Computer graphics

:For the ACM SIGGRAPH journal, see Computer Graphics.

Computer graphics, 2D

The first advance in computer graphics was in the use of CRTs. There are two approaches to 2D graphics: vector and raster graphics. Vector graphics stores precise geometric data, topology and style such as coordinate positions of points, the connections between points (to form lines or paths) and the colour, thickness and possible fill of the shapes. Most vector graphic systems can also use primitives of standard shapes such as circles and rectangles etc. In most cases a vector graphic image has to be converted to a raster image to be viewed. Raster graphics is a uniform two dimensional grid of pixels. Each pixel has a specific value such as for instance brightness, colour transparency or a combination of such values. A raster image has a finite resolution of a specific number of rows and columns. Standard computer displays shows a raster image of resolutions such as 1280(columns)x1024(rows) of pixels. Today one often combines raster and vector graphics in compound file formats (pdf,swf).

Related Topics:
CRT - Topology - Pixel - Resolution - Pdf - Swf

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