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Definitions

The following definitions may help in understanding the various terms that are used through out this site.

Computer graphics: is a field of computer science that is concerned with digitally synthesizing and manipulating visual content. Although the term often refers to three-dimensional computer graphics, it also includes two-dimensional graphics and image processing.

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

Raster graphics images: A raster graphic image is the representation of images as a collection of pixels (dots). The color of each pixel is individually defined. The image corresponds bit for bit with an image displayed on a screen.

• Raster graphics are more practical than vector graphics for photographs and photo-realistic images.

• It takes a large amount of data to store a high-quality image. Data compression techniques are often used to reduce the file size for images stored on disk.

  Some compression techniques sacrifice information, and therefore image quality, in order to achieve a smaller file size. Compression techniques that lose information are referred to as "lossy" compression.

• Raster graphics cannot be scaled to a higher resolution without the loss of quality.

• The quality of a raster image is determined by the total number of pixels, and the amount of information in each pixel.

Vector graphics: Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and polygons, which are all based upon mathematical equations to represent images in computer graphics.

• Vector graphics are easily scaled to the quality of the device on which they are created.

• Vector graphics are often more practical for typesetting or for graphic design.

• Vector art will print very crisp images, no matter how much the art is resized.

• Vectorizing is good for removing unnecessary detail from a photograph. This is especially useful for information graphics or line art.

• Vectorizing is good for reducing file sizes for lower bandwidth delivery while continuing to retain enough detail for aesthetic appeal and photorealism.

• Vectorizing is good for simple or composite drawings that need to be device-independent or do not need to achieve photorealism.

Bitmap: A bitmap is characterized by the width and height of the image in pixels and the number of bits per pixel, which determines the number of colors it can represent.

Web Safe Colors: (or Browser Safe palettes) as they are also referred to, consist of 216 colors that display solid, non-dithered, and consistent on any computer monitor or web browser.

Pixels per inch (ppi): A measure of resolution used for Web graphics, including JPEGs and GIFs, and computer monitors.

Image Maps: An Image Map is an image that uses HTML code to trigger HTML events. Image maps are usually used for navigation functions, such as moving to another page.

WYSIWYG editors: WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors are code generating programs. Many do not require knowledge of the programming languages. Pages are produced in a proprietary format and then exported as finished code. WYSIWYG generators tend to be better than word processors at producing highly graphical and interactive pages.

Web design editors: A web design editor is a software application for creating web pages. Although the HTML markup of a web page can be written with any text editor, specialized HTML editors can offer convenience and added functionality. For example, many HTML editors work not only with HTML, but also with related technologies such as CSS, XML and JavaScript or ECMAScript. In some cases they also manage communication with remote web servers via FTP and WebDAV, and version management systems such as CVS or Subversion.