Vector graphics vs. bitmap on the Ami

[Amiduffer]

Having done a little research on the internet about Vector graphics and having seen a demo of ProVector back in '92 at the Berkeley Ca user group, what capablities are there on the Amiga to use them? Are they better than bitmap? Can you animate them? Or is it just limited to print media, such as use in FinalWriter? Thanks if anyone can give me some general guidelines or point me to any docs around that can explain it.

[Cymric]

I can give you a bit more general background. Vector graphics are in some ways better than bitmaps, just as bitmaps are in some ways better than vectors. Instead of storing an image as a blob of various colours, it is made up of a collection of mathematical points, lines, and curves. A bitmap can be displayed immediately (just copy over the blob into the display memory), while a vector image must be rendered on-the-fly into something the display hardware understands---or, in other words, a bitmap. (Confused already? )

The on-the-fly rendering takes a toll in terms of CPU processing power: vector graphics are not for slow computers. However, this is offset by one huge advantage: no loss of resolution upon magnification to whatever scale. You have probably noticed that if you blow up a bitmap to 4 or 5 times its original size, the grainyness becomes apparent; this is not the case with vector graphics.

Another disadvantage of vector graphics is that they don't mix with complex textures very well. Textures are usually bitmaps, and bitmaps, as indicated, don't scale very well. There is ways around it: you can either take a huge texture and scale it down whenever required, or you can try and think up a mathematical formula akin to a fractal to describe it instead.

Vector graphics can be animated: Flash is the most important example of this. What you're seeing is a highly optimised vector graphics rendering engine at work. You can also immediately tell it is a vector graphic image because the display is quite cartoonish. However, with time and patience you can create quite stunning displays just using formulas: take a look here for example. Now those are ray-traced, so not 'genuine' vectors, but the concept (mathematical formulas) is the same. It wouldn't be at all hard to combine the two.

[Amiduffer]

Thanks for the detailed reply.

I take it, that there isn't much available on the Amiga side.

Would the old Fantagrphics program be concidered an early Vector program?

[Cymric]

I'm afraid I know zilch about vector programs on the Amiga---save for the fact that when they became fashionable in general, the computer was already in very steep decline. The programs are quite complex due to their object-orientedness (it makes handling the collection of points / lines / ... much easier), so take a lot of time to develop. No way you'd get your invested money back from Amiga sales alone. There were some programs, but I cannot recall their names nor their abilities.

[KThunder]

yes fantagraphics was a vector program.

another benefit of vector graphics is file size. vector graphic animations can be tiny compared to rastor files a 1meg animation in rastor might only be a few seconds but 10 minutes in vector.

a vector graphic animation could be quite good on amiga with decent specs but probably only in lower video modes 320x200 w 32 colors or maybe 640x200 w 16 colors. more colors adds bit planes and slows everything down.

a descent amiga can show short ham animations like juggler quite easily but it probably wouldnt be able to do more than a frame or two a second rendering a vector animation in ham unless it was extreemly simple.

[Ral-Clan]

It's actually "FantaVision".  Yes, it and Aegis Animator were early vector graphics programs.  It's too bad Fantavision was not developed a little further, as it looks pretty good, but crashes on later versions of the OS (and there is no way of converting the anims to a more common format - besides capturing them with a VCR or PC video capture card).

[Amiduffer]

Yeah! FantaVision, what a neat program. I think I played with it for a few months on my brothers A500. Too bad he ditched it before I got back from my stint in the Navy.

(and there is no way of converting the anims to a more common format - besides capturing them with a VCR or PC video capture card).

Does anyone know how Eric Shwartz saved his FantaVision anims in order to put them on his ESProductions CD?

I think theres a demo of ProVector somewhere in my pile. I wonder what I can do with it

[SamuraiCrow]

Amigas are particularly well suited to vector plotting because the polygon acceleration of the Amiga chipsets can plot polygons with more than 3 or 4 vertices and fill them with patterns or solid colors without too much overhead.

The CPU still has to do a lot more work figuring where the vertices go and how many to render.  Especially hard is the fact that Graphics.library doesn't have a bezier curve-plotting function.

Outline fonts are a perfect example of vector images.  The vertices may be located on an 8x12 grid but will scale up to 48x60 pixels without effort.  The downside of the Amiga font engine is that colorfonts must be bitmapped fonts and all existing outline fonts are monochrome.

[Waccoon]

Vector graphics isn't very nice without anti-aliasing, though.  Quality vectors have to be done on a modern CPU or GPU, not with the old Amiga blitter.

I really, really wish Windows and other OSes had the option of using vector icons and stuff.  With caching, it's not really that slow.  There was some UNIX-type OS a while ago that used vector icons, and did it quickly, but I forgot the name of it.

Here's a decent-looking vector toolkit.  At one point, I think someone mentioned that it would be included in a future Amiga OS:  Anti-Grain Geometry

[Amiduffer]

Their plans to help retain Dream17 require your assistance. They would like someone with experience of vector art files to convert their logo into a vector file so that they can begin using it as a basis for all sorts of merchandise.

The post above by Dream17 kind of prompted this question. What would someone use to do what they ask, for example.

[Fraccy]

By far, the finest vector software for the Amiga is (was) DrawStudio, by Graham & Andy Dean, published by LH Publishing.

I had it running quite well on an 8MB A1200, but it really shines on a high-end Amiga: 24bit colour, gradients, bitmap fills, PostScript output, etc.

It was one of a set of graphics software that also included ImageStudio and TextureStudio.  Even now, DrawStudio is still a very capable vector package, especially if used with MetaView (a vector converter).

[DonnyEMU]

Personally I used 2 programs for a long time, both were the "Illustrator's" of their time..

One was by gold disk and it was called Draw! It was amazing because it has postscript output and it was a professional level tool at the time and did color postscript output.. ProVector and Draw plus were others..

Some of us used Cad programs for drawing for the longest time (Like X-CAD)..


I would also mention that fantavision was a vector program much like the original Amiga animation program that was called Aegis Animator.

Aegis Animator I consider the great grandfather to "Flash"... Fantavision was an improved Broderbund takeoff. Aegis Animator and a later program called Zoetrope was done by Jim Kent who is now famous for the Human Genome project. He also did a great amiga-like animation program called autodesk animator studio for the PC. He also did a vector animation program for the Atari ST (Cyber Paint and a version of Zoetrope I think), though I can't remember for sure.. Most all of these programs were 320x200x32/64 colors (fantavision did HAM). It proved you could do a lot animating lines curves and color cycling. I have to loook at Fantavision and see who did that for Broderbund.

[Amiduffer]

Well, I tried a demo of ProVector, but I wasn't too impressed. It didn't look very good on my stock A3000 as far as the colors went. Very blocky.

Hey Donny, what kind of drawing programs are you involved in designing? 2D and 3D? Hmm.