Scaling - simply explained

The term scaling is often used in IT terminology. You can find out what it is used for and what it means in this practical tip.

Scaling images - what's behind them?

• In general, "scaling" means adapting to changing scales. In mathematics, for example, it means a change in a value shown on a scale.
• The term is just as common in connection with images and graphics. Here he describes the change in size of the image. Depending on whether you use a pixel or vector graphic, this can affect the quality of the image.
• If you want to scale a pixel graphic, foreign pixel elements must be inserted into the image. The image is therefore blurred. You can think of it like this: When you enlarge an image, the pixels of the image are pulled apart. The free space between the original pixels must be filled. Therefore, foreign pixels must be inserted that should fit as well as possible. The image becomes blurred because the pixels are only artificially generated and not real.
• It looks different with a vector graphic: You can scale it as you like. As long as the same algorithms are used, there is no loss of quality.
• You can find out how this works in practice in the next article - there we will show you how to scale images in GIMP.

Scalability in computer science - you need to know that

In IT, "scalable" means that processes grow or contract with the tasks assigned.

• An example of this would be a database that works just as well and quickly with a few requests as with many requests. If you come across cloud computing offerings, the term "scalability" will play a big role and means that you can get more resources when they are needed. The system adapts to the tasks involved.
• There are two ways of scaling: scale up or scale out. With scale-up scaling, more resources are simply added if necessary or in cloud computing the virtual machine is enlarged. Scale out, on the other hand, means that additional instances are added in order to process the increasing load with constant performance. In practice, the load is simply distributed to several computers or servers in order to maintain the performance of the system.

In the next article, you will learn how to convert a JPG image to a vector graphic.