Vector graphics
The associated mechanisms may include vector display and printing hardware, vector data models and file formats, as well as the software based on these data models (especially graphic design software, computer-aided design, and geographic information systems).
Thus, it is the preferred model for domains such as engineering, architecture, surveying, 3D rendering, and typography, but is entirely inappropriate[citation needed] for applications such as photography and remote sensing, where raster is more effective and efficient.
For example, a square can be unambiguously defined by the locations of three of its four corners, from which the software can interpolate the connecting boundary lines and the interior space.
Vector-based devices, such as the vector CRT and the pen plotter, directly control a drawing mechanism to produce geometric shapes.
[7] Subsequent vector graphics systems, most of which iterated through dynamically modifiable stored lists of drawing instructions, include the IBM 2250, Imlac PDS-1, and DEC GT40.
However, as with monitors, these have largely been replaced by the wide-format printer that prints a raster image (which may be rendered from vector data).
Because this model is useful in a variety of application domains, many different software programs have been created for drawing, manipulating, and visualizing vector graphics.
Many web browsers now have some support for rendering SVG data but full implementations of the standard are still comparatively rare.
In recent years, SVG has become a significant format that is completely independent of the resolution of the rendering device, typically a printer or display monitor.
[citation needed] Rendering SVG requires conversion to a raster format at a resolution appropriate for the current task.
)[12] If we regard typographic characters as images, then the same considerations that we have made for graphics apply even to the composition of written text for printing (typesetting).
High-quality typography is nowadays based on character drawings (fonts) which are typically stored as vector graphics, and as such are scalable to any size.
[15] For example, devices such as cameras and scanners produce essentially continuous-tone raster graphics that are impractical to convert into vectors, and so for this type of work, an image editor will operate on the pixels rather than on drawing objects defined by mathematical expressions.
[16] Vector graphics editors typically allow translation, rotation, mirroring, stretching, skewing, affine transformations, changing of z-order (loosely, what's in front of what) and combination of primitives into more complex objects.
