The answer is, "a little of each." Bitmaps use too much overhead, but they
offer some good and easy user interface. Visual objects individually also
use quite a bit of overhead (believe it or not) and are only really useful if
you have many of them.
The solution we worked out uses the best of all worlds: The drawings act
like bitmaps but take up minimal space because they are managed by one
administrative-type object called the Ink object. Thus, you can draw and
erase freehand; select areas; and cut, copy, and paste the selections.
Meanwhile, all the data is stored as ink data, which is much more compact
than bitmap data.
It's really quite slick.
Pete.Subj: Z-7000