Gradients (params `gradients`, a checkbox in the panel for Grayscale and Color;
off unless asked for): an area whose colour changes evenly along one direction
is traced as one path filled with a linear gradient, not as bands of flat colour.
Gradients are found before the palette is made, so no colour is spent on their
bands: a connected run of smoothly changing pixels is a gradient when a plane
fits each colour channel with all three sloping the same way, the colours along
that way are at most six stops with ramps between them, and painting them back
gives the area's own pixels. Flat colour, soft edges between flat colours and
shading that goes two ways are left as they were.
The harness gains two linear-gradient inputs with known lines and stops, and
measures whether each is found, the angle of its line and the colours of its ramp.
crates/trace/tests/quality draws its inputs from known vector art (no image files), traces them with every
built-in preset and measures fidelity, distance from the true outlines, economy, artefacts, time and memory.
docs/image-trace-quality.md records the numbers on main before any change, beside the same measures of an
open tracer run as a black box. No change to the tracer.
bflatastic