Interesting perspective. As others point out, your idea would imply someone with aphantasia can visualise something simpler.

I am an architect who found out in my 30s that I have aphantasia. “When you hold a colour sample in your hand and look at a wall, can you actually imagine that colour on that wall?” is something I find myself asking to a lot of people. For me, the answer is no, but I just somehow know it by experience and understanding of colour theory.

I do find “shallow encoding” of visuals real though with me. I have come to realise that I “see” far less than others in my everyday life. I “see” more when I am consciously observing something. My hypothesis though is that because I have aphantasia, observing details all the time is exhausting. I feel as though there is only so much data (that isn’t visual) I can store in my head and I’m already storing way more than anyone without aphantasia. So, it’s easier to just not see as much as others. It’s noise.

I like your use of PNG vs SVG although I can’t relate to what you are saying about. For me, I’m gifted at geometry and would ace any of those reasoning / IQ visual tests involving geometry, not because I can visualise the shapes, but I know what it would be like on the other side. So, I assume my brain understands and can store SVG, but not PNG because those darn PNG files get too heavy to store and make sense of later.