Rendering or image synthesis is the automatic process of generating a photorealistic or non-photorealistic image from a 2D or 3D model by means of a computer program. The resulting image is referred to as the render. Multiple models can be defined in a scene file containing objects in a strictly defined language or data structure. The scene file contains geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information describing the virtual scene. The data contained in the scene file is then passed to a rendering program to be processed and output to a digital image or raster graphics image file. The term "rendering" is analogous to the concept of an artist's impression of a scene. The term "rendering" is also used to describe the process of calculating effects in a video editing program to produce the final video output.
In computer graphics, a raster graphics or bitmap image is a dot matrix data structure that represents a generally rectangular grid of pixels, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium. Raster images are stored in image files with varying formats.
Vector graphics are computer graphics images that are defined in terms of points on a Cartesian plane, which are connected by lines and curves to form polygons and other shapes. Vector graphics have the unique advantage over raster graphics in that the points, lines, and curves may be scaled up or down to any resolution with no aliasing. The points determine the direction of the vector path; each path may have various properties including values for stroke color, shape, curve, thickness, and fill.
Rasterisation is the task of taking an image described in a vector graphics format (shapes) and converting it into a raster image. The rasterised image may then be displayed on a computer display, video display or printer, or stored in a bitmap file format. Rasterisation may refer to the technique of drawing 3D models, or the conversion of 2D rendering primitives such as polygons, line segments into a rasterized format.
Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) is the standard for the communication and management of medical imaging information and related data. DICOM is most commonly used for storing and transmitting medical images enabling the integration of medical imaging devices such as scanners, servers, workstations, printers, network hardware, and picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) from multiple manufacturers. It has been widely adopted by hospitals and is making inroads into smaller applications like dentists' and doctors' offices.
A framebuffer is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing a complete frame of data. Modern video cards contain framebuffer circuitry in their cores. This circuitry converts an in-memory bitmap into a video signal that can be displayed on a computer monitor.
In 3D computer graphics, a voxel represents a value on a regular grid in three-dimensional space. As with pixels in a 2D bitmap, voxels themselves do not typically have their position explicitly encoded with their values. Instead, rendering systems infer the position of a voxel based upon its position relative to other voxels.
The BMP file format, also known as bitmap image file, device independent bitmap (DIB) file format and bitmap, is a raster graphics image file format used to store bitmap digital images, independently of the display device, especially on Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems.
QuickDraw is the 2D graphics library and associated Application Programming Interface (API) which is a core part of the classic Mac OS operating system. It was initially written by Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld. QuickDraw still existed as part of the libraries of Mac OS X, but had been largely superseded by the more modern Quartz graphics system. In Mac OS X v10.4, QuickDraw has been officially deprecated. In Mac OS X v10.5 applications using QuickDraw cannot make use of the added 64-bit support. In Mac OS X v10.8, QuickDraw header support was removed from the operating system. Applications using QuickDraw will still run under OS X 10.8 through macOS 10.12; however, the current versions of Xcode and the macOS SDK do not contain the header files to compile such programs.
A GIS file format is a standard of encoding geographical information into a computer file. They are created mainly by government mapping agencies or by GIS software developers.
Quartz 2D is the native two-dimensional graphics rendering API for macOS and iOS platforms, part of the Core Graphics framework.
Transparency is possible in a number of graphics file formats. The term "transparency" is used in various ways by different people, but at its simplest there is "full transparency" i.e. something that is completely invisible. Only part of a graphic should be fully transparent, or there would be nothing to see. More complex is "partial transparency" or "translucency" where the effect is achieved that a graphic is partially transparent in the same way as colored glass. Since ultimately a printed page or computer or television screen can only be one color at a point, partial transparency is always simulated at some level by mixing colors. There are many different ways to mix colors, so in some cases transparency is ambiguous.
A bit plane of a digital discrete signal is a set of bits corresponding to a given bit position in each of the binary numbers representing the signal.
The ICO file format is an image file format for computer icons in Microsoft Windows. ICO files contain one or more small images at multiple sizes and color depths, such that they may be scaled appropriately. In Windows, all executables that display an icon to the user, on the desktop, in the Start Menu, or in Windows Explorer, must carry the icon in ICO format.
Image file formats are standardized means of organizing and storing digital images. An image file format may store data in an uncompressed format, a compressed format, or a vector format. Image files are composed of digital data in one of these formats so that the data can be rasterized for use on a computer display or printer. Rasterization converts the image data into a grid of pixels. Each pixel has a number of bits to designate its color. Rasterizing an image file for a specific device takes into account the number of bits per pixel that the device is designed to handle.
In computer graphics, image tracing, raster-to-vector conversion or vectorization is the conversion of raster graphics into vector graphics.
The following are common definitions related to the machine vision field.
Sixel, short for "six pixels", is a bitmap graphics format supported by terminals and printers from DEC. It consists of a pattern six pixels high and one wide, resulting in 64 possible patterns. Each possible pattern is assigned an ASCII character, making the sixels easy to transmit on 7-bit serial links.
In computing, a bitmap is a mapping from some domain to bits. It is also called a bit array or bitmap index.
This is a glossary of terms relating to computer graphics.
