Data Display (Basics)

Malz++Kassner CAD6 is a vector oriented technical drawing and illustration system. The term "vector oriented" refers to a particular method of displaying data and objects which, because of its high precision and independence from the screen and output resolution is always used for CAD systems and illustration applications.

A line in Malz++Kassner CAD6 is described by the coordinates of its starting and ending points. A 2D coordinate consists of X and Y values:

Figure 1: Mathematical display of a line

A vector is uniquely defined by its length and direction. These details can be used to give each point within a layer a unique description.

Figure 2: Mathematical display of a rectangle

A rectangle is described by the coordinates of two diametrically opposite corner points (figure 2). This shows one of the important characteristics of vector graphics: the number and complexity of the objects in a drawing and not their size is responsible for the file size.

For output on your screen or printer, the object data is recalculated by the driver according to the relevant resolution.

Figure 3: Recalculation to the output resolution

This procedure may seem unnecessarily complicated, but it has the great advantage of only carrying out the data conversion immediately before output. The points can be calculated with much greater precision within the computer than they can be displayed or printed with. This ensures that each graphic can be handled with the maximum precision (depending on the resolution of the output device).

A further advantage of this method is that objects can be modified without problems. In a vector graphic for example it is easy to scale a circle by changing the radius. In a bitmap graphic on the other hand, the "old" circle has to be deleted and a new one has to be drawn. Or you have to scale the area that contains the circle. But bitmap scaling always yields poor results, e.g. jagged outlines etc.