Editing Vector graphics (section)

==Vector display hardware==
{{main|Vector monitor}}
[[File:Space Rocks (game).jpg|thumb|A free software ''[[Asteroids (game)|Asteroids]]''-like video game played on a [[vector monitor]]]]
Vector-based devices, such as the vector CRT and the [[Plotter|pen plotter]], directly control a drawing mechanism to produce geometric shapes. Since vector display devices can define a line by dealing with just two points (that is, the coordinates of each end of the line), the device can reduce the total amount of data it must deal with by organizing the image in terms of pairs of points.{{sfn|Murray|2002|pp=81–83}}

Vector graphic displays were first used in 1958 by the [[Semi Automatic Ground Environment|US SAGE air defense system]].<ref>{{cite thesis|url=https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/38066/master_Holzer_Ian_2019.pdf|title=Vector Synthesis: a Media-Archaeological Investigation into Sound-Modulated Light|last=Holzer|first=Derek|publisher=[[Aalto University]]|date=April 2019|access-date=July 31, 2020|id={{URN|NBN|fi:aalto-201905193156}}|archive-date=April 18, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210418193445/https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/38066/master_Holzer_Ian_2019.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Vector graphics systems were retired from the U.S. en route [[air traffic control]] in 1999.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}} Vector graphics were also used on the [[TX-2]] at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [[Lincoln Laboratory]] by computer graphics pioneer [[Ivan Sutherland]] to run his program [[Sketchpad]] in 1963.<ref>{{cite thesis|url=http://hdl.handle.net/10919/63920|title=The Sketchpad Window|last=Kassem|first=Dalal|publisher=[[Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University]]|date=October 15, 2014|access-date=September 18, 2020|hdl=10919/63920}}</ref>

Subsequent vector graphics systems, most of which iterated through dynamically modifiable stored lists of drawing instructions, include the [[IBM 2250]], [[Imlac PDS-1]], and [[DEC GT40]].  There was a video game console that used vector graphics called [[Vectrex]] as well as various [[arcade game]]s like ''[[Asteroids (video game)|Asteroids]]'', ''[[Space Wars]]'', ''[[Tempest (video game)|Tempest]]'' and many cinematronics titles such as ''[[Rip Off (video game)|Rip Off]]'', and ''[[Tail Gunner]]'' using [[vector monitor]]s.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XiM0ntMybNwC&pg=PA67|title=The Video Game Explosion: A History from PONG to Playstation and Beyond|last=Wolf|first=Mark J. P.|publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]|date=2008|access-date=July 31, 2020|pages=67–71|isbn=978-0-313-33868-7}}</ref> Storage scope displays, such as the [[Tektronix 4014]], could display vector images but not modify them without first erasing the display. However, these were never as widely used as the raster-based scanning displays used for television, and had largely disappeared by the mid-1980s except for specialized applications.

[[Plotter]]s used in [[technical drawing]] still draw vectors directly to paper by moving a pen as directed through the two-dimensional space of the paper. However, as with monitors, these have largely been replaced by the [[wide-format printer]] that prints a raster image (which may be rendered from vector data).