Rasterowym

Rasterowym is the instrumental singular form of the Polish adjective rasterowy, used to describe something related to a raster, a grid-based representation employed in images and spatial data. In technical Polish, related terms include obraz rasterowy (raster image), dane rastrowe (raster data), and przetwarzanie rastrowe (raster processing). The instrumental form appears in phrases such as formatem rastrowym or rozdzielczość rastrową, depending on grammar and context.

A raster represents a picture or dataset as a grid of pixels. Each cell stores a value, such as color or elevation. Resolution, defined as the number of cells per unit area, determines detail; color depth and compression influence quality and file size. Raster images are commonly stored in formats such as JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, and TIFF, or in raw sensor formats. Rasterization is the process of converting vector graphics or text into a raster image, enabling display on screens and printing.

Compared with vector graphics, raster images rely on fixed grids and can lose quality when scaled, a problem known as pixelation. Vectors encode shapes mathematically, allowing scalable resolution. In geographic information systems, raster data represent continuous phenomena like elevation, temperature, or land cover, using cells with numerical values.

The term rasterowym appears when describing topics related to rasters in computing, imaging, and GIS, reflecting the broader raster–vector distinction that underpins much of digital media and cartography.