pixel

A pixel is a basic unit of composition for an image to be displayed on video display devices, printers, and many types of LED and other illuminated display devices.

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TV Short for picture element. Not to be confused with Pixar, one of the most well known early computer graphics companies.

Or Voxel, which is volume element.


A pixel is NOT a unit of measurement. (A unit of measurement is something that has a precisely defined length. But pixels vary in size - and can be any size you want.)

A pixel is an area that's painted a single colour. It's typically needle point-sized - and occurs along with other pixels in a rectangular grid - such as pixels on a computer monitor, graphic image or paper print-out.

Cyan Ogilvie Alas, this is no longer true - Apple decided that pixels are in fact a unit of measurement, and logical pixels can be made up of (non-integer sized!) grids of colour blocks. This whole mess is what it calls "retina" displays, or HiDPI. A 3x pixel density display (such as the iPhone X) has 3 by 3 device pixels for every logical pixel.


Category Glossary

Category Graphics