Aspect Ratio

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What Does Aspect Ratio Mean?

An aspect ratio is an attribute that describes the relationship between the width and height of an image. Aspect ratio is expressed by the symbolic notation: X:Y. The values of X and Y are not the actual width and height of the image, but describe the relationship between them.

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Techopedia Explains Aspect Ratio

Aspect ratio is generally used to determine the relative horizontal and vertical sizes of computer graphics. For example, if a computer graphic has an aspect ratio of 3:1, this means the width of the graphic is three times of the height of the image. Aspect ratio plays an important role in resizing. During resizing, the aspect ratio must remain same in order to keep the image undistorted. A distorted aspect ratio leads to stretching of the image.

Aspect ratio is also used to define display resolution. HDTV displays generally have an aspect ratio of 16:9.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist
Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.