Rasterized

Rasterized refers to the process of converting vector, geometric, or mathematical representations of images into a raster image, which is a fixed grid of pixels or dots. In this form, shapes, outlines, text, and textures are sampled and mapped to a bitmap that can be displayed on a screen or stored as an image. Rasterization is a fundamental step in many computer graphics workflows.

In 2D graphics, rasterization determines which pixels are covered by each primitive, such as lines, curves, or filled shapes. In typography, font outlines are rasterized to bitmap glyphs so text can be rendered at a given size and resolution. In 3D graphics, rasterization occurs in the graphics pipeline after vertex processing and primitive assembly: triangles are converted into fragments, which are then shaded, textured, and depth-tested to produce the final image.

Key considerations of rasterized images include resolution and quality. The output quality depends on the raster grid size; scaling a raster image can cause jagged edges or blurring unless anti-aliasing is applied. Anti-aliasing techniques, such as supersampling, multisampling, grayscale, and subpixel rendering, mitigate these artifacts. Hardware acceleration via GPUs enables fast rasterization for real-time rendering, while software rasterizers and offline renderers provide alternatives with different performance and quality characteristics.

Rasterization is contrasted with vector rendering and ray tracing. Vector graphics remain resolution-independent until rasterized, at which point they become pixel-based. Understanding rasterized content is essential for applications ranging from game graphics and GUI rendering to font display and image processing.