cutting lines. Logos, silhouettes, line art and clear sketches work best; for a photo, try the Photo of a drawing preset with a high despeckle.

My photo was sideways. Why is the DXF upright?

Phones often save a photo sideways and add a tag that says how to turn it. Your browser draws the photo upright from that tag, so it is traced upright; the tool tells you when it found one.

Which DXF version is it?

AutoCAD R12 (AC1009) ASCII DXF, with each outline as a closed POLYLINE and each colour on its own layer. It is the same engine as our PNG to DXF tool.

Is my picture uploaded?

No. The tracer, imagetracerjs, is downloaded from jsDelivr and runs in your browser.