What is Vector art?
Among the most frequent questions people ask are: • What is Vector Art? • Can I convert a .BMP, .GIF or .JPG to vector? • I converted a Photoshop file to .EPS, why can’t I use this as vector art? To answer these questions, you need to know a little bit about what “vector art” is, and what the other forms of imagery a computer uses are comprised of. What is Vector Art? There are two different kinds of art used by computers. The two types are “Bitmap” art, and “Vector” art. Bitmap art includes almost every file type there is: .BMP, .GIF, .JPG or .JPEG, .PCX – the list is enormous. Vector file formats include .EPS and the files created and manipulated by professional drawing software products such as Arts & Letters Express, Adobe Illustrator, and Corel Draw. The difference between these types of art lies in how an image is stored within the art files themselves. Bitmap files consist of a series of numbers that represent coordinates within the image area’s grid, and the color for each pixe
In the truest most pure form, vector art is art made up of points, lines and curves and represented by mathematical equations as opposed to ‘mapped pixels’ as in a raster or bitmap file. Vector art is resolution independent, meaning that it can be scaled to any size and retain its sharpness and detail at no loss in quality. © Cristiano Siqueira Vector illustration is most commonly done in programs such as Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand, Flash, and CorelDRAW. Vectors in these programs (at the hands of skilled artists and draftsmen) can achieve a nearly photo-like quality or be beautifully abstract. There is usually a distinct feel and appearance to common vector illustration which seems to be growing in popularity amongst many of the art communities today. Vectortown recognizes a couple logical divisions of the Vector Art movement, and these are the following: 1. Pure Vector — This is any illustration that is created entirely in a vector illustration environment/applicati
There are two different kinds of art used by computers. The two types are “bitmap” art, and “vector” art. Bitmap art includes almost every file type there is: .BMP, .GIF, .JPG or .JPEG, .PCX and the list goes on! Vector file formats include .EPS and the files created and manipulated by professional drawing software products such, Adobe Illustrator, and Corel Draw.
Vector art is one of the two forms of art used by computers, with the other form being bitmap art. Bitmap art is identified as art with file names ending in .GIF, .BMP, .JPEG, .JPG, and .PCX. Vector art, on the other hand, ends in .EPS. Vector art and bitmap art are different in the way they are stored in the art files. Bitmap art utilizes pixels that are saved in a file as a series of numbers. Pixels create several dots of color in order to create the image, which is how the human eye sees pictures. Vector art, on the other hand, saves the image as lines with coordinates of their starting and ending points. This creates simple images, and research has demonstrated that this is the way the human brain sees and stores images. Vector art is easier for a computer to save than bitmap images and takes up less space on a file, which is likely why the brain saves images in the same way. In fact, a poster-sized image saved as vector art will only take up a few kilobytes of memory. The same ima
