Converting photographic images
Vectorised images describe every aspect of their shape in terms of a mathematical formula. Historically, vectorised images were frequently used because they required much less memory than raster images. Vectorised images are commonly used in computer assisted design, in many rendered images for movie special effects, and increasingly for computer animation. CUSTODIEV (Creative use of style & technology for ordering the design and interactive elaboration of the vision) has created a codec which can convert a raster image into vector form. Vector form is beneficial because the image can be manipulated more easily and more precisely than with raster images without risking the loss of sampling levels. Raster images might be reduced to a resolution-independent form in three ways. One of them is as a 3D surface designed as a locally continuous estimation to the pixel values. Another is as open overlaid brush-strokes which specify a combination of pixel values. Finally it can be done as a non-overlapping set of isochromic contours which separate the image space into areas below or above a colour primary value level set. A range of new applications are possible which could give way to further exploitation in the future.
