Avector-based graphical user interface is a mostly conceptual type ofgraphical user interface where elements are drawn usingvector information instead ofraster information.
The benefits of a completely vector-based graphical user interface would include:
Cons might include:
Since current3D Graphics are usually vector-based, rather than raster-based, vector-based graphical user interfaces would be suitable for 3D graphical user interfaces. This is because raster-based 3D models take up an enormous amount of memory, as they are stored and displayed usingvoxels. Currentoperating systems such asWindows Vista,Mac OS X, andUNIX-based operating systems (includingLinux) have enjoyed much benefit from using 3D graphical user interfaces. In Windows Vista, for example,Flip3D textures each window to a 3D plane based on vector graphics. Even though the window itself is still raster-based, the plane onto which it is textured is vector-based. As a result, the windows, when rotated, appear flat. In Linux desktops,Compiz Fusion can texture each raster-based workspace onto a 3D vector-based cube. As operating systems evolve, eventually the entire window would be made from 3D vector graphics, so that when rotated, it does not appear "flat". Also, advanced lighting may make 3D graphical user interfaces more aesthetically pleasing.
As most computer monitors become more and morehigh resolution, everything displayed would be smaller. However, if the screen resolution were turned down, everything would appear pixelated. Thus,resolution independence is currently being designed to solve this problem. With raster graphics, all icons need to be extremely high resolution, so as to not appear pixelated on higher resolution screens. This may take up enormous amounts of memory, and hard disk space.[citation needed] If vector graphics were used instead, it could be easily scalable and never lose data nor appear pixelated.
Some graphical user interfaces onoperating systems such asIRIX use vector-based icons. A number of vector-based icon sets are also available for window managers such asGNOME andKDE.
With Windows, applications built usingWindows Presentation Foundation (which is native[citation needed] toWindows Vista, but can be downloaded forWindows XP andServer 2003) are vector-based and scale losslessly based on WindowsDPI settings. However, even without this, it has always been possible to build applications to be DPI-aware.[1] Additionally, in Vista, theDesktop Window Manager detects when an app is not DPI aware and, if the computer is set to a different DPI than normal, uses bitmap scaling to render the window at a larger size.[2]
New version ofAmigaOS 4.1 enhanced in 2008 itsWorkbench with 2D vector graphical interface based onCairo libraries, but pragmatically integrated it with a 3D Compositing Engine based onPorter-Duff Routines.