Why is there a drawing area

[Sean384895230xgt]

If its a vector graphic then why can't we have an infinite drawing area. 

[Bobby Henderson]

Every vector-based graphics application has a maximum artboard size. The maximums vary from one application to the next, but they all have their limits. It all has to do with math and things like floating point performance in personal computer systems. Choices made by software developers also affect how those limits work. For instance the max art board size in Affinity Designer is going to vary based on the resolution chosen for raster effects. Bezier-based vector objects can scale only so large before things can start getting unstable. You can zoom out only so far and zoom in only so tight as well.

Illustrator used to have a smaller maximum artboard size. IIRC, it was only around 100" X 100," if even that big. That's when Illustrator was based on Postscript technology. Over 20 years ago Illustrator was re-built on PDF technology. The max art board size grew to 227" X 227". Now, with a bit of trickery under the hood, the optional large canvas mode allows art boards as big as 2275" X 2275".

For really big graphics projects, such as a billboard face or even a graphic covering the side of a building, the work has to be done in scale. Service bureaus outputting the grand format print work are going to want files made at a specific scale (such as 1" = 1') anyway.

[Sean384895230xgt]

Thank you for your response!

Why do 3d programs like rhino have infinite art boards with infinite scroling. To me it seems like they do pretty similar things with lines and curves.

[Bobby Henderson]

3D modeling and animation programs define objects mostly with lines and arcs. Surfaces get defined by triangles. It's a different paradigm from Bezier-based 2D vectors for graphic design. I would also bet there is some computational trickery taking place in 3D worlds where the camera view may start out looking at a very small detailed object and then fly out to render a huge expansive view.

Some sign making programs (such as Flexi, CASmate, etc) do a sort of hybrid between the kind of vector objects found in Adobe Illustrator and the kind found in CAD applications. The bigger I've made things in those sign making applications the more unstable they became. I'd be drawing something like a 150' long building elevation and try welding a couple objects together and get an error box with a message like "floating point: square root of negative integer." Or the program might just crash outright. On at least a couple of occasions the app would crash by infinitely undo-ing until every object in the document was deleted.

I think Illustrator is pretty stable working at max art board sizes. I can't say the same for CorelDRAW. Its max artboard size is 1800" X 1800" but the app starts getting into trouble with artboards at or above 1000" in size.