Graphics mode

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As a graphics mode ( English "all points addressable" all points addressable , APA) refers to a mode of graphics cards , wherein the on the monitor image displayed of a rectangle of individual pixels is constructed. The opposite is the text mode .

Operation in graphics mode is standard on modern computer systems these days and is a basis for graphical user interfaces .

Components of a graphics mode

Graphics modes based on graphics standards differ in the following properties:

  • An essential criterion is the image resolution , the number of pixels that are available in the horizontal and vertical direction. The more pixels are available, the higher the resolution an image can be displayed.
  • Another criterion is color depth , i.e. the amount of memory that is available for describing an individual pixel. It is measured in bits . In the beginning, graphics hardware only offered 1 bit per pixel for displaying binary images . Nowadays 24 bits per pixel are mostly used, with 8 bits each for each of the three components red, green and blue in the RGB color space . Special hardware, for example in the medical field, sometimes uses greater color depths than 8 bits per component, for example to display X-ray images as 16-bit grayscale images.
  • Finally, there are different ways of interpreting pixel information of a certain color depth. Important representatives are true color (Engl. True color , each pixel is described in a specific color space component-wise), binary images (each pixel is black or white) and range images (each pixel is an index into an array , a list of currently graphics mode available standing color values).

See also