OK, forgive the ambitious headline, but researchers at the University of Bath released their new vector-based video codec at this week’s CVMP 9th European Conference on Visual Media Production held at Vue Cinema in Leicester Square, London.

The bold claim is that the newly-developed codec could make pixels obsolete within five years, according to its creators.

Fig 1- New Vector Based video codec may obsolete pixels as the privileged digital format for video. Image Courtesy of Bath University.

Unlike traditional bitmap graphics, which are made up of an array of pixels, vector graphics consist of lines, curves and shapes that are based on geometric formulas. Not only do they take up far less memory than bitmaps, but sections of them can also be enlarged without any loss of resolution.

Such a loss-less digital format could be especially valuable for future-proofing the display of vector-based video (let’s call them Vexels). As LED/LCD screens get increasingly larger and higher resolution, the video resolution could also scale lossless-ly.

This is because the codec apparently has some clever means of procedurally applying bit-maps to the geometry surface, and refactoring the texture as the surface size increases.  Details are scarce, but to learn more check out the links below.

Read More:   Is the Pixel About to Die?  – University of Bath