What is this Thing called "Digital" ?

This section is not of any practical significance. Reading it won't make you a better animator! It is for those of you who are curious to know what the word "digital" actually means. It will hopefully give you a better understanding of the digital "engine" that drives computer graphics - plus a great many other things in our lives.

“Digit” is a word meaning either finger or number. In digital technology, it is the second meaning we are referring to. We use numbering and measurements in the older analogue technology as well, but for the newer digital technology, numbers lie at its very heart.

Let's compare analogue photography with digital photography to see what the major differences are. Suppose we want to photograph a painting:


painting by Lodeze Bollcsz 
"Yellow Splurge on Blue Ground"

Analogue photography is shot on to film that consists of light sensitive grains.
These are of varying sizes and shapes and scattered randomly.
There are of course far more in reality than you see in the diagram below:

film grain, unexposed

When you take a picture, these grains capture the light as it falls on them and they are chemically altered by this:

picture being built up on to film grains    final picture captured on to film 

The chemically altered grains are then processed in a film lab. to produce a finished photograph.

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