• JoeyJoeJoeJr@lemmy.ml
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    15 hours ago

    Raster images do not need to be rendered - see Rendering:

    Rendering is the process of generating a photorealistic or non-photorealistic image from input data such as 3D models…Today, to “render” commonly means to generate an image or video from a precise description (often created by an artist) using a computer program.

    Note that “render” is a fairly generic term, and it is sometimes used like “render to the screen,” to just mean to display something. Rasterisation may be a better term to use here, since it only applies to vector graphics, and is the part of the process I am referring to.

    In any case, except for possibly reading fewer bytes from disk, the vector case includes all the same compute and memory cost as the raster image - it just has added overhead to compute the bitmap. On modern hardware, this doesn’t take terribly long, but it does mean we’re using more compute just to launch/load things.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
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      15 hours ago

      I meant render in a sense of displaying the encoded data as pixels on the screen. I understand how different kinds of rendering work. My point is that reading and displaying image data isn’t free. It can be cheaper than drawing vectors, but there is still a cost and it grows with the size of the image. Images also end up eating up more memory as a rule.