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Vectors and Bitmaps
One more Flash feature which distinguishes it from many environments.
Flash uses vector graphics extensively.
If you are not familiar with the difference between vectors and bitmaps we’ll give you an explanation.
Bitmap images are those you see on the web pages in vast majority of cases. They are like Persian carpets – created with small pieces of thread, each of them has a certain color. Altogether they compose an ornament of the carpet. Even if you have a solid red carpet you need thousands individual threads and each of them will be red. It doesn’t matter how intricate the ornament is – the number of threads is equal for the same area.
The same is true for computer bitmap images – if you have a photo with the size 100X100 points it will occupy 10.000 points and take ten thousand or twenty thousand bytes to store it. And it doesn’t matter if all picture is equally red – still it takes the same amount of information. It may be automatically optimized , but it’s not a point – still it’s 10000 chunks of information.
Vector images described not by individual “dots” but by equations. So to draw the red rectangle we need to know only coordinates (vertexes ) or the angle points and the color (red). In this situation the small rectangle is described with the same amount of data as a huge rectangle. All shapes in vector graphics are represented by dots, lines and fills and if shape is simple – the amount of information is tiny if compare to bitmaps.
Bitmaps is good to display a “photo” pictures where are lots of tints and shadows.
Vectors are good when you need a formalized drawings (“cartoons”). They are not versatile but can be very attractive. Fonts, buildings, cars, technical items are presented very well with vectors. Vectors are extensively used in industry-related software such as AutoCad, MapInfo, ArcView to generate drafts and maps.
Bitmaps are used widely in Internet. To tell more, HTML pages accept only bitmaps (such as files with extensions .gif, .jpg, .png) as images. Therefore, Flash makes a huge leap when introduced vectors in Web design. It gives an opportunity to use clear, small and attractive formalized images.
One more interesting detail. Look at the example below – click on the each image several times. Left is vector – it’s not quite realistic, but increasing it’s size does not lead to quality loss. Right image is a bitmap and making it larger shows that “dots” became rectangles – it becomes less sharp.