The concept of bitmap is used to designate that image that is just presented in a bitmap, consisting of a rectangular-shaped structure made up of pixels or colored dots, and that can be viewed on a monitor, on a piece of paper, or on any other device that allows the representation of images.
It should be noted that the bitmap can also be called matrix image, bitmap and raster image, being the last two common denominations in the English language.
Bitmap image type is determined by both its height, pixel width, and color depth. Such issues are those that end up establishing the number of different colors that can be stored at each point and therefore will also determine the color quality of the image.
It is a type of format that is extremely widespread throughout the world and is the one most used when it comes to taking digital photos and video recordings. In order to obtain the images, devices that support the analog to digital conversion like scanners and digital cameras.
Each color point that is represented in the image must have the corresponding color information, which may or may not be transparent. Transparency can be achieved by combining the primary colors, red, yellow and blue.
The bitmap image cannot change its dimension without such action directly threatening the loss of quality, if this happens, the image quality resentment will be important. The aforementioned is the main disadvantage that this type of image implies compared to the other alternative: the vector graphics, which can adapt the resolution to that of the display device in question. It is worth mentioning that when you try to increase the size of the image, it is when the quality suffers the most.
For this reason, the type of bitmap is recommended for taking photos or recording videos, on the other hand, vector graphics are ideal for representing geometric figures.
