Vector Based Image File Formats & Extensions and their Definitions

When you think about any type of graphic design like quality logo, banner, marketing design, and some other corporate identity designs, you can’t skip vector images. For advertising purposes, you should use images of high quality, distortion-free, and extended at any size.

You should use vector images, because only vector format can serve your purposes. Raster images cannot keep their original quality when zoomed or expanded for larger media, since pixels are made up of dots.

So, when you zoom or expand, all you see is pixilated stuff or dots. However, vector image formats contain vector lines, fills, & patterns which can be zoomed at the maximum sizes without losing image quality and dynamically retain their original look, as they are not limited to pixels.

There are various types of vector formats considering many useful features and usage sectors. Some of them are perfect for graphics or 2D images, some of them are highly portable and web-friendly, and some are convenient for the print industry. All the vector formats produce distortion-free, high-quality, fully extended graphics.

PDF (Portable Document Format)

PDF is a platform-independent image file format. That’s why the file system is not affected by Operating System and you can open the file in Windows, OSX, and even Linux. It can be used for storing many raster formats (which most often is the case), but you can also use this format as a very good vector format.

It can contain both raster and vector files. But, it depends on how you have created the file. If its layers can be flattened, it is a raster image in the file. But, you may find difficulty in flattening a vector file.

AI (Adobe Illustrator Artwork)

Nope, AI here is not Artificial Intelligence; we are talking about Adobe Illustrator file format. AI file acts like PSD that can be reopened and edited as you want. AI file is the native image format of Adobe Illustrator. It is a modified version of the older EPS format.

The tools that can read EPS can also read AI format. This file format is mostly used for creating logos, Illustrations, and print layouts. In short, these AI Formats are the best form of Vector File Formats.

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)

Scalable vector graphics are high-quality image formats. The image of this format can be created by various Adobe Programs including Adobe Illustrator, Flash, After Effects, and more. The image of this format is quite lightweight, scalable, and OS independent.

That’s why this file format is very popular for web resources. It provides much flexibility while editing. These images can be scaled up at large sizes without a bit of distortion. And the best thing is, SVGs are supported by almost all browsers nowadays. However, SVG file size can be higher if it contains many small-sized contents. It is not possible to read an object partly, but the entire object, which may slow you down.

EPS (Encapsulated PostScript)

It is now almost becoming legacy format, as new formats are becoming more popular. However, there are still many software programs in the market that support EPS files. It is the most common vector image format that still has good popularity.

The best use of EPS file is for logos, graphics, and print design. It is mostly supported as an export format. Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW can read and edit EPS files. Ghostview is a reader, and Inkscape is an exporter.

DXF

DXF stands for Drawing eXchange Format. It is also known as ‘tagged data’, which is preceded by an integer- ‘group code’. It is a CAD from Autodesk and used by CAD tools. All programs cannot read DXF files having splines (curves). Anyway, DFX is not so useful now because AutoCAD has become more powerful, with its support for complex object types.

CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile)

It is a free and international standard file format for 2D vector & raster graphics and text. But, it is not supported for web pages. This file format has been succeeded by other graphic art formats.

But, this format is great for product design. That’s why this file format is still used for aviation, engineering, and many other technical tools and applications.

SWF (Small Web Format)

You might have seen Flash on many sites. But, SWF is the file format that helps you to see Flash animations. This is, in fact, an Adobe Flash file format, and it is used for multimedia, Vector graphics, and ActionScript. A SWF file format contains various interactive and functional animations or applets. They occur in a lot of programs using ActionScript. Many programs can generate SWF files.

For instance, Adobe products include Flash, Flash Builder, which is an IDE, Adobe Animate, After Effects, etc. Adobe Illustrator can generate SWF files using ‘Export’ function, but it cannot open or edit those files.

There are some other 3rd-party tools like Multimedia Fusion 2, Captivate, SWiSH Max, etc. that can produce SWF files. SWF can also contain both raster and vector images, but vector SWF files are much smaller than the raster counterpart.

Shapefile

It is a geospatial vector data format for geographic information system (GIS) software. It can spatially elaborate vector features such as anchor points, lines or polylines, polygons, etc.

As a result, this format is useful for creating vector maps and presenting water wells, rivers, lakes, buildings, and other things. This format is a digital vector storage to store location and other information associated with location.

WMF (Windows Metafile)

This file format is designed for Microsoft Windows. It can contain both vector graphics and bitmap components. WMF format acts almost like SVG files. It also can store a list of function calls issued by Graphics Devices Interface (GDI).

WMF is the native vector format for some Microsoft Office applications like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Publisher, etc. From 2015, WMF file format has been available for online reading or download as PDF.

GBR (Gerber Format)

It is an open ASCII vector format for 2D binary images. This industry-standard format is used in PCB fabrication data. The vector-based format is used as a way of transferring printed electronic circuit board information to many devices.

The latest version of GBR format supports polygons, ovals, circles, outlines, arches, etc., and many other shapes that are necessary for creating a circuit board. It also can represent copper layers, legend, solder mask, drill & route data, etc., and its attributes can supply meta-data about the images.

CDR (CorelDRAW)

CorelDraw is a vector graphic editor and creator. The images created by this software get a .cdr file extension. It can create two-dimensional vector graphics which act the same as the vector images created by other tools like Adobe Illustrator. The graphics of this format, like logo, banner, poster, etc.

They are distortion-free high-quality vector images, and they can be used anywhere for personal or commercial purposes. The CRD images contain all necessary qualities of vector graphics, including zooming capability at any size and others.

EVA (Extended Vector Animation)

Introducing another vector graphic file format. It is different from other vector image formats. It is one of the popular formats in Japan and has been produced only for the Japanese versions of Windows. Well! It has never been created for English versions.

This format is comparable to the Macromedia Flash format; nevertheless, EVA file format size is less than that of Flash. Anyway, this format has been declared to discontinue from January 2016.

HVIF (Haiku Vector Icon Format)

It is a vector storage format and created to store various icons, specifically for Haiku Operating System. The vector image of this format renders fast due to its small file size. Its native icon size is 64×64 pixels. It has three basic path types like path with commands, straight lines, and curves.

For creating icons, there are four paths such as horizontal line, vertical line, line, and cubic curve. It contains two colors- plain color and gradient. HVIF consists of three sections- the first one encodes styles, the second one the paths, and the last one shapes. Its average icon size is 500-700 bytes. However, the vector graphics of this format are less in size than any other vector image format.

PGML (Precision Graphics Markup Language)

It is basically an XML-based language that represents vector graphics. This format is for those graphic artists who want their graphics to show precisely the correct fonts, layout, color, and composite. This format was not adopted as a recommendation, though it was a W3C submission as a proposal by many great companies like Adobe Systems. However, it later took part and was improved upon to produce SVG.

PICT

This graphics file format was developed for the original Apple Macintosh. It was a standard Mac metafile format of Mac. It allows the interchange of images from both raster and vector formats. This format was designed to make vector graphics compact. Later, it was replaced by PDF, though a measure was taken to retain the format.

To Wrap Up

Anyway, vector image formats are necessary to have distortion-free and fully scalable graphics. The images of this format can be used anywhere for commercial or personal purposes. Vector images are very useful for logo, banner, real estate ad design, industrial product design, catalog & manual design, corporate ad design, and many more.