GNVQ ICT - Intermediate

Unit 1 - Presenting Information

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Graphics is the term used used to describe any type of picture, chart or presentation.

The four types of graphics which you need to explain in 2.2 are:

Bitmap graphics: Programs on the school network such as Paintbrush, Corel Photopaint, Colour Magic and Painshop Pro can be used to produce bitmap graphics. When you "paint" the colour(s), line(s), shape(s) or text on the screen each screen dot (called a pixel) is changed to a certain colour. The dots become a single picture. You cannot select the shape again to change the size or colour - you must erase it before you can try again. Once a bitmap graphic is completed it is best used at the same size as the original picture as it can easily become distorted and fuzzy due to the dots (pixels) being enlarged too much. Technically this is called pixellation. Other bitmap programs include PC Paintbrush and Fractal Painter (not on network).

If an image is scanned or a photograph is taken using a digital camera the picture is a bitmap image.

A bitmap image file tends to be quite large - taking up a lot of space on the network hard disk (especially colour graphics). Each pixel must be defined as a particular colour – and there are millions of possible colours. On a computer screen there are around 480,000 pixels.

E.g. A bitmap graphic of a diver….

Vector graphics: Programs on the school network such as Draw, Corel Draw, DesignCAD and Chief Architect Pro work in a different way. You draw a series of shapes, lines, text and use fills to colour or shade them. These are stored by the program as formulas defining the different shapes - so that you can select any one or more and change them by stretching or altering the colour, thickness etc. Files tend to be smaller than bitmaps and will stretch to a larger size without losing their quality:

Vector graphics programs usually have "draw" in their name whilst bitmap programs usually have "paint" in theirs. Other vector graphics programs include Serif DrawPlus.

Charts: Charts can be created by using a drawing program or by creating a chart or graph using a spreadsheet program like Excel. The organisation chart below was created using SmartDraw.

Presentation graphics: These are used by businesses to present information in an attractive and professional way to other people (customers for example). Programs like Microsoft PowerPoint can be used to show a series of screens to the viewer. Multimedia features can be added such as video clips, sounds, scanned images etc. The best way to understand how such a program works is to see a demonstration……..

Scanned images: It is possible to transfer photographs or line drawings to the computer using a scanner - hand or flatbed. The graphics produced will always be bitmaps. Beware of scanned images taking up too much hard disk space! 100dpi (dots per inch) should be the highest resolution used. Black and white or greyscale images take up less space than high or true colour images, as each pixel needs to have less data stored.

Web pages: In recent years the Internet has become even more popular and it is rapidly becoming essential for all businesses to become involved. The World Wide Web is a user-friendly way to look at information and images from all around the world - graphics are vitally important in such pages of information. Microsoft Publisher contains a web page wizard to help novices to create high quality web pages with very little or no knowledge of the specialised programming languages used.

NOTE:  When you have finished with this page just close the browser window to return to the assignment.

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