Types of graphics software

■ Image manipulation programslet you edit yourfavourite images. For example, you can scan a picture into your PC or transfer a photo from your camera and then add different effects, or filters.

The original photo

has been processed

with adobe Photoshop

using effects filters

■ Painting and drawing programs,also called illustration packages,offer facilities for freehand drawing, with a wide choice of pens and brushes, colours and patterns. One example is Windows Paint.

■ Business graphics programs,also called presentation software,let you create pie charts, bar charts and line graphs of all kinds for slide shows and reports. You can import data from a database or spreadsheet to generate the graphs.

■ Computer-aided design (CAD)is used by engineers and architects to design everything from cars and planes to buildings and furniture. First they make a wireframe,a drawing with edges and contour lines. Then if they want to colour the objects and add texture, they create a surface for the object; this is called “filling the surface”. Finally, the design is renderedto make the object look realistic. Renderingis a process that adds realism to graphics by using shading, light sources and reflections.

■ Desktop publishing (DTP)is based around a page layout program, which lets you import text from a word processor, clip-art(ready-made pictures) from graphics packages, and images from scanners or cameras, and arrange them all on a page. It is used to design and publish books, newspapers, posters, advertisements, etc.

■ Digital art,or computer art,is done with applets that use mathematical formulae to create beautiful bright shapes called fractals. A fractalis a geometrical figure with special properties, e.g. the Koch snowflake or the Mandelbrot set. Fractals can also be used to model real objects like clouds, coastlines or landscapes.

■ Computer animationuses graphics programs (e.g. digital cartooning systems) to create or edit moving pictures. Each image in a sequence of images is called a “frame”.

■ Geographic information systems (GIS)allow cartographers to create detailed maps.