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BITMAP VS VECTOR

What Is A Bitmap?

A BITMAP (somtimes called a raster image, for you geeks) uses a set of BITS¹ or PIXELS² on a FIXED GRID (map) to define an image. Hence, the term bitmap (a map of bits).

¹BITS correspond to pixels in a device memory. The number of bits/pixel determining the number of available colors.
²PIXELS is a blend of the words picture and elements (PIcture X ELementS). It is the smallest element of an image that can be individually processed in a display system.

Below is an BITMAP image created in Adobe Photoshop of a cursor against a gray background at a 72 pixels/square inch:

Here is the same image zoomed in at 800% so that you can see that the image is made of black, white, and gray pixels on a grid:

Because a bitmap uses pixels in which each pixel's color and location on screen has to be registered in a device memory, it has two inherit characteristics:

1. It have a larger file size compared to its vector format counterpart that which will be explained next.
2. It is resolution dependent (Its size is DEPENDENT on its resolution.  So, if you attempt to resize or zoom a bitmap image much larger than its ORIGINAL size, it will become pixelated.).

For example, an image with a resolution of 1024 x 768 has 786,432 pixels (1024x768) in which EACH pixel is stored in a device memory.