Vector and Bitmap Graphics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vector graphics (also called graphical modeling, or object-oriented graphics) is a type of computer graphics. Vector graphics uses geometrical objects, like points, lines, curves, and polygons to model the image. Mathematics can be used to describe the graphics. The other way to model computer graphics is to use raster graphics (o bitmap graphic). They model images as a collection of pixels. Each pixel holds something, like color or transparency. Most often photographs are modeled as raster images.

It's easy to manipulate the different objects of a vector graphic (enlarging, reducing, fusioning, coloring, .....). Whereas if you want to manipulate an bitmap graphic you have to select the individual pixels. Other problem is the pixelation effect when we magnificate and raster graphic.

Example showing effect of vector graphics and raster graphics. The original vector-based illustration is at the left. The upper-right image shows a magnification of 7x as a vector image. The lower-right image shows the same magnification as a bitmap image. Raster images are based on pixels. They scale with loss of clarity. Vector-based images can be scaled indefinitely without degrading.