: Why hasn't there been a vector file extension yet? Why do we have all the pictures in pixels... Jpg,png .... Why not a vector file something like (.vtr , .vector) that can be opened by a

@Jessie844

There are several raster image formats. Some can be opened with "any" "photo" viewer but others can not.

For example a TIFF image is a widley used file format, but some features can not be opened with "all" viewers, like some types of compression or the multipage option. So, a photo viewer can only view the formats if it has implemented them.

On the other hand there are some vector formats that are widley used. Some can be viewed by some generic viewers... if it has the implementation inside.

PDF, SVG, EPS, WMF are some vector file formats comonly used.

PDF and EPS can be opened with some viewers with The Ghostscript Library www.ghostscript.com/ for example in irfanview, which is a popular image viewer in Windows.

SVG nowdays can be open in almost every decent browser.

WMF... lets not talk about it.

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@Gail6891361

Displaying a pixel image is technically easy. All you need is to tell the graphics card to show the pixel field, possibly filtering it to suitable size before doing so. A very minimal amount of code needed - a walk in the park.

A vector image is not an image at all... it's an instruction for how to draw an image. And these instructions are possibly complex and there's a lot of things to be handled. I could teach you create the code for drawing a pixel image in a day, but how to do so with vector graphics would take me months to teach. Even so, to get the best possible results without all the rendering artifacts you typically see is a lot of work to fix(years). It's also not easy, to understand, just read the following questions that were posted just this week:


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These are both the same question and this is a flaw in the rendering engine. Even Adobe cant get this right at times it seems. So yes, you can get vector rendering algorithms pre-made, in various packages and states of readiness. It's still more work than dumping a pixel image because that's easy.

In essence you don't do vector formats because you don't want to quadruple your workload for something most of your users don't really need. So it's a question of money.

There are lots of vector extensions.

PS: It's also easier to make a vector drawing program than a general viewer for vector graphics. Because, you need only support the features you have implemented. A reader has to implement all features anybody has implemented. Bigger goal = harder task. So a good viewer would need to implement support for svg, pdf (this handles most ai files), eps, dwg...

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