vector vs raster

[mskin]

i just did a job for a client. i asked her her preference for deliverables. she wanted something for the "graphics people" and something for her own use. i don't think she has a great grasp of "graphic terminology. i decided to give her a full res tiff and a conpressed jpeg. her response to the provided images was....

 

> How do I get them in Vector files?

> Please let me know.

> Thank you,

 

any ideas on how to concisely answer this?

 

thanks.

[Ky Lane]

If its a render, then just dump the bitmap into a PDF. Best you can do.

 

Or explain that a photo cant be vector effectively.

[mskin]

i explained that. im trying to find a link that not-to-technically explains the differences.

[Matt McDonald]

I'd ask if you could speak to the graphics people. They can get back to her and let her know that there need has been satisfied.

 

Other thing, she's probably talking about an EPS. It supports both raster and vector and if the graphics people are a little more old school I'd bet that is what they tell her that they typically want.

[Peter M. Gruhn]

> any ideas on how to concisely answer this?

 

With another question.

 

"What is your end use?"

 

There's also "What makes you think you need it in a vector format." It's an innocent quest for more information and elaboration and introspection. But the wording is atrocious, lol.

 

Oops, didn't notice what platform you're on. Heck EVERYBODY is on Max, right? Illustrate can put out vector. Don't know if it does just edges or if it makes filled shapes too. Last time I had the demo (2 years ago?) I did do a render to .ai and it worked. I can't say anything more about it. Searching the drive, see if I've got the file around...

 

http://www.davidgould.com/Illustrate/IllustrateForMax/Illustrate52.htm

 

http://www.davidgould.com/DavidGould/Gallery/Flash/EyeForDetail.htm IMPLIES that it can output filled areas.

 

Then I said "wait a sec...." Yup, Mental can get you .ps (readable by Illustrator) vectors. I followed the directions here -> http://www.3dtotal.com/team/tutorials/mentalrayvec/mentalrayvec.asp and they worked. I have yet to get shading info in and I do not like the segmentation: Hey, this straight line is made up of 11 segments of arbitrary length.

 

It's cheaper for you, more expensive for her.

 

I think that's all I wrote.

 

- gruhn

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

I have output vector perspective drawings to Illustrator many times for different reasons. Granted she is probably just confused. I don't know how many times I send something in Jpeg format, and people are not sure if they can open it, so they ask me to send it as a PDF because they know they can open it, and assume it is a smaller file size.

 

Now, I have never output a vector perspective from Max. It is good to see it has ways, but I wish some of them were a little more strict cad 'Hidden Line' style renderings.

[Antisthenes]

you could explain it to her as similar to the difference between mesh and NURBS

 

or you could use Vectormagic to convert your raster to vector to show her what vector looks like

 

or you could render in Penguin 2 to vector

 

curves vs points (or line segments vs poly b-sline curves in the case of NURBS)

 

 

she's looking for something infinity scalable?

[Peter M. Gruhn]

> It is good to see it has ways, but I wish some of them were a

> little more strict cad 'Hidden Line' style renderings

 

Look at Illustrate. I am so totally buying that when I have some actual money again.

[Matt McDonald]

you could explain it to her as similar to the difference between mesh and NURBS

 

If she doesn't understand the difference between raster and vector she probably isn't going to understand the difference between "mesh and NURBS".

 

She's just confused. If she saw your JPG, liked what it looked like, and told you she needed a different format for her GD'ers, she's just confused on file format.

 

If she saw it and said "Sh!t, that is supposed to look like a line drawing!' then you would be in trouble.

[Antisthenes]

maybe she means lossless in that case send her a tiff or png or tga

[BrianKitts]

I would just tell her that a rendering is like a photograph, it is made up of millions of little color dots, whereas a vector image is created with specific data such to creates a line from this point to that point using a specific color.

 

A rendering application outputs raster data not vector data. Unless you are creating a line drawing.

 

A raster image can be inserted in a vector based program such as Adobe Illustrator, but it can not be converted to a vectored image and retain the same quality. Their graphic designers should know this, and if they don't send her a 2x4 to knock them upside the head.

 

On a similar note though playing with the live trace feature in Illustrator can be kind of interesting sometimes to convert a rastered image into a vector, but it doesn't not retain the photorealistic quality you are looking for (which is why I said it's fun to play with)

Edited August 28, 2008 by BrianKitts

[Antisthenes]

run your image threw this and say that is Vector

http://vectormagic.com/

[Hazdaz]

I would just tell her that a rendering is like a photograph, it is made up of millions of little color dots, whereas a vector image is created with specific data such to creates a line from this point to that point using a specific color.

 

A rendering application outputs raster data not vector data. Unless you are creating a line drawing.

 

A raster image can be inserted in a vector based program such as Adobe Illustrator, but it can not be converted to a vectored image and retain the same quality. Their graphic designers should know this, and if they don't send her a 2x4 to knock them upside the head.

 

Yea, good luck with that, if this person is anything like some of the people that we have to deal with. :lol:

 

Seriously, some of these people don't have the faintest idea about graphics, and yet they hear one or two phrases and latch onto them and use them without having a real clue what they even mean. It's rather painful actually trying to explain some of these semi-technical terms.