Concepts of Computer Graphics/OutputSpace/Vectors

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In the 1970s, Vector based computer graphics was commonly used to display lines, text, and symbols on a CRT. Even though the terminals have fell out of favor, the concepts of vector based displays are inherently present in most computer graphics APIs, e.g. DirectX and post-script. The idea is that one specifies a line segment to be drawn in the output space [screen]. This frees the designer to think about drawing fundamental geometric primatives and turn over the conversion of the vector to the raster image to the functionality of the API. A further extension of this idea is think about 3D parts in space and time. A 3D part is oriented in space and its corresponding 2D projection is calculated as a collection of 2D vectors. This leads to the fundamental idea of CAD/CAM.