The earliest 2D computer graphics were all vector graphics.
One of the first uses of vector graphic displays was the US SAGE air defence system. Vector graphics systems were only retired from U.S. en route air traffic control in 1999, and are likely still in use in military and specialised systems. Vector graphics were also used on the TX-2 at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory by computer graphics pioneer Ivan Sutherland to run his program Sketchpad in 1963.
Subsequent vector graphics systems, most of which iterated through dynamically modifiable stored lists of drawing instructions, include Digital's GT40. There was a home gaming system that used vector graphics called Vectrex as well as various arcade games like Asteroids and Space Wars. Storage scope displays, such as the Tektronix 4014, could display vector images but not modify them without first erasing the display.
Modern vector graphics displays can sometimes be found at laser light shows, where two fast-moving X-Y mirrors position the beam to rapidly draw shapes and text as straight and curved strokes on a screen.
The term "vector graphics" is mainly used today in the context of two-dimensional computer graphics. It is one of several modes an artist can use to create an image on a raster display. Other modes include text, multimedia, and 3D rendering. Virtually all modern 3D rendering is done using extensions of 2D vector graphics techniques. Plotters used in technical drawing still draw vectors directly to paper.
Vector art is the key for clear, crisp printing. Since the art is made from a series of mathematical curves it will print very crisply even when resized. For instance, one can print a vector logo on a small sheet of copy paper, and then enlarge the same vector logo to billboard size and keep the same crisp quality. A low-resolution raster graphic would blur or pixelate excessively if it were enlarged from business card size to billboard size. (The precise resolution of a raster graphic necessary for high-quality results depends on the viewing distance; e.g., a billboard may still appear to be of high quality even at low resolution if the viewing distance is large enough.)If we regard typographic characters as images, then the same considerations that we have made for graphics apply even to composition of written text for printing (typesetting). Older character sets were stored as bitmaps, therefore to achieve maximum print quality they had to be used at a given resolution only; these font formats are said to be non-scalable. High quality typography is nowadays based on character drawings (fonts) which are typically stored as vector graphics, and as such are scalable to any size. Examples of these vector formats for characters are Postscript fonts and TrueType fonts.
Today’s Vector Graphic programs, such as Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW have incorporated many useful tools that help make our work more photo-realistic. There’s the Gradient Mesh/Mesh Fill tool that allows us smooth gradients that flow into one another seamlessly; there are ‘Live Trace’ tools that allow us to quickly trace an image or make it especially handy for tracing a bitmap texture to make it infinitely scalable; there are many shape tools and filters as well as ‘Live Effects’ including drop shadows and blurs. Learning how to incorporate each of these tools is the key to successful vector graphics. Many artists still prefer to do the majority of their work using their mouse and the Pen Tool, but advances in technology such as Pen Tablets, have made Vector art much easier and faster.
Some of today’s best and well-known Vector Artists include:
And to these we must include many of deviantART’s amazing Vector Artists, ChewedKandi, Asher-Bee, AtixVector, ssst, CrisVector, cd-marcus, LimKis, artemisa-69, pica-ae and so many, many more that it’s impossible to list them all here! Taking a look through their galleries, from their earlier pieces to their most recent, it’s amazing to see their progress, achieved both by hours and hours of practice and by the better tools available today to the Vector Artist.
First Image: Early Vector Work
Second Image: Recent Vector Work
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