What's a Vector?

[budagonebuggy]

I've had SCAL for a few months now and love it but I've only been getting .svg's and .scut's from other people. I have no idea where to begin with Inkscape. What is a vector? Is it easy to work with? Are there other files you can download to play with? I'm so confused!

[talanhart]

Vectors are what you want when it comes to creating artwork for SCAL. If you draw a line in Ink and convert it to a path, it becomes vector artwork and it will cut with SCAL. If you draw a line and save that file as a JPG or a BMP, the line isn't a vector anymore, it has been converted to Raster artwork. If you were to open the file in Ink, you would be able to trace the file, thus creating vectors again. The SVG files that are here are already vectors and ready to be cut. That's because somebody created the vector artworks or traced a file and created vectors. That's why, if you go to a website and they have free vector artwork all you have to do is download the file, open it Ink and convert it to paths and then save it as an SVG and then cut.

[budagonebuggy]

thank you! i get it now... lol.