What Does preview Mean
Vista is a concept with different uses. In this case, we are interested in mentioning its meaning as the result of seeing (the perception of objects through the eyes) and as the arrangement of something according to the sense of vision. Preliminary , on the other hand, is that which precedes an action or that functions as a preamble to something.
The idea of preview or preview is used in the field of computing to name the possibility of viewing a document on the screen of a computer (computer) before confirming a certain action . Generally, this option is used when the user wants to print the document and wants to see how the information would look on the paper.
Suppose a man who is looking for a job wants to submit his resume to several companies. For this, he uses a word processor on his PC , details his work experience and includes a photograph of his face. Before you print multiple copies of your document to put on paper and go out to distribute it, use the preview option to see how different elements of your document (text, photo, etc.) will look on the page. If the result is satisfactory, you can proceed to print the resume . On the other hand, if you do not like the result, you have the possibility to modify the document before putting it on paper.
Preview can also be used in graphic editors to analyze effects or alterations applied to an image before committing and saving changes.
In short, we can say that the preview helps us save time and energy , which is why it is always associated with a previous step to a relatively complex process. Returning to the example of word processors, printing a document can take several minutes, or even more than an hour, depending on the length, and this entails the consumption of sheets of paper, ink cartridges and electrical energy, in addition to the fact that occupy the printer during all that time ; For this reason, it is very useful to resort to the preview option to avoid a great waste of resources.
Although the preview is very common in the field of word processors and applications to visualize documents of various types, it is also present in more specific programs, such as those used for three-dimensional design. Regardless of the name that developers give to each function, we can say that 3D professionals have several ways to visualize their creations before taking the final step , the one that consumes the most time: rendering.
To define the concept of rendering in a few words, let's say that it is a process by which the final image is obtained, applying to the scene all the effects that the designer has included, such as lighting and shading, reflections, particle simulation. , collisions and hair, among many others.
Depending on the characteristics of the computer, rendering just one image can take from a few seconds to hours; If we are talking about a film, then the number of images increases considerably, since it is normal to produce 24 frames per second. Taking all this into account , it is more than convenient to preview a frame before proceeding to render it, since noticing an anomaly in this step can save us hours or days of work .
It should be noted that the preview in a 3d design program , and even in a 2d one , does not show such a faithful representation of the final result, unlike what happens when we visualize a text document before printing it; With this step we save the complex calculations that would give rise to the processed image, so we see an approximation of it .