| LeeJay © 2001 |
|
Vector better than Pixel Most of today's popular graphic design applications have vector graphic technology. The reason is because vector graphics is significantly easy to process by computers. A VG (Vector graphic) is created when you define nodes (vertices) and join them to make a shape. You can also manipulate a VG by moving its nodes and changing the concavity of its adjacent connectives. So how is VG useful if it seems to only create flat graphics without any visual effects (like filters from Photoshop)? VG files are very small compared to pixel graphic files like JPG or GIF. You can reduce the number of colours to reduce the size of GIF files, but colour reduction is automatic for VG images - it depends on how many colours you used. Besides less colour storage, VG images also store only a few node points (coordinates of the shapes) and the colour of the shapes compared to pixel graphic images. Pixel graphic images, on the other hand, store every bit of pixel on the image and the colour palette into the file. Small size files also load quicker on the Internet. That is why Macromedia has focused on VG technology. You can transform VG in size without worrying about seeing a blocky image on the screen or on the printed copy. So you do not need a laser printer to smooth out a blocky image. Lines can always be smooth despite the fact that you may be using a 300 dpi printer. All in all, VG is easy, compact and quick, and it will help you to be more productive. |