This image illustrates the difference between bitmap and vector images.

The bitmap image is composed of a fixed set of dots, while the vector image is composed of a fixed set of shapes.

In the picture, scaling the bitmap reveals the dots while scaling the vector image preserves the shapes.

The size of the bitmap / raster-format file generated by the conversion will depend on the resolution required, but the size of the vector file generating the bitmap / raster file will always remain the same.

Thus, it is easy to convert from a vector file to a range of bitmap / raster file formats but it is much more difficult to go in the opposite direction, especially if subsequent editing of the vector picture is required.

It might be an advantage to save an image created from a vector source file as a bitmap / raster format, because different systems have different ( and incompatible ) vector formats, and some might not support vector graphics at all.

* AutoTrace-converts bitmap to vector graphics

There is no hard, fast rule regarding the programs to be included in a graphics application suite, but most will include at least a bitmap graphics editor and a vector graphics editor.

21st century versions of such editors support vector-like tools ( e. g. editable paths ), and vector editors such as CorelDRAW or Adobe Illustrator are gradually adopting tools and approaches that were once limited to bitmap editors ( e. g. blurring ).

Recent versions of bitmap editors such as GIMP and Adobe Photoshop support vector tools ( e. g. editable paths ), and vector editors such as CorelDRAW, Adobe Illustrator, Xara Photo & Graphic Designer, Macromedia FreeHand, Adobe Fireworks, Inkscape or SK1 are adopting raster effects that were once limited to bitmap editors ( e. g. blurring ).

PostScript enabled the LaserWriter to print complex pages containing high-resolution bitmap graphics, outline fonts, and vector illustrations.

Rasterisation ( or rasterization ) is the task of taking an image described in a vector graphics format ( shapes ) and converting it into a raster image ( pixels or dots ) for output on a video display or printer, or for storage in a bitmap file format.

Digital fonts store the image of each character either as a bitmap in a bitmap font, or by mathematical description of lines and curves in an outline font, also called a vector font.

Windows Metafiles are intended to be portable between applications and may contain both vector graphics and bitmap components.

While a PICT preview often contains a bitmap it could also contain a vector representation of the whole image, providing very high quality previews.

Some image formats, such as Photoshop format, can contain both bitmap and vector data in the same file.

Many graphics programs thus contained their own bitmap character generator routines.

* Adobe Photoshop Elements, a bitmap graphics program

Planar bitmap graphics are used, which splits the individual bits per pixel into separate areas of memory, called bitplanes.

The copper can go further than this and change the background colour often enough to make a blocky graphics display without using any bitmap graphics at all.

In computer graphics, a raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a dot matrix data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of color, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium.

However, all thin clients suffer performance problems when large areas of the graphics display must be updated rapidly with high detail bitmap graphics, which may also need to be redrawn several times a second for animation purposes.

* Computer-generated bitmap graphics

A raster graphics editor is a computer program that allows users to paint and edit pictures interactively on the computer screen and save them in one of many popular “ bitmap ” or “ raster ” formats such as JPEG, PNG, GIF and TIFF.

Ironically, whereas the daisy-wheel printer and pen-plotter struggled to reproduce bitmap images, the first dot-matrix impact printers ( including the MX-80 ) lacked the ability to print graphics.

24-pin printers repeated this feat in bitmap graphics mode, producing higher-quality graphics in reduced time.

The Graphics Interchange Format ( GIF ; or ) is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability.

* Bitmap font support: DPS added the ability to map PS fonts onto hand-drawn bitmap fonts and change from one to the other on the fly.

The program opens and saves files as Windows bitmap ( 24-bit, 256 color, 16 color, and monochrome, all with the < tt >. bmp </ tt > extension ), JPEG, GIF ( without animation or transparency, although the Windows 98 version, a Windows 95 upgrade, and the Windows NT4 version did support the latter ), PNG ( without alpha channel ), and TIFF ( without multiple page support ).

* Version 0. 45 ( February 5, 2007 ) has support for Gaussian blur, pattern along path, new Undo History dialog, improved bitmap tracing using Simple Interactive Object Extraction, a set of color effects, and many other minor modifications to existing features.

* Version 0. 40 added support for layers, bitmap tracing, and text on path.

This version incorporates new functionality such as Windows Media Player redirection, bidirectional audio, true multimonitor support, Aero glass support, enhanced bitmap acceleration ( which improves user experience over high latency network connections ), Easy Print redirection, Language Bar docking.

For this purpose the new ANTIC chip was introduced to handle the storage and interpretation of a bitmap framebuffer, which the TIA did not support.

Users could provide their own characters to support rudimentary bitmap graphics.

Most bitmap editors and many operating systems have built-in support for color quantization.

The difference shows in certain features and characteristics: Pages can be arbitrarily large ; bitmap images can be pasted in without quality loss ; there is no support for enforcing a uniform page layout or structure.

* Graphics are vector based ( bitmap support is also included ) which allows for scaling, rotation and other transformations without loss of graphic quality.

It also has much more memory than the Micro Edition's SX52: 32K RAM and a 32K ROM which contains a bitmap font for the video display generator, ( the Propeller can generate a high quality VGA or PAL / NTSC color picture using software and some special support logic built into each CPU core ), tables for mathematical function, and an interpreter for the multi threaded SPIN language.

SWiSH Max does not support some Adobe Flash features such as ActionScript 3. 0, shape tweens, and bitmap drawing capabilities.

Another important factor is the application's support of various vector and bitmap image formats for import and export.

Paint was an image editing program for manipulation of bitmap graphics-its texture map support focused on the RLA, SGI, Cineon ( now DPX ) and TIFF file formats.

This added support for bitmap fonts and increased the maximum resolution to 300 dpi.