Computer Graphics

Hardware and Software

Thaseen Bhashith
Dept of CSE
JNNCE
Module 1
Computer Graphics
• Art of drawing pictures ,lines, charts etc. using computers with the
help of programming.
• Creation & Manipulation of pictures using computer.
• Display the images on screens or hardcopy devices
• Father of Computer Graphics – Ivan Sutherland
Applications of Computer Graphics

• Computer graphs and charts

• Computer Aided Design (CAD)
• Presentation Graphics
• Computer Art
• Entertainment (animation, games, …)
• Education & Training
• Data Visualization (scientific & business)
• Image Processing
• Graphical User Interfaces
Fundamentals

• Computer screen contains 1000’s of little dots called pixels

(picture element)
• Pixel is the fundamental building block of picture.
• To display a picture
Computer be able to control the color of each pixels
Need to know how to organize the pixels into meaningful
shapes and image.
Types of Computer Graphics
• Non Interactive Computer Graphics
Passive computer graphics
The observer has no control over the image.
Ex: Shown on TV and other forms of computer art

• Interactive Computer Graphics

Two way communication between computer and user.
Observer is given some control over the image by providing him with an
input device
Ex: The video game controller of the ping pong game.
Types of Graphic Devices
• Video Display Devices
• Input Devices
• Hard Copy Devices
Video Display Devices
• Video monitor - Primary output device in a graphics
system
• The Operation of most video monitors is based on
Cathode-ray tube (CRT)

Refresh CRT
 Basic Raster Scan Graphics
 Random Scan Displays
 Refresh CRT

• Invented by Karl Ferdinand Braun (1897)

• Beam of electrons directed from cathode to phosphor-coated
screen
• Directed by magnetic focusing and deflection coils (anodes) in
vacuum filled tube
• Refresh rate (50-60 Hz / 72-76 Hz) to avoid flicker
Refresh CRT
• A beam of electrons, emitted by an electron gun passes through
focusing and deflection systems that direct the beam toward
specified position on the phosphor-coated screen.
• The phosphor then emits a small spot of light at each position
contacted by the electron beam.
• The light emitted by the phosphor fades very rapidly
• Some method is needed for maintaining the screen picture.
• One way to keep the phosphor glowing is to redraw the picture
repeatedly by quickly directing the electron beam back over the
same points
•This type of display is called a refresh CRT
 Refresh CRT cntd..
• The primary components of an electron gun in a CRT are:
• Heated Metal Cathode
• Control Grid
• Heat is supplied to the cathode by directing a current through a coil of wire
called FILAMENT inside the cylindrical cathode structure.
• This cause electron to be “boiled off” the hot cathode surface, and accelerated
towards the phosphor coated screen.
• Control grid- control the intensity of electron beam by setting the
voltage level.
• Amount of light emitted by phosphor depends on the no. of electron striking
the screen.
• Focusing system - force the electron beam to converge into small spot.

• Accelerating Anode - generate accelerating voltage.

• Deflection of the electron beam controlled either with electric field or magnetic
field.
 Raster scan Displays
Interlacing scan lines on a raster scan

• First, all points on the even-

numbered (solid) scan lines are
displayed;
• Then all points along the odd-
numbered (dashed) lines are
displayed.
• Interlacing of the scan lines in this
way allows to see the entire screen
displayed in one-half time it would
have taken to sweep across all the
lines at once from top to bottom.
• Electron beam is swept across the screen , one row at a time from top
to bottom
• As the electron beam moves across each row , the beam intensity is
turned on & off to create a pattern of illuminated spots
• Picture definition is stored a memory area called Frame/Refresh buffer
• Memory area holds the set of intensity values for all screen points
• Stored intensity values are retired from buffer & painted on the screen
one row at a time
• Each screen point is called pixel(picture element)
Persistence
• It is defined as the time it takes the emitted light from the screen to
decay to one-tenth of its original intensity
• Lower persistence phosphors requires higher refresh rates to maintain a
picture on the screen without flicker
• Intensity
 Proportional to the number of electrons repelled in beam per second .
• Resolution
 Maximum number of points that can be displayed without overlap
• Aspect Ratio
 Ratio of vertical points to horizontal points necessary to produce equal-
length lines in both directions on the screen
• Bit Planes
The number of bits per pixel in a frame buffer is referred to as either the
depth of the buffer area or the number of bit planes.
• Bit map and Pixmap
A frame buffer with one bit per pixel is called a Bitmap and a frame buffer
with multiple bits per pixel is a Pixmap
Random-Scan /Vector Display/Stroke-
Writing/Calligraphic Displays
• Electron beam is directed only to the parts of the screen where a
picture is to be drawn.
• Produce smooth line drawings, but it cannot display realistic shaded
scenes.
• Picture definition – set of line drawing commands in an area of memory
called refresh display file(display list/ display program/ refresh buffer)
• Generally have higher resolution than raster systems
• Designed for architectural drawings and engg. Layouts.
Random-Scan Display
Color CRT Monitors
• Displays color pictures by using a combination of phosphors that emit
different colored light.
• Combining the emitted light from the different phosphors , a range of
colors can be generated
• Two basic technique for producing color displays with CRT
Beam Penetration Method
Shadow-mask Method
 Beam Penetration Method
• The screen is coated with the layers of different colored phosphors.
• It uses only two phosphor layers: red and green.
• The emitted color depends on how far the electron beam penetrates into the
phosphor layers. This approach, called the beam-penetration method.
• A beam of slow electrons excites only the outer red layer, but a beam of very fast
electrons penetrates the red layer and excites the inner green layer.
• At intermediate beam speeds, combinations of red and green light are emitted to
show two additional colors: orange and yellow.
• The speed of the electrons, and the screen color is controlled by the beam
acceleration voltage.
Disadvantages: Beam penetration has been an inexpensive way to produce color, but
only a limited number of colors are possible, and picture quality is not as good as with
other methods.
Shadow Mask Method
• Commonly used in raster-scan systems
• Produce much wider range of colors
• 3 electron gun are used, one for each color dot
• One phosphor dot emits a red light, another emits green light,
another blue light
• Shadow mask grid lies just behind the phosphor coated screen.
Delta-delta Shadow mask method
Shadow Mask Method cntd..

Delta-delta shadow mask method commonly used in color CRT Systems

• Three electron beams are deflected & focused as a group onto the
shadow mask , which contains a series of holes aligned with the
phosphor-dot pattern
• When the three beam pass through a hole in the shadow mask ,they
activate a dot triangle, which appears on a small color spot on the
screen
Inline arrangement : is an another arrangement for 3 electron gun, &
the corresponding red-green-blue color dots on the screen, are
aligned along one scan line instead in a triangular pattern
• Used in higher resolution CRT’s
Flat-Panel Displays
• Refers to a class of video devices that have reduced volume, weight &
power requirements
• Thinner than CRT’s
• Hang them on walls or wear them on our wrists
• Current uses
 Small TV monitor, calculators, pocket video game, laptop computers,
viewing of movies on airlines etc
• Two categories
 Emissive Displays: Plasma panels, Thin-film electroluminescent displays,
LED
Non-Emissive Displays: Liquid crystal display
 Plasma panels: Emissive Display
• Also called gas-discharge displays
• Constructed by filling the region between two glass plates with a mixture of
gases that usually includes neon.
• Series of vertical conducting ribbons is placed on one glass panel and a set of
horizontal ribbons is built into the other glass panel
• Firing voltages applied to a pair of horizontal and vertical conductors
• Cause the gas at intersection of the two conductors to break down into a
glowing plasma of electrons and ions.
• Picture definition is stored in a refresh buffer
• Firing voltages are applied to refresh the pixel positions 60 times per second.
• Alternating-current methods are used to provide faster application of the firing
voltages that makes the brighter displays.
• Emitters : Convert electrical energy into light
EX:- Plasma panels, thin-film electroluminescent displays, LED etc
Disadvantage of Plasma Panel
• Strictly monochromatic devices
• Now systems have been developed that are now capable of displaying
color and grayscale.
Thin-film electroluminescent displays: Emissive
Display
• Similar in construction to a plasma panel
• Region between the glass plates is filled with a
phosphor, such as zinc sulphide doped with
manganese, instead of a gas
• When a sufficiently high voltage is applied to a
pair of crossing electrodes,
Phosphor becomes a conductor in the area of
the intersection of the two electrodes.
 Electrical energy is then absorbed by the
manganese atoms which then release the
energy as a spot of light in a plasma panel.
• Require more power than plasma panels
• Good color and gray scale displays are hard to
achieve.
Light-Emitting Diode (LED): Emissive Display
• A matrix of diodes are arranged to form the pixel positions in the
display
• Picture definition is stored in a refresh buffer.
• As in scan-line refreshing of a CRT, information is read from the
refresh buffer
• Converted to voltage levels that are applied to the diodes to produce
the light patterns in the display.
Non- Emissive Displays
• Use optical effects to convert sunlight or light from some other sources into
graphics pattern

Ex:- Liquid crystal displays

• Commonly used in small systems, such as calculators and portable, laptop
computers
• Produce a picture by passing polarized light from the surroundings or
from an internal light source through a liquid-crystal material that can be
aligned to either block or transmit the light
Liquid crystal -These compounds have a
crystalline arrangement of molecules,
yet they flow like a liquid.
• Uses nematic liquid crystal
compounds, two glass plates contains
polarizer, aligned 90 degree to each
other.
• Transparent conductors build in
horizontally and vertically in two
plates intersection of two plates
define a pixel position.
Raster Scan Systems
• Interactive raster graphics systems include:
• several processing units,
• a special purpose processor, called the video controller or display controller
used to control the operation of the display device
• Frame buffer can be any where in the system memory
• The video controller accesses the
frame buffer to refresh the screen.
• The video controller is, more
sophisticated raster system that
employ other processors as
coprocessors and accelerators to
implement various graphics
Organization of simple raster system operations.
Video Controller
• It generate and outputs the images to
a display.
• Perform basic refreshing operations
• Double buffering used in real time
animations
 One buffer can be used for
refreshing
 The other is being filled with
intensity values.
• often contains a lookup table, so that
pixel values in the frame buffer are
used to access the lookup table
Basic video-controller refresh operations
• Frame buffer locations & the corresponding screen positions are
referenced in cartesian products
• Some systems co-ordinate origin is defined at the lower left screen
corner
• Screen surface is then represented as the first quadrant of a two
dimensional system
• Scan lines are then labeled from ymax at the top of the screen to 0 at
the bottom
• Along each scan line, screen pixels positions are labeled from 0 to xmax
• Two registers are used to store the co-ordinates of the screen pixels
• Initially the x register is set to 0 & y register to ymax
• Value stored in the frame buffer for this pixel position is then
retrieved & used to set the intensity of the beam
• x register is incremented by 1, & the process repeated for the next
pixel on the top scan line
• This procedure is repeated for each pixel along the scan line
• After the last pixel on the top scan line has been processed
 x register is reset to 0
y register is decremented by 1 to speed up pixel processing

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