About
Why this site exists
How a picture is made out of arithmetic: the systems, the algorithms and the instruments behind digital image-making.
At a glance
- 21 entries
- Across 5 sections: Raster, Drawing, Curves, Colour, Instruments.
- One rule
- Every entry is one problem the grid created and somebody solved.
- Written in English
- Technical terms are glossed the first time they appear.
A picture on a screen is arithmetic with a deadline. Somebody had to decide which pixels a diagonal line lands on, how a smooth curve can be stated in four points, what to do with a colour a press cannot print, and how a hand holding a stylus becomes a stream of coordinates. Those decisions were made in laboratories, drawing offices and car factories, mostly between 1960 and 1985, and almost all of them are still running underneath the tools in use today.
RazorArt is a register of those decisions. Each entry takes one problem the grid created, says who solved it and how, and shows the instrument or the drawing that makes the answer legible. The sections group them by the kind of problem: the grid itself, interactive drawing, curves, colour, and the hardware between a hand and a picture.
The site is deliberately plain: warm paper, one accent, and a press colour bar under the masthead, because the subject is how colour and geometry survive being turned into numbers.
Start here