Editing Vector graphics (section)

== File formats ==<!-- image floats with header -->
<!-- keep together -->[[File:Vector-based example.svg|thumb|This vector-based (SVG format) image of a round four-color swirl displays several unique features of vector graphics versus raster graphics: there is no [[aliasing]] along the rounded edge (which would result in [[digital artifacts]] in a raster graphic), the [[color gradient]]s are all smooth, and the user can resize the image infinitely without losing any quality.]]
Vector graphics are commonly found today in the [[Scalable vector graphics|SVG]], [[Windows Metafile|WMF]], [[Encapsulated PostScript|EPS]], [[PDF]], [[CorelDraw|CDR]] or [[Adobe Illustrator Artwork|AI]] types of [[Image file formats|graphic file formats]], and are intrinsically different from the more common raster graphics file formats such as [[JPEG]],  [[Portable Network Graphics|PNG]], [[APNG]], [[GIF]], [[WebP]],  [[BMP File Format|BMP]] and [[MPEG4]].

The [[World Wide Web Consortium]] (W3C) standard for vector graphics is [[Scalable Vector Graphics]] (SVG). The standard is complex and has been relatively slow to be established at least in part owing to commercial interests. Many web browsers now have some support for rendering SVG data but full implementations of the standard are still comparatively rare.

In recent years, SVG has become a significant format that is completely independent of the resolution of the rendering device, typically a [[Printer (computing)|printer]] or display monitor. SVG files are essentially printable text that describes both straight and curved paths, as well as other attributes. Wikipedia prefers SVG for images such as simple maps, line illustrations, coats of arms, and flags, which generally are not like photographs or other continuous-tone images.{{cn|date=November 2023}} Rendering SVG requires conversion to a raster format at a resolution appropriate for the current task. SVG is also a format for animated graphics.

There is also a version of SVG for mobile phones called SVGT (SVG Tiny version). These images can count links and also exploit anti-aliasing. They can also be displayed as wallpaper.

CAD software uses its own vector data formats, usually proprietary formats created by  software vendors, such as [[Autodesk]]'s [[DWG]] and public exchange formats such as [[DXF]]. Hundreds of distinct  [[GIS file formats|vector file formats]] have been created for GIS data over its history, including proprietary formats like the [[Esri file geodatabase]], proprietary but public formats like the [[Shapefile]] and the original [[KML]], open source formats like [[GeoJSON]], and formats created by standards bodies like [[Simple Features]] and [[Geography Markup Language|GML]] from the [[Open Geospatial Consortium]].

=== Conversion ===
{{Hatnote|The list of [[image file format]]s covers proprietary and public [[Image file formats#Vector formats|vector formats]].}}
[[File:Phone.jpg|thumb|Original reference photo before [[Raster to vector|vectorization]]]]
[[File:Phone.svg|thumb|Detail can be added to or removed from vector art.]]

====To raster====
{{main article|Rasterisation|Raster image processor|Render output unit}}

Modern displays and printers are [[raster graphics|raster]] devices; vector formats have to be converted to a raster format (bitmaps – pixel arrays) before they can be rendered (displayed or printed).{{Sfn|Gharachorloo|Gupta|Sproull|Sutherland|1989|p=355}} 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. However, once a file is converted from the vector format, it is likely to be bigger, and it loses the advantage of scalability without loss of resolution. It will also no longer be possible to edit individual parts of the image as discrete objects. The file size of a vector graphic image depends on the number of graphic elements it contains; it is a list of descriptions.

====From raster====
{{main article|Vectorization (image tracing)|Comparison of raster-to-vector conversion software}}
{{empty section|date=June 2018}}

=== Printing ===
Vector art is ideal for [[printing]] since the art is made from a series of mathematical curves; it will print very crisply even when resized.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.olypress.com/vector-vs-raster-graphics-in-printing/ |title=Vector & Raster Graphics in Offset Printing |date=December 6, 2013 |publisher=Olympus Press |access-date=2014-06-16 |archive-date=February 12, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140212111440/http://www.olypress.com/vector-vs-raster-graphics-in-printing/ |url-status=live }}</ref> For instance, one can print a vector logo on a small sheet of copy paper, and then enlarge the same vector logo to [[Billboard (advertising)|billboard]] size and keep the same crisp quality. A low-resolution [[raster graphic]] would blur or [[Pixelization|pixelate]] excessively if it were enlarged from business card size to billboard size. (The precise resolution of a raster graphic necessary for high-quality results depends on the viewing distance; e.g., a billboard may still appear to be of high quality even at low resolution if the viewing distance is great enough.)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://unix.eng.ua.edu/MathWorks/manuals/techdoc/creating_plots/chprin30.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20140206130749/http://unix.eng.ua.edu/MathWorks/manuals/techdoc/creating_plots/chprin30.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=February 6, 2014 |title=Printing and Exporting (Graphics) |publisher=COE Unix Network |date=2002-06-18 |access-date=2014-06-16 }}</ref>

If we regard typographic characters as images, then the same considerations that we have made for graphics apply even to the composition of written text for printing ([[typesetting]]). Older character sets were stored as bitmaps. Therefore, to achieve maximum print quality they had to be used at a given resolution only; these font formats are said to be non-scalable. High-quality typography is nowadays based on character drawings ([[font]]s) which are typically stored as vector graphics, and as such are scalable to any size. Examples of these vector formats for characters are [[Postscript fonts]] and [[TrueType fonts]].