Vector Graphics Topics

• vector graphics program
• mathematical formulae
• vector formats
• vector format
• vector data
• printing the image
• discrete objects
• mathematical data
• resolution output
• raster format
• graphics work
• raster graphics
• graphics files
• graphics tools
• screen image
• quality image
• different systems
• vector and raster
• source file
• vectors

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Vector Graphics, Vector Graphics

The picture is built up from these dots. The smaller and closer the dots are together, the better the quality of the image but the bigger the file needed to store the data. If the image is magnified it becomes grainy as the resolution of the eye enables it to pick out individual pixels. Vector graphics files store the lines, shapes and colours that make up an image as mathematical formulae. A vector graphics program uses the mathematical formulae to construct the screen image by building the best quality image possible, given the screen resolution, from the mathematical data. The mathematical formulae determine where the dots that make up the image should be placed for the best results when displaying the image. Since these formulae can produce an image scalable to any size and detail the quality of the image is only determined by the resolution of the display and the file size of vector data generating the image stays the same. Printing the image to paper will usually give a sharper, higher resolution output than printing it to the screen but can use exactly the same vector data file.

It might be an advantage to save an image created from a vector source file as a bitmap/raster format because different systems have different and incompatible vector formats and some might not support vector graphics at all. However, once the file is converted from the vector format it is likely to be bigger and it loses the advantages of scalability without losing resolution. Editing will also lose the convenience of being able to work on individual parts of the picture as discrete objects. Vector formats are not always appropriate in graphics work. For example, digital devices such as cameras and scanners produce raster graphics that are impractical to convert into vectors and so for this type of work the editor will operate on the pixels rather than drawing objects defined by mathematical formulae. Comprehensive graphics tools will combine images from vector and raster sources and might provide editing tools for both since some parts of the overall work could be sourced from a camera and others drawn using vector tools in the software.

Vector graphics systems were only retired from U.S. en route air traffic control in 1999, and are likely still in use in military and specialised systems. Vector graphics were also used on the TX-2 at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory by computer graphics pioneer Ivan Sutherland to run his program Sketchpad in 1963.

It is one of several modes an artist can use to create an image on a raster display. Other modes include text, multimedia and 3D rendering. Virtually all modern 3D rendering is done using extensions of 2D vector graphics techniques. Plotters used in technical drawing still draw vectors directly to paper.

For example, the PostScript and PDF page description languages use a vector graphics model.

Source: Wikipedia > Vector Graphics