Vector vs Vexel

Dec 31, 2009 // by leeagosila // Design, Tutorial // 1 Comment

Many people have had this debate across the Internet. What is the difference between an vector and a vexel?

In both cases, different colored shapes are drawn to create shading. For a long time these images were always referred to as “vector art” regardless of whether they were actually vector or not. Visually, here’s the difference between raster and vector at different zoom levels:

Vector uses mathematical equations to create lines and shapes in images, it allows the shapes to be resized as much as needed without losing any quality. Usually you use programs like Illustrator, Freehand, or CorelDraw to do purely vector, although you can use Photoshop or PaintShopPro.

Raster works in pixels, when resized the image pixelates and loses quality as shown in the picture. Sometimes when you do a vector in Illustrator, it can add more to the image to add some brushes in Photoshop, and then save it as a JPG, PNG, GIF … this is what makes it raster instead of vector.

In all, working in vector has it’s advantages but vexels can be created in either vector or raster format since the process and result is significantly similar. The important point is to not call your images vector if they aren’t.

sources- wikipedia.com, bonniejansen.com