| Traditionally, graphics files have either been vector or bitmap. |
| Vector files have represented graphics objects in terms of lines, polygons, and other high-level structures. This kind of representation has also been extended in Scene Description files, used in languages such as VRML. These kinds of files are not covered in this talk. |
| We will be discussing the various bitmap formats, in which the graphics data is represented by an array of pixels. Each value in the array represents the color of the pixel, either to be shown on a screen, or printed on paper. The pixel depth is the number of bits used to represent each pixel, which determines how many colors can be used in the image. |
| The pixel arrays can be stored by rows (scan lines), interleaved rows, or by planes based on color components or bits of the color representation: |