All modern PC screens are raster displays. Your computer draws pixels, even when drawing a vector image.
The difference between raster and vector *data*, is as you’ve described. Raster images are like a mosaic, where each pixel has a defined location and color value. Vector images are like a set of instructions for drawing geometry.
We call vectors “lossless” because the computer has no trouble drawing this geometry data at different scales. You can zoom into a vector .SVG of a blue circle, and the perimeter of the circle will always look sharp because the computer is deciding where to put the pixels.
Raster data, by contrast, defines exactly where its pixels are. The computer simply follows these instructions. When you zoom in on a raster image, the computer scales these pixels up in size until the image looks blocky.
Latest Answers