[idspispopd]

As with any graphics format, different formats have strong points. One wouldn't use PNG for a portrait and a JPEG for a block of text.

So I look at PDE and notice that its few points and colour contours bear a lot of similarity to a basic vector format. I wonder if a simplified vector format that utilises tracing combined with blurring effects would best PDE.

[theoh]

The "PDE" approach is working by effectively setting some boundary conditions and solving a differential equation. The smoothness of the contours comes from the fact that they are generated implicity by a relativity simple set of parameters. A typical vector format would instead record each contour explicitly, which, even after smoothing, is a lot of data.

The big idea is to describe the image intensities as a continuous surface which can be approximated in 3+ dimensions, not a patchwork of vector areas.

[CyberDildonics]

For something that already looks like it should be drawn with vectors, maybe. One thing to remember is that if an image is made up of points, those points can be put in order and encoded as a one number pixel offset from the previous point.

For a vector to encode a sky gradient you would have to have a shape and a specific falloff that blends into another shape and falloff to create the gradient.