TechniPixel Solutions (Resource Library)

Raster vs Vector

This resource of information is provided by TechniPixel Solutions for the sole purpose of informing current or future clients how we govern out technological business. We reserve the right to change this document at anytime without notice.

Updated: 1-23-2010

Industry Standards

What Is A Raster Graphic?

Raster is a bitmap type graphic format. Raster images have individual pixel squares that make up an image. Software used to create raster graphics are Windows Paintbrush, Adobe Photoshop, CorelPaint and Gimp. Types of raster formats are BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG and PCX.

What Is A Vector Graphic?

Vector graphics use geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon(s), which are all based on mathematical equations, to represent images. Vector is the main format for 3D applications (3ds, dxg, cad). Drawing applications such as Adobe Flash, Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw is used to create vector art. Types of formats are WMF, CDR, AI, SWF and SVG.

Industry Standards

In the graphic industry, in both web and print media, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are the tools most used for graphics. Studio Max 3D is the industry standard for 3D modeling and animation.

Pros - Cons Of Raster vs Vector

Pros Of Raster

Raster's format is ideal for very detailed pictures and images. Blending images together, touching up photos and adding artistic effects is often the best visual graphic. Raster is easily useable in both web and print media.

Cons Of Raster

There are two drawbacks to Raster graphics; They do not scale up good and are much larger then vector graphics. When trying to resize raster graphics to a larger size, it will blur, distort and show the individual pixels; which produce poor quality images.

Pros Of Vector

Vector format is ideal for almost everything, except fine pixel detail. Vector is easily scaled to any size and yet retains it's sharpness. Vector is much easier to edit and update. Vector is smaller in size.

Cons Of Vector

The only drawback to vector is that it lacks the very fine detail of pixel editing as in photographs. But, other then that we here at TechniPixel find this the best format for graphics.

TechniPixel's Choice Of Format

TechniPixel finds that using vector is the fastest, most versatile and easiest format for graphics. It is very easy to create graphics in vector and export them to raster. Our favorite tools to use for vector is CorelDraw and Flash.