Definition - What does Computer-Aided Design (CAD) mean?

Computer-aided design (CAD) is a computer technology that designs a product and

documents the design's process. CAD may facilitate the manufacturing process by
transferring detailed diagrams of a product’s materials, processes, tolerances and
dimensions with specific conventions for the product in question. It can be used to
produce either two-dimensional or three-dimensional diagrams, which can then when
rotated to be viewed from any angle, even from the inside looking out. A special printer
or plotter is usually required for printing professional design renderings.
The concept of designing geometric shapes for objects is very similar to CAD. It is
called computer-aided geometric design (CAGD).
CAD is also known as computer-aided design and drafting (CADD).

Techopedia explains Computer-Aided Design (CAD)

CAD is used as follows:

1. To produce detailed engineering designs through 3-D and 2-D drawings of the
physical components of manufactured products.
2. To create conceptual design, product layout, strength and dynamic analysis of
assembly and the manufacturing processes themselves.
3. To prepare environmental impact reports, in which computer-aided designs are
used in photographs to produce a rendering of the appearance when the new
structures are built.

CAD systems exist today for all of the major computer platforms, including Windows,
Linux, Unix and Mac OS X. The user interface generally centers around a computer
mouse, but a pen and digitizing graphic tablet can also be used. View manipulation can
be accomplished with a spacemouse (or spaceball). Some systems allow stereoscopic
glasses for viewing 3-D models.
Most U.S. universities no longer require classes for producing hand drawings using
protractors and compasses. Instead, there are many classes on different types of CAD
software. Because hardware and software costs are decreasing, universities and
manufacturers now train students how to use these high-level tools. These tools have
also modified design work flows to make them more efficient, lowering these training
costs even further.

What is DPI?
(and what is 300 dpi? and what is a high resolution photo?)
DPI stands for Dots Per Inch which technically means printer dots per inch. Today
it is a term often misused, usually to mean PPI, which stands for Pixels Per Inch. So
when someone says they want a photo that is 300 dpi they really mean that they want
300 ppi.

A "300 dpi photo" is sometimes referred to as a high resolution photo. Again this is a
badly misused term, the resolution of a digital photo are its pixel dimensions and
technically high resolution would refer to the resolving power of the pixels, the number
of pixels mapping real world dimensions in the field of view of the photo. But a request
for a high resolution photo generally means a high ppi (usually 300 or greater) when
printed. The benchmark of 300 ppi being "high resolution" was made many years ago -
it's not as true now as it was in the past (I would argue that 200 ppi is often sufficient
for most printing). But for sake of argument we can use 300 ppi since that's what most
people request.
Why is computer graphics important? In which areas computer
graphics can be implemented?

Applications:
i) Computer Aided Design
ii) Presentation Graphics
iii) Computer Art
iv) Entertainment
v) Education And Training
vi) Visualization

The importance of computer graphics lies in its applications. In engineering

applications (e.g. automotive and aeorspace), the ability to quickly visualize newly
designed shapes is indispensible. Before the advent of computer graphics, designers
built expensive prototypes and time-consuming clay models. Now, designers can
interactively view and modify models of their shapes using a computer.
Medical imaging is another application where computer graphics has proven valuable.
Recent advances in imaging technology such as computer tomography and magnetic
resonance imaging allow physicians to take 3D Xrays of the human body. Interactive
computer graphics allows the physician to interpret this large volume of data in new
and useful ways.

Computer graphics has also expanded the boundaries of art and entertainment. Movies
such as Jurassiac Park make extensive use of computer graphics to create images that
test the bounds of imagination. The development of computer graphics has made
possible virtual reality, a synthetic reality that exists only inside a computer. Virtual
reality is fast becoming an indispensable tool in education. Flight simulators are used
to train pilot for extreme conditions. Surgical simulators are used to train novice
surgeons without endangering patients.

We can classify applications of computer graphics into four main areas:

. Display of information
. Design
. Simulation
. User interfaces

discuss the dda algorithm for drawing a line.

discuss how a circle is drawn using mid point circle drawing algorithm
Book page No. 100 Example page: 101

Define “World co-ordinate” and “viewing co-ordinate”.

World coordinate system (WCS) is the right handed cartesian co-ordinate system
where we define the picture to be displayed. A finite region in the WCS is called
the Window. The corresponding coordinate system on the display device where the
image of the picture is displayed is called the physical coordinate system. Mapping
the window onto a subregion of the display device called the viewport is called
the Viewing Transformation

Hence,World co-ordinate -> window

Viewing co-ordinate -> viewport

Deduce an expression for window-to-viewport co-ordinate

transformation.
What is rigid body translation? You are given a translation vector (Tvx, Tvy).
How can you translate a point with this vector?

What are the Clipping and Clip window?

Clipping/Clipping Algorithm: is a procedure that identifies thos portions of a picture that are
either inside or outside of a specified region of space.
Clip Window: is the region against which an object is to be clipped. it may be a polygon or
curved boundaries. But rectangular clip regions are preferred.

Define Sheilding. What are the primitive types of Clipping?

Sheilding: shielding is used to decouple the effects of incident illumination

Primitive types of clippings are --------

i) Point clipping
ii) Line Clipping (Straight-line-segments)
iii) Area Clipping (Polygons)
iv) Curve Clipping
v) Text Clipping

What is the importance of learning computer graphics? In which areas your

learning of computer graphics can be implemented?

 3D computer graphics has many applications in the entertainment industry,

most importantly video games and visual effects in movie production.
 In medicine, computer graphics is used to visualise data obtained from medical
imaging, such as CT scans.
 Computer-aided design relies on computer graphics for modelling and
visualising products, buildings, cars, etc.
 The same modelling techniques are used for creating 3D-printed objects.
 Digital design for printed media and web makes use of 2D computer graphics.
 2D and 3D computer graphics are used by television broadcasters for live
graphics, e.g. in news and sports shows.

The areas in which computer graphics is used include:

 cartography,
 visualization of measurement data (2D and 3D),
 visualization of computer simulations
 medical diagnostics,
 drafting and computer design,
 preparation of publications,
 special effects in movies,
 computer games.

Let’s look at several applications of computer graphics.

  Entertainement
 Fabrics
 Boids
 Project „Virtual men”
 Medicine

Categorize raster devices. Hence define emissive and non-emissive display with
example.
The term raster refers to the region of a cathode ray tube ( CRT ) or liquid crystal display (LCD )
monitor that is capable of rendering images.

In a CRT, the raster is a sequence of horizontal lines that are scanned rapidly with an electron
beam from left to right and top to bottom, in much the same way as a TV picture tube is scanned.
However, there are certain differences. In general, the resolution is better in a computer CRT
than in a TV picture tube. Also, a TV raster scan is interlaced, while the raster scan in a computer
CRT is almost always non-interlaced. In a CRT, the raster is slightly smaller than the full screen
size of the monitor. The height and width of the raster can be adjusted, as can the horizontal and
vertical position. Other parameters such as pincushioning, horizontal linearity, and vertical
linearity can be adjusted in some CRT monitors.

In an LCD, the raster (usually called a grid ) is scanned differently than in a CRT; image
elements are displayed individually. The raster normally matches the screen monitor in size. But
if low resolution is used (for example, 640x480 pixels on an LCD intended for 800x600), the
displayed image may fill only part of the screen. If high resolution is used (such as 1024x768
pixels on an LCD intended for 800x600), the displayed image may exceed the area of the screen,
and scrolling will be necessary to view all portions of the raster.

Emissive Displays

screen

light into visible light

-, FE-, SE-Displays
Non-Emissive Displays
roduced behind the screen and
the image is formed by filtering this light
-Display (LCD)
Types of Display Devices:

i) LCD = Liquid Crystal Display

ii) Plasma Displays
 iii) OLED = organic light emitting diode
iv) FED/SED = Field Emission Display / Surface-conduction Electron-emitter
Display

What is the role of frame buffer in raster scan display?

In a raster- scan system, the 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
and off to create a pattern of illuminated spots. Picture definition is stored in memory area
called the refresh buffer or frame buffer. This memory area holds the set of intensity values for
all the screen points. Stored intensity values are then retrieved from the refresh buffer and “
painted” on the screen one row (scan line) at a time (fig.below). Each screen point is referred to
as a pixel or pel (shortened forms of picture element).

Refreshing on raster-scan displays is carried out at the rate of 60 to 80 frames per second,
although some systems are designed for higher refresh rates. Sometimes, refresh rates are
described in units of cycles per second, or Hertz (Hz), where a cycle corresponds to one frame.
At the end of each scan line, the electron beam returns to the left side of the screen to begin
displaying the next scan line. The return to the left of the screen, after refreshing each scan line,
is called the horizontal retrace of the electron beam. And at the end of each frame (displayed in
1/80th to 1/60th of a second), the electron beam returns (vertical retrace)to the top left corner
of the screen to begin the next frame.

On some raster-scan systems (and in TV sets), each frame is displayed in two passes using an
interlaced refresh procedure. In the first pass, the beam sweeps across every other scan line
from top to bottom. Then after the vertical retrace, the beam sweeps out the remaining scan
lines(fig.below). Interlacing of the scan lines in this way allows us to see the entire screen
displayed in one-half the time it would have taken to sweep across all the lines at once from top
to bottom.

Define: Normalize device coordinate.

Normalized Device Coordinates (NDC)
Normalized device coordinates (NDCs) make up a coordinate system that describes positions on a virtual
plotting device. The lower left corner corresponds to (0,0), and the upper right corner corresponds to
(1,1).
NDCs can be used when you want to position text, lines, markers, or polygons anywhere on the plotting
device (that may or may not already contain a plot).
To help figure out what NDC coordinates to use for positioning text and primitives, you can use the
handy drawNDCGrid procedure, which draws an NDC grid labeled with coordinate positions.

What do you mean by Scan conversion and Rendering?

Scan conversion generates the set of fragments corresponding to each primitive. Each fragment
contains window coordinates x, y, and z, a color value, and texture coordinates. The fragment
values are generated by interpolating the attributes provided at each vertex in the primitive.
Scan conversion is computationally intensive since multiple attribute values must be computed
for each fragment. Scan conversion computations can be performed using fixed-point
arithmetic, but several of the computations must be performed at high precision to avoid
producing artifacts. For example, color computations may use 4- or 8-bit (or more)
computations and produce satisfactory results, whereas window coordinates and texture
coordinates need substantially higher precision. During scan conversion the generated
fragments are also tested against the scissor rectangle, and fragments outside the rectangle are
discarded.

Definition - What does Rendering mean?

Rendering is the process involved in the generation of a two-dimensional or three-
dimensional image from a model by means of application programs. Rendering is
mostly used in architectural designs, video games, and animated movies, simulators,
TV special effects and design visualization. The techniques and features used vary
according to the project. Rendering helps increase efficiency and reduce cost in design.

Techopedia explains Rendering

There are two categories of rendering: pre-rendering and real-time rendering. The
striking difference between the two lies in the speed at which the computation and
finalization of images takes place.

 Real-Time Rendering: The prominent rendering technique using in interactive

graphics and gaming where images must be created at a rapid pace. Because
user interaction is high in such environments, real-time image creation is
required. Dedicated graphics hardware and pre-compiling of the available
information has improved the performance of real-time rendering.
 Pre-Rendering: This rendering technique is used in environments where speed
is not a concern and the image calculations are performed using multi-core
 central processing units rather than dedicated graphics hardware. This rendering
technique is mostly used in animation and visual effects, where photorealism
needs to be at the highest standard possible.

For these rendering types,the three major computational techniques used are:

 Scanline
 Raytracing
 Radiosity

With figure describe the graphics pipeline.

In computer graphics, a computer graphics pipeline, rendering pipeline or simply graphics
pipeline, is a conceptual model that describes what steps a graphics system needs to perform
to render a 3D scene to a 2D screen.[1] Once a 3D model has been created, for instance in a video
game or any other 3D computer animation, the graphics pipeline is the process of turning that 3D
model into what the computer displays.[2] Because the steps required for this operation depend on
the software and hardware used and the desired display characteristics, there is no universal
graphics pipeline suitable for all cases. However, graphics application programming interfaces
(APIs) such as Direct3D and OpenGL were created to unify similar steps and to control the graphics
pipeline of a given hardware accelerator. These APIs abstract the underlying hardware and keep the
programmer away from writing code to manipulate the graphics hardware accelerators
(AMD/Intel/NVIDIA etc.).
The model of the graphics pipeline is usually used in real-time rendering. Often, most of the pipeline
steps are implemented in hardware, which allows for special optimizations. The term "pipeline" is
used in a similar sense to the pipeline in processors: the individual steps of the pipeline run parallel
but are blocked until the slowest step has been completed.
Discus General Pivot point rotation.

What is shear? Briefly discuss about shear transformation.

 Define Aspect Ratio and Frame Buffer.
Aspect ratio is the ratio of the vertical points to horizontal points necessary to produce equal
length lines in both directions on the screen.

A framebuffer is a portion of RAM containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is

a memory buffer containing a complete frame of data. odern video cards contain framebuffer
circuitry in their cores. This circuitry converts an in-memory bitmap into a video signal that can be
displayed on a computer monitor.

describe the construction and working principle of both beam-penetration and

shadow mask methods for a color CRT monitor
Beam Penetration Method
 Random scan monitors use the beam penetration method for displaying color picture. In this
the inside of CRT screen is coated with two layers of phosphor namely red and green. A beam
of slow electrons excites only the outer red layer, while a beam of fast electrons penetrates red
layer and excites the inner green layer. At intermediate beam speeds, combination of red and
green light are emitted to show two additional colors – orange and yellow.
Advantages:
 Half cost as compared to that of shadow mask method.
 It is an inexpensive way to produce color in random-scan monitors.
 Its resolution is better.
Disadvantages:
 It consumes significant amount of accelerating potential in order to switch color.
 Problem arises at the time of switching of colors as it is time consuming.
Shadow Mask Method
 Raster scan systems use shadow mask methods to produce a much more range of colors than
beam penetration method. In this, CRT has three phosphor color dots. One phosphor dot emits
a red light, second emits a green light and third emits a blue light. This type of CRT has three
electron guns and a shadow mask grid.
Advantages:
 Produces a much wider range of colors than the beam penetration method.
 An in-line arrangement of RGB color dots on the screen along one scan line is used in higher-
resolution color CRTs.
 It produces realistic images.
Disadvantages:
 It is very difficult to converge all three electron beams on same hole in shadow mask.
It has poor resolution
what are the classifications fo graphics software? discuss about them

The two main categories of graphics programs are pixel-based image editors and vector-based
image editors. In a nutshell, an image is either comprised of a series of small dots (pixels) or a
series of commands about how to draw an image (vectors). You'll know the difference between
pixel- and vector-based images by zooming on them. If they zoom very close without appearing
fuzzy and blotchy, you're working with a vector image.

Some of the categories of specialized tools for managing graphics include:

 Image Management Software

 Image Viewers
 Batch Processing Tools
 Web and Animation Software
 Diagramming Software

What Is Graphics Software Used For?

Some of the common things people use graphics software for include editing and sharing digital
photos, creating logos, drawing and modifying clip art, creating digital fine art, creating web
graphics, designing advertisements and product packaging, touching up scanned photos, and
drawing maps or other diagrams.

There are the unconventional uses as well, such as editing video in Photoshop or 3D drawing in
Illustrator.

Describe DDA Algorithm with it’s advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages of DDA Algorithm:

i) The DDA algorithm is faster method for calculating pixel positions than
 ii) It eliminates the multiplication by making use of raster characteristics, so that
appropriate increments are applied in the x or y direction to step to pixel positions
along the line path.
iii)
Disadvantages of DDA algorithm :-
1. It uses floating point operation which is expensive: - The co-ordinates are always integer
values but by using this algorithm we get floating point values which the computer screen
doesn’t allow.
Plot (Integer (x), Integer (y)) used for floating point operation.
2. It produces Aliasing effect: - The exact location / exact line is not found we get a zig-zag line.

what is geometric transformation in terms of computer graphics?

Discuss here scaling, shearing, rotation, translation

Define “Homogeneous coordinate”. Represent translation, rotation and scaling

opertions in matrix from using homogeneous coordinate.