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How pictures can be represented in the form of binary digits

Schoolchildren work together in the school hall to demonstrate how images may be represented as a bitmap. Programmers often wish to include graphics in their work. One approach to this is the bitmap, in which the picture is represented as a rectangular grid with the colour of each small part of the picture (pixel) given a number.

For a black and white picture, a 1-bit binary code, using 1 for black and 0 for white, is sufficient. A higher resolution image can be produced by using more, smaller pixels. With more than 1-bit for a pixel, more colours can be represented: modern image formats store 24 bits per pixel, allowing around 16 million possible colour values.

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5 minutes

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