Posted by: Jonathan Bartlett
on June 21, 2004 06:22 AM
"and although I still haven't figured out how to draw a straight line"
Using pencil or paintbrush, click one point. Then, hold down (can't remember if it's control or shift) and click another point.
"Can someone provide a layman's explanation of what vector graphics and raster graphics tools are/do?"
With raster graphics, you have a canvas that is so many pixels wide by so many pixels high. Everything you do is in terms of pixels. In vector graphics, you store the math of what you are doing - the logical elements. For example, if I draw a line in GIMP, after the line has been drawn GIMP does not remember that it was a line, it's just a series of pixels that happen to have a certain color. Likewise with circles and other shapes. If there's a curve on the GIMP, and we scale our graphic larger, GIMP doesn't know that those pixels represent a curve, so it can't scale it bigger without becoming blocky.
In vector graphics, if you draw a circle, a circle is remembered. Therefore, if you change the size of your canvas, the program can still get your circle EXACTLY right. You can still interact with your circle as a circle, and not just some pixels.
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Re:Sodipodi
Posted by: Jonathan Bartlett on June 21, 2004 06:22 AMUsing pencil or paintbrush, click one point. Then, hold down (can't remember if it's control or shift) and click another point.
"Can someone provide a layman's explanation of what vector graphics and raster graphics tools are/do?"
With raster graphics, you have a canvas that is so many pixels wide by so many pixels high. Everything you do is in terms of pixels. In vector graphics, you store the math of what you are doing - the logical elements. For example, if I draw a line in GIMP, after the line has been drawn GIMP does not remember that it was a line, it's just a series of pixels that happen to have a certain color. Likewise with circles and other shapes. If there's a curve on the GIMP, and we scale our graphic larger, GIMP doesn't know that those pixels represent a curve, so it can't scale it bigger without becoming blocky.
In vector graphics, if you draw a circle, a circle is remembered. Therefore, if you change the size of your canvas, the program can still get your circle EXACTLY right. You can still interact with your circle as a circle, and not just some pixels.
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