Computer Graphics

Lecture -02
Frame Buffer
 The image being displayed is stored in
a dedicated system memory area that is
often referred to as Frame Buffer or
Refresh Buffer.
 The frequency at which content of
frame buffer is sent to display monitor
is called Refreshing rate ( 60 Hz)
Resolution of Image
 Resolution is number of pixels per unit
length ( eg. Inch) in the horizontal and
vertical direction.
 Ex: A 3x2 inch image at a resolution of
300 pixels per inch will have a total of
540,000 pixels.
Image Size
 Image Size is given as total number of
pixels in horizontal times the total
number in vertical direction
 Eg. In the above case it is 900 x 600 is
the Image Size.
Aspect Ratio
 The ratio of images’s width to its height
, measured in unit length or number of
pixels is called aspect ratio
 Eg. 2x2 inch image and 512x512 image
will have aspect ratio of 1
 Or 6 x 41/2 inch image and 1024x768
have an aspect ratio of 4/3
Colors – Direct coding
 3 bits for each pixel with one bit for
each primary color.
 A widely used standard is 24 bits or 3
bytes with one byte for each primary
color to have 256 different intensity
levels corresponding to binary values
from 00000000 to 11111111
 Thus a pixel can take a color from
256x256x256 or 16.7 million possible
choices
Problems-Try this
 In a raster display, if we use, RGB
values with 2 bits per primary color,
how many possible colors do we have
for each pixel????
 Ans : 64 ….how ?
Try this
 If a system(256x256 pixel display) has
5 bit planes in its frame buffer and the
LUT is 8 bits wide:
 Find the memory requirements for

i) Frame buffer
ii) LUT
Thumb Rule
 If a raster display system has color depth of b
bits (so that there are b bitplanes in its frame
buffer) and that each LUT entry is w bits
wide, then the system can display 2w colors
any 2b at one time
 LUT memory = 2b words of w bits each
 Frame buffer memory = resolution of display
* bpp of frame buffer
Sol
 LUT memory = 25 x 8 = 32x8= 256
bits = 32 bytes
 Frame buffer memory = resolution of
display * bpp of frame buffer =
256x256x 5 = 40,960 bytes
Try this
 There are 2 systems for a display of
1024x1280
 i. 24 bpp frame buffer and no LUT
 ii 8 bpp frame buffer with 24bits wide
LUT
 Which is better ??? And why ???
Sol:
 i. 4.853 MB for frame buffer
 ii 1 MB for frame buffer with LUT =
768 BYTES of memory
 ii is better than i as it is less expensive
Try this
 If we use 2 byte pixel values in a 24-bit
LUT , how many bytes the LUT occupy
?
Sol
 216 x 24 / 8 = 196,608
Try this
 If we want to cut a 512x512 sub-image
out from the center of an 800x600
image, what are the co-ordinates of the
pixel in the large image that is at the
lower left corner of the small image ?
Sol
 [(800-512)/2, (600-512)/2] = (144,44)
Display Technologies
 Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs)
 Most common display device today
 Evacuated glass bottle
 Extremely high voltage
 Heating element (filament)
 Electrons pulled towards
anode focusing cylinder
 Vertical and horizontal deflection plates
 Beam strikes phosphor coating on front of
tube
Electron Gun
 Contains a filament that, when heated, emits
a stream of electrons
 Electrons are focused with an electromagnet
into a sharp beam and directed to a specific
point of the face of the picture tube
 The front surface of the picture tube is
coated with small phospher dots
 When the beam hits a phospher dot it glows
with a brightness proportional to the strength
of the beam and how often it is excited by
the beam
Display Technologies: CRTs
 Vector Displays
 Anybody remember Battlezone? Tempest?
Display Technologies: CRTs
 Vector Displays
 Early computer displays: basically an
oscilloscope
 Control X,Y with vertical/horizontal plate
voltage
 Often used intensity as Z
 Name two disadvantages
Just does wireframe
Complex scenes  visible flicker
Display Technologies: CRTs
 Raster Displays
 Raster: A rectangular array of points or
dots
 Pixel: One dot or picture element of the
raster
 Scan line: A row of pixels
Display Technologies: CRTs
 Raster Displays
 Black and white television: an oscilloscope
with a fixed scan pattern: left to right, top
to bottom
 To paint the screen, computer needs to
synchronize with the scanning pattern of
raster
 Solution: special memory to buffer image with
scan-out synchronous to the raster. We call
this the framebuffer.
Display Technologies: CRTs
 Phosphors
 Fluorescence: Light emitted while the
phosphor is being struck by electrons
 Phosphorescence: Light emitted once the
electron beam is removed
 Persistence: The time from the removal of
the excitation to the moment when
phosphorescence has decayed to 10% of
the initial light output OR duration of
phosphorescence.
Display Technologies: CRTs
 Raster Displays
 Frame must be “refreshed” to draw new
images
 As new pixels are struck by electron beam,
others are decaying
 Electron beam must hit all pixels
frequently to eliminate flicker
 Critical fusion frequency
 Typically 60 times/sec
 Varies with intensity, individuals, phospher
persistence, lighting...
Display Technologies: CRTs
 Raster Displays
 Interlaced Scanning
 Assume can only scan 30 times / second
 To reduce flicker, divide frame into two
“fields” of odd and even lines
1/30 Sec 1/30 Sec
1/60 Sec 1/60 Sec 1/60 Sec 1/60 Sec
Field 1 Field 2 Field 1 Field 2
Frame Frame
Display Technologies: CRTs
 Raster Displays
 Scanning (left to right, top to bottom)
 Vertical Sync Pulse: Signals the start of the
next field
 Vertical Retrace: Time needed to get from the
bottom of the current field to the top of the
next field
 Horizontal Sync Pulse: Signals the start of the
new scan line
 Horizontal Retrace: The time needed to get
from the end of the current scan line to the
start of the next scan line
Display Technology: Color
CRTs
 Color CRTs are much more complicated
 Requires manufacturing very precise
geometry
 Uses a pattern of color phosphors on the
screen:

Delta electron gun arrangement In-line electron gun arrangement

Why red, green, and blue phosphors?

Display Technology: Color
CRTs
 Color CRTs have
 Three electron guns
 A metal shadow mask to differentiate the
beams
Display Technology: Raster
 Raster CRT pros:
 Allows solids, not just wireframes
 Leverages low-cost CRT technology (i.e., TVs)
 Bright! Display emits light
 Cons:
 Requires screen-size memory array
 Discreet sampling (pixels)
 Practical limit on size (call it 40 inches)
 Bulky
 Finicky (convergence, warp, etc)
Display Technology: LCDs
 Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs)
 LCDs: organic molecules, naturally in
crystalline state, that liquefy when excited
by heat or E field
 Crystalline state twists polarized light 90º.
Display Technology: LCDs
 Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs)
 LCDs: organic molecules, naturally in
crystalline state, that liquefy when excited
by heat or E field
 Crystalline state twists polarized light 90º
  Transmissive & reflective LCDs:
LCDs  LCDs act as light valves, not light emitters,
and thus rely on an external light source.
 Laptop screen: backlit, transmissive
display
 Palm Pilot/Game Boy: reflective display
 Plasma Panels
 Plasma display panels
 Similar in principle to
fluorescent light tubes
 Small gas-filled capsules
are excited by electric field,
emits UV light
 UV excites phosphor
 Phosphor relaxes, emits
some other color
Display Technology
 Plasma Display Panel Pros
 Large viewing angle
 Good for large-format displays
 Fairly bright
 Cons
 Expensive
 Large pixels (~1 mm versus ~0.2 mm)
 Phosphors gradually deplete
 Less bright than CRTs, using more power