Vector and Bitmap Graphics

Vector and Bitmap Graphics

Bitmap images are also known as raster images and are made up of lots pixels. When trying to resize a bitmap image the quality of the image will increase or decrease a lot. Vector images are made up with many different scalable objects such as lines, curves and shapes. A benefit of a vector graphic over a bitmap is resizing as you can make a vector graphic larger or smaller without it losing quality.

Benefits of Vector Graphics

·        File size is generally small so they wont take up much memory

·        They have smaller output files for internet use

·        Their shapes can be easily edited and modified0

·        Vector graphics are well suited for detailed image and graphics work and industrial illustrations such as house plans.

Limitations of Vector Graphics

If creating a vector image or graphic from scratch they can take a large amount of time to create. It can be easily brought up and displayed by all programs

Benefits of Bitmap Graphics

·        File size can be small so they can save memory on their computer.

·        You can set the colour of every individual pixel to make the graphic more realistic

·        Bitmap graphics are easy to create and can be easily shown on the internet

Limitations of Bitmap Graphics

·        When resizing the graphic the graphic quality gets worse

·        When you enlarge the image, you can see a lot of the pixels

·        Types of features and limitations of Graphical file formats.

Bitmap –

Bitmap graphics are the most commonly used file format on the web and the computer. Bitmap graphics are made up of pixels; each pixel will contain the colour or the information about the colour. A small picture would be made up of hundreds of pixels maybe even thousands. When the image is magnified or made bigger pixilation would occur.  The amount of detail that the user can see in a picture depends on the resolution of the image, how many times per inch these squares or pixels occur.

Features –

·        Bitmap would have a large file size when you have saved the image.

·        Very good for web graphics and illustrations.

·        Bitmap images can be easily edited because the pixel

·        Files can be compressed to be used on the internet, an will show the same as it is lossless compression

Limitations –

·        Bitmap images don’t rescale well, they become blurry and blocky sometimes. It looses its clarity.

·        The higher the resolution of the bitmap image the more computer memory you will need to use it and see it.

·        Printing can loose some quality.

 

Vector Graphics

Vector Graphics are made up of points, line and curves. When these are all adequately combined it makes a picture, one of which can be filled with colour or can form a pattern. Vector Graphics have a more cartoon feel to the image. Vector Graphics are mathematical creations, so when saved on the computer it saves information like how the image was drawn not how it is seen. This means when you want to re-scale your image it will not loose any quality at all as the computer has a description of how the image was supposed to look.

Features –

·        Small files sizes

·        They are ideal for designing logos.

·        You can re-size and re-scale the image to any size without loosing any quality

·        Vector graphics print sharper and quicker than bitmap images.

·        Very good for diagrams.

Limitations –

·        You can’t create images that are like photographical images

·        Vector graphics/images can take long to create.

·        Vector images have a tendency to be cartoon like.