Vector Characters

There are basically two ways of drawing characters on a computer, pixel-based and vector-based.

Pixel-based is what most computers use. The characters are stored in a binary bit pattern corresponding to On and Off pixels. The left character in the diagram is a pixel-based character. A pixel-based system is the easiest system to use with a raster-scan display. A raster-scan display scans the screen from left to right, from top to bottom. As it comes across a pixel it checks with the computer to see if that pixel is on or off.