During a cutting operation, the cutting head fires a continuous laser at the material to slice through it. In order to know where to cut, the laser cutter driver reads all of the vector paths in the designed piece. Once you send your file to a laser cutter, only lines that register as only hairline or vector graphics with the smallest possible line thickness will be cut by the laser. All other graphics, like any images or thicker lines, will be rastered, which I'll explain in a bit. The laser, when supplied with the right settings, will cut all the way through your material, so vector cutting is normally used for cutting out the outline of the part as well as any features or holes that you want to cut out of the material.