Chapter One: Introduction to Computer Graphics

 Computer graphics refers to the creation, storage and manipulation of pictures and drawings
using a digital computer

 Graphics Applications

1. COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN

 A major use of computer graphics is in design processes, particularly for engineering
and architectural systems. For some design applications
 Software packages for CAD applications typically provide the designer with a multi-
window environment.
 Each window can show enlarged sections or different views of objects. Standard
shapes for electrical, electronic, and logic circuits are often supplied by the design
package. The connections between the components have been mad automatically.
o Animations are often used in CAD applications.
o Manufacturing process of object can also be controlled through CAD.
o Interactive graphics methods are used to layout the buildings.
o Three-dimensional interior layouts and lighting also provided.
o With virtual-reality systems, the designers can go for a simulated walk inside
the building.
2. PRESENTATION GRAPHICS
 It is used to produce illustrations for reports or to generate slide for projections.
 Examples of presentation graphics are bar charts, line graphs, surface graphs, pie
charts and displays showing relationships between parameters.
 3-D graphics can provide more attraction to the presentation.
3. COMPUTER ART
 Computer graphics methods are widely used in both fine are and commercial art
applications.
 The artist uses a combination of 3D modeling packages, texture mapping, drawing
programs and CAD software.
 Pen plotter with specially designed software can create “automatic art”.
 “Mathematical Art” can be produced using mathematical functions, fractal
procedures.
 These methods are also applied in commercial art.
 Photorealistic techniques are used to render images of a product.
4. ENTERTAINMENT
 CG methods are now commonly used in making motion pictures, music videos and
television shows.
 Many TV series regularly employ computer graphics method.

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  Graphics objects can be combined with a live action.
5. EDUCATION AND TRAINING
 Computer-generated models of physical, financial and economic systems are often
used as educational aids.
 For some training applications, special systems are designed.
 Eg. Training of ship captains, aircraft pilots etc.,
 Some simulators have no video screens, but most simulators provide graphics screen
for visual operation. Some of them provide only the control panel.
6. VISUALIZATION
 The numerical and scientific data are converted to a visual form for analysis and to
study the behavior called visualization.
 Producing graphical representation for scientific data sets are called scientific
visualization.
 And business visualization is used to represent the data sets related to commerce and
industry.
 The visualization can be either 2D or 3D.
7. IMAGE PROCESSING
 Computer graphics is used to create a picture.
 Image processing applies techniques to modify or interpret existing pictures.
 To apply image processing methods, the image must be digitized first.
 Medical applications also make extensive use of image processing techniques for
picture enhancements, simulations of operations, etc.
8. GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE
 Nowadays software packages provide graphics user interface (GUI) for the user to
work easily.
 A major component in GUI is a window.
 Multiple windows can be opened at a time.
 To activate any one of the window, the user needs just to check on that window.
 Menus and icons are used for fast selection of processing operations.
 Icons are used as shortcut to perform functions. The advantages of icons are which
takes less screen space.
 And some other interfaces like text box, buttons, and list are also used.

o Chapter Two: Overview of Graphics Systems

Display Devices
 The display of a computer is responsible for graphic display
 It can display text, picture and video
 The primary output device in graphics system is a video monitor.
 The operation of most video monitors is based on the standard Cathode-Ray Tube
(CRT) design

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  Some of the common types of display systems available in the market are:
o Raster Scan Displays
o Random Scan Displays
o Direct View Storage Tube
o Flat Panel Displays
o 3D Viewing Devices
o Stereoscopic and Virtual Reality System
 Displays are often referred to as Video Monitor or Video Display Unit (VDU)
 The most common monitor that comes with PC is the Raster Scan type
 Every display system has three basic parts:
o Display adapter that creates and holds video information,
o Monitor which displays that information, and
o Cable that carries image data between display adapter and monitor
Pixel
o Pixel (also known as picture element) is the smallest size object or color spot that
can be displayed and addressed on a monitor
o Image displayed on the monitor is made up of thousands of pixels
o Each pixel has particular color and brightness value
o The finer the pixels the more number of pixels displayable on a monitor- screen
Resolution
o The maximum number of points that can be displayed without overlap on a screen
is referred to as resolution
o Image resolution refers to the pixel spacing, i.e., the distance from one pixel to
the next pixel
o A typical PC monitor displays screen images with a resolution somewhere
between 25 pixels per inch and 80 pixels per inch (ppi)
o A full screen image with resolution 800 × 600 means that there are 800 columns
of pixels, each column comprising 600 pixels, i.e., a total of 800 × 600 = 480000
pixels in the image area
Aspect Ratio
o The aspect ratio of an image is the ratio of the number of X pixels to the number of Y
pixels
o The standard aspect ratio for PCs is 4:3 and some resolutions even use a ratio of 5:4
o Image displayed using 5:4 aspect ratio will cause the image to appear somewhat
distorted
o The table below (Table 1.1) shows common resolutions, respective number of pixels
and standard aspect ratios

Table 1.1 Common resolutions, respective number of pixels and standard aspect ratios

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 Resolution Number of Aspect
Pixels Ratio
320 × 200 64,000 8:5
640 × 480 307,200 4:3
800 × 600 480,000 4:3
1024 × 768 786,432 4:3
1280 × 1,310,720 5:4
1024
1600 × 1,920,000 4:3
1200

Cathode-Ray Tube

 CRT works just like picture tube of television set

 Primary components of CRT are:
o Heated metal cathode
o Control Grid
o Heating Filament
o Intensity control: Voltage on control grid
o Focusing system: Force the electron beam (small spot of light); otherwise,
electrons repel and spread. This can be accomplished with electric or magnetic
fields.
o Deflection plates: Horizontal and vertical
 Its viewing surface is coated with a layer of arrayed phosphor dots
 A set of electron guns at the back of CRT produce controlled beam of electrons
 cathode is the primary component of an electron gun
 The phosphor material emits light when struck by high-energy electrons
 The frequency and intensity of the light emitted depends on the type of phosphor
material used and energy of electrons
 A beam of electrons (cathode rays) emitted by an electron gun, passes through
focusing and deflection systems that direct the beam toward specified positions on the
phosphor coated screen.
 The phosphor then emits a small spot of light at each position contacted by the
electron beam.
 Because the light emitted by the phosphor fades very rapidly, the picture is redrawn
repeatedly and quickly.
 The primary components of an electron gun are the heated metal cathodes and a
control grid as shown in the figure.
 Heat is supplied to the cathode by current through filament, which produces electrons.
 And the electrons are accelerated toward the phosphor coated screen.

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  Intensity of the electron beam is controlled by setting voltage levels on the control
grid.
 A high negative voltage shut off the beam, and a smaller negative voltage simply
decreases the number of electrons in the beam.
 The focusing system is needed to force the electron beam to converge into a small
spot as it strikes the phosphor.
 Focusing is accomplished with either electric or magnetic field.
 Additional focusing hardware is used in high precision systems to keep the beam in
focus at all screen positions.
 A phosphor with low persistence is useful for animation; a high-persistence phosphor
is useful for displaying computer pictures. (Persistence means, how long the phosphor
can continuously emit the light.)
 The maximum number of points that can be displayed without overlap on a CRT is
referred as the resolution.
 Or the resolution is referred as the number of points per centimeter that can be plotted
horizontally and vertically. Eg. 1280 × 1024
 Aspect ratio: Ratio of vertical points to horizontal points necessary to produce equal-
length lines in both directions on the screen.

Figure 1.1 the following figure illustrates the basic operation of a raster scan CRT.

 In monochrome CRT there is only one electron gun, whereas in a color CRT there
are three electron guns each controlling the display of red, green and blue light,
respectively

used to converge diverging flood of electrons

because like charges repel each other

deflect the concentrated electrons to

converge at different points on the screen in
the process of scanning
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 Figure 1.1 Cathode ray tube (CRT)

Color CRT Monitors

 A CRT monitor displays color pictures by using a combination of phosphors that emit
different colored light. Two basic methods are used for producing color displays (i)
Beam penetration and (ii) shadow-mask method.

Beam-Penetration Method

 Two layers of phosphor, usually red and green are coated onto the screen.
 A beam of slow electrons excites only the outer red layer, fast electrons penetrates
through inner red layer and excites the inner green layer. The electrons with intermediate
speed produce the combinations of red and green color.

 The speed of electrons is controlled by the beam-acceleration voltage. But the quality of
the pictures is not good here.

Shadow-Mask Method

 It can produce a much wider range of color than the beam-penetration method. A
shadow-mask CRT has three phosphor color dots at each pixel position with red,
green and blue.
 The color CRT has three color-phosphor dots (dot triad) – red, green and blue – at
each point on the screen surface
 This type of CRT has three electron guns, one for each color.
 The three electron beams are deflected and focused as a group onto the shadow mask, which
contains corresponding holes for each pixel position.
 The color variation is obtained by varying the intensity levels of the three electron beams. For
example, turning off the green and red beam, we will get only blue color.
 A shadow mask – a fine metal sheet with a regular array of holes punched in it – is
aligned in a way that the set of three beams sweeps across the shadow mask
converges and intersects at the holes and then hits the correct phosphor dot as shown
in Figure 1.2

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 Figure 1.2 Electron beams passing Shadow Mask
o To produce picture on screen, these electron beams start at the top of the screen and
scan rapidly from left to right along the rows of electron dots
o They return to the leftmost position one line down and scan again and repeat this to
cover the entire screen
Horizontal retrace
o The return of the beam direction to the leftmost position one line down is called
horizontal retrace during which electron flow is shut off
Vertical retrace refers to the movement from bottom to top
o An image in raster scan display is basically composed of a set of dots and lines; lines
are displayed by making these dots bright (with desired color) which lie as close as
possible to the shortest path between the end points of the line
Refresh Rate and Interlacing
 A phosphor material glows for a fraction of second when hit by electron beams and
then fades making the image unstable (results in a flicker in the image)
 To make the screen stable, the image must be redrawn a number of times in a second
 This process is known as refreshing and it is depicted on Figure 1.3
 After scanning all pixels, the electron beam reaches the rightmost position in the
bottommost pixel line. The electron flow is switched off and the vertical deflection
mechanism steers the beam to the top left position to start another cycle of scanning
 This diagonal deflection is known as vertical retrace
 In order to avoid flicker, the image should be redrawn quickly in such a way that our
eyes cannot tell what is going on
 The number of times per second that the screen is refreshed is known as the refresh
rate, and is measured in Hertz (Hz), the unit of frequency
 Common refresh rates are: 56, 60, 65, 70, 72, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100, 110 and 120 Hz
 The maximum refresh rate possible depends on the resolution of the image

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  A higher resolution screen supports less refresh rate than that of lower resolution
image due to the more number of pixels to cover with each sweep

Figure 1.3 A Schematic diagram of refreshing

Interlacing
o Some monitors use a technique called interlacing
o In an interlaced mode the electron beams sweep alternate lines on each pass.
On the first pass, odd numbered lines and in the second pass even-numbered
lines are refreshed as depicted in Figure 1.3
o This technique allows the refresh rate to be doubled because only half of the
screen is redrawn at a time
o The usual refresh rate for interlaced operation is 87 Hz, which corresponds to
43.5 Hz of “real” refresh in half-screen interlacing
Progressive scanning
o The alternative to interlacing is progressive scanning, which paints every line on
the screen 60 times per second.
o Most computer use progressive scanning because it significantly reduces flicker

Bit Planes, Color Depth and Color Palette

 The color of a pixel of an image is a result of intersection of three primary colors (red,
green and blue) at different intensities
 When the intensities of the three electron beams are set to the highest level, then the
result is a white pixel
 When all are set to zero, then the color is black
 Several millions of colors can be generated by combining the three colors at
intermediate intensities

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  For a mono monitor, a pixel can be black (zero intensity) or white (maximum
intensity) or have different shades of gray
Color Depth or Bit Depth
 The number of memory bits required to store color information (intensity values for
all three primary components) about a pixel is called color depth or bit depth
 A minimum of one memory bit (color depth = 1) is required to intensity value either 0
or 1 for every screen pixel
 The block of memory which stores (or is mapped with) bilevel intensity values for
each pixel of a full screen of a full black and white image is called a bit plane or
bitmap
 Color or gray levels can be achieved using additional bit planes
 n bits per pixel (color depth = n) – a collection of n-bit planes – allows specifying 2 n
color or gray shades at each pixel
 The more the number of bits per pixel used, the finer the color detail of the image
 However, increased color depth requires more memory for storage, and more data for
the video card to process, which reduces the allowable refresh rate
 Table 1.2 shows common color depths used in PCs
Table 1.2 Common color depths used in PCs

Color Number of Bytes of Common Name

Depth Displayed Storage per for Color Depth
Colors Pixel
4-bit 16 0.5 Standard VGA
8-bit 256 1 256-Color Mode
16-bit 65,536 2 High Color
24-bit 16,777,216 3 True Color
 For true color three bytes of information are used, one by for each primary color
 A byte can hold 256 different values and three bytes can hold over 16 million (256 ×
256 × 256) color possibilities which are more than the human eye can discern
 True color is a necessity for high quality photo editing, graphical design, etc
 For high color, two bytes are used to store intensities of the three colors: 5 bits for
red, 5 for blue and 6 for green resulting in reduced image quality when compared to
true color
 But, one cannot perceive the difference between true and high color images
 High color is often used because it requires 33% (or 50% in some cases) less memory
and also image generation is faster
 In 256-color mode the PC uses eight bits: three each for red and green and two for
blue resulting in blocky or grainy look of the displayed image
 A palette or lookup table is used here instead
 A palette is a separate memory block (in addition to the eight-bit plane) created
containing 256 colors

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  The intensity values stored in the palette are not constrained within the ranges zero to
three for blue, zero to seven each green and red
 Rather each color is defined using three-byte color definition that is used in true color
 Upon reading the bit plane, the resulting number instead of directly specifying the
pixel color, is used as a pointer to three-byte color value entry in the lookup table
 For example, if the color number read from the bit plane is 10 for a given pixel, then
the intensities of red, green and blue to be displayed for that pixel is found at the 10th
entry of the table
 So the full range of true color can be accessed, but 256 of the available more than 16
million colors can be used at a time
 The palette is an excellent compromise at the cost of moderate increase in memory: it
allows only eight bits of frame buffer to be used to specify each color in an image and
allows the creator of an image to decide what the 256 colors in the image should be
 Frame Buffer and Output Circuitry
Frame Buffer
 A screen of monochrome text needs only 2 KB of memory space in the early days of
PCs
 Special parts of the upper memory area (UMA) were dedicated to hold this video data
 As the need for video memory increased into the megabyte range, it made more sense
to put the memory on the video card itself
 Frame buffer is the video memory (RAM) that is used to hold or map the image
displayed on the screen. It is a memory area which contains an internal representation
of an image.
o It can be implemented as part of the main memory
o Or as separate memory
 The amount of memory depends primarily on the resolution of the screen image and
also the color depth used per pixel, i.e.,
Memory in MB = (X-resolution × Y-resolution × bits-per-pixel) / (8 × 1024 × 1024)
Practically you need more memory than this formula compute. This is because of:
 video cards are available in the market in certain memory configurations (in terms
of whole megabytes), for example, you can’t order 1.7 MB but you have to use a
2 MB card available in the market, and
 many video cards, especially high end accelerators and 3D cards, use memory for
computation as well as for the frame buffer
 Table 1.3 shows the amount of memory required in megabytes required for the frame
buffer for each common combination of screen resolution and color depth. The
smallest industry standard video memory configuration required to support the
combination is shown in parentheses
Table 1.3 Video Memory Configurations

Resolution 4 Bits 8 Bits 16 Bits 24 Bits 32 Bits

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 320 × 200 0.03 (256 0.06 (256 0.12 (256 0.18 (256
KB) KB) KB) KB)
640 × 480 0.15 (256 0.29 (512 0.59 (1 MB) 0.88 (1 MB) 1.17 (2 MB)
KB) KB)
800 × 600 - 0.46 (512 0.92 (1 MB) 1.37 (2 MB) 1.83 (2 MB)
KB)
1024 × 768 - 0.75 (1MB) 1.50 (2 MB) 2.25 (4 MB) 3.00 (4 MB)
1280 × - 1.25 (2 MB)2.50 (4 MB) 3.75 (4 MB) 5.00 (6 MB)
1024
1600 × - 1.83 (2 MB) 3.66 (4 MB) 5.49 (6 MB) 7.32 (8 MB)
1200
 Some motherboard designs integrate the video chipset into the motherboard itself and
use a part of the system RAM for the frame buffer. This is called unified memory
architecture and it is done for cost saving
 The result is almost much lower video performance, because in order to use high
resolutions and refresh rates, the video memory needs to have much higher
performance than the RAM normally used for the system
 A technology called Accelerated Graphics Port or AGP is introduced by Intel in
order to meet the increasing demand for faster and dedicated video memory at a
comparable price
 AGP allows the video processor access the system memory for graphics calculations,
but keeps dedicated video memory for frame buffer
 This is more efficient because the system memory can be shared dynamically
between the system processor and the video processor depending on the needs of the
system
 AGP is a port – a dedicated interface between the video chipset and the system
processor
 The display adapter circuitry (on video card or motherboard) in a raster graphics
system typically employs a special purpose processor called Display Processor or
Graphics Controller or Display Coprocessor which is connected as I/O peripheral
to the CPU
 Such processor assist the CPU in scan converting1 the output primitives (line, circle,
arc, etc.) into bitmaps in frame buffer and also perform raster operations of moving,
copying and modifying pixels or blocks of pixels
 A major task of the display processor is digitizing a picture definition given in an
application program into a set of pixel-intensity values for storage in the frame buffer.
This digitization process is called scan conversion
 The output circuitry also includes another specialized hardware called Video
Controller which actually drives the CRT and produces the display on the screen
1
Scan conversion means digitizing a picture definition created by some graphics application program, i.e., loading
the frame buffer locations with binary equivalents of pixel intensity values calculated by the application programs

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  Figure 1.4 shows the general architecture of a raster display system
Graphics Application Software

Picture Definition

Scan
Conversion
Display
CPU Frame Buffer
Processor

Pixel Color or
Intensity Value

Display
System Video
Processor Monitor
Memory Controller
Memory
Analog Signal

Figure 1.4 General architecture of a raster display system

Properties of Video display Devices

1. Persistence: Time it takes the emitted light to decay one-tenth of it original intesity
2. Resolution: The maximum number of points that can be displayed without overlap on a
CRT is referred to as the resolution
3. Aspect Ratio

Type of CRTs

 There are two types of CRTs basically: raster scan type and random scan type
 The main difference between the two is the technique with which the image is generated
on the screen
Raster Scan Display
o A Raster Scan CRT works much like a Television set.
o Light occurs when an electron beam stimulates a phosphor
o In Raster Scan display, images are created as grid of pixels. Picture definition is
stored in a frame buffer memory or refresh buffer.
o In Raster scan, the electron beam from electron gun is swept horizontally across the
phosphor.
o In raster scan method, the entire screen is drawn at a time
o After the bottom line is swept, the beam returns to the top and sweep process begins
again.
Example: Assume a display of 16 X 16 pixels, each of which is either ON or OF.
o The electron beam traces a path across the first row, then return to starting side and
moves across the second row, and so on.

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 o The beam is turned on or off as it passes over a pixel that should be on or off. In the figure, the
beam is off for the entire first row, off during the retrace and on for the two pixels that are on

Black and white systems (Bilevel) systems: Bit value 0 -> Beam turned on
Bit value 1 ->Beam turned off
Random Scan Display
o In random scan technique, the electron beam is directed to the particular points of the
screen where the image is produced
o Draw a picture one line at a time
o Each image is expressed in the form of a series of {move-to, draw-to} commands
o The beam could be moved to a specific x,y location while turned off and then turned
on and draw-to command would move the beam (while on) to a second x,y location
– the result is a line drawn from the first location to the second.
o Here, the CRT has the electron beam directed only to the parts of the screen where a
picture is to be drawn. Random-scan monitors draw a picture one line at a time, called
as vector display.
o Refresh rates on a ransom-scan system depends on the number of lines to be
displayed.
o Picture definition is stored as a set of line-drawing commands in the refresh display
file or refresh buffer.
o To display a specified picture, the system cycles through the set of commands in the
display file, drawing each component line.
o These systems are designed for the line-drawing applications and can’t display
realistic shaded scenes.
o It generates the image by drawing a set of random straight lines much in the same
way one might move a pencil over a piece of paper to draw an image

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 o This method is also referred to as vector drawing or stroke writing or calligraphic
display
o There are no bit planes containing mapped pixel. Instead the display buffer memory
stores a set of line drawing commands along with the end point coordinates in a
display list or display program created by a graphics application
o The display processing unit (DPU) executes each command during refresh cycle and
feeds the vector generator with digital x, y and Δx, Δy values
o The vector generator converts the digital signals into equivalent analog deflection
voltages
o This causes the electron beam to move to the start point or from the start point to the
end point of a line vector
o Thus, the beam sweep does not follow any fixed pattern
o Though the vector-drawn images lack in depth and real – like color precision, the
random displays can work at higher resolutions than the raster displays. The images
are sharp and have smooth edges unlike the jagged edges and lines on raster displays
Example:
Move to (a,b)
Draw to (c,d)
Draw to (e,f)
Draw to (g,h)
Draw to (a,b)
 Refresh display file contains the line drawing commands
 It is for Line drawing applications
Advantages of Random scan
o Very high resolution, limited only by monitor.
o Easy animation, just dray at different positions.
o Requires little memory

Disadvantages of Random scan

o As complexity of display grows, time to draw increases
o If time between refreshes grows too long, display begins to flicker
o Cannot draw a complex image
Limited color capability
 Direct View Storage Tube (DVST)
o In raster scan and random flickering is avoided by refreshing or redrawing images
many times per second
o An alternative method for maintaining a screen image is to store the picture information
inside the CRT instead of refreshing the screen.
o A direct-view storage device stores the picture information as a charge distribution just
behind the phosphor coated screen.

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 o Two electron guns are used, the primary gun is used to store the picture pattern, the second,
the floor gun, maintains the picture display.
o In DVST there is no refresh buffer; the images are created by drawing vectors or line
segments with a relatively slow-moving electron beam
o The beam is designed not to draw directly on the phosphor dot but on a fine wire
mesh (called storage mesh) coated with dielectric and mounted just behind the screen
o A pattern of positive charge is deposited on the grid, and this pattern is transferred to
the phosphor coated screen by a continuous flood of electrons emanating from a
separate flood gun
o Just behind the storage mesh is a second grid, the collector, whose main purpose is to
smooth out the flood of electrons. These electrons pass through the collector at low
velocity and are attracted to the positively charged portions of the storage mesh but
repelled by the rest
o Electrons not repelled by the storage mesh pass right through it and strike the
phosphor
o The storage tube retains the image generated until it is erased. Thus, no refreshing is
necessary, and the image is absolutely flicker free
o A major disadvantage of DVST in interactive graphics is its inability to selectively
erase parts of an image from the screen. The entire image should be redrawn
o However, the DVST supports a very high resolution which is good for display
complex images

Advantage:

o Because of no refreshing is needed very complex pictures can be displayed at very high
resolutions without flicker.

Disadvantage:

o It cannot display colors, and selected parts of a picture can’t be erased.

o To eliminate the selected part of a picture, the entire screen must be erased and redrawn.
It is a time consuming process.

Flat Panel Display Displays

o It refers to a class or video devices that have reduced volume, weight and power
requirements composed to CRT.
o To satisfy the need for a compact portable monitor, modern technology has gifted us
LCD panel, plasma panel, LED (Light Emitting Diode) panel and thin CRT
o A main advantage of flat-panel displays is that they are thinner than CRTs and we can
hang them on walls or wear on our wrists.

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 o The two categories of flat-panel displays are :

 Emissive displays: the device which convert electrical energy into light. (Plasma
panel)
 Non-Emissive displays: used optical effects to convert sunlight or light from some
other source into graphic patterns. (LCD)
o These devices are smaller, lighter and specifically thinner than the conventional CRT and
thus termed as Flat Panel Display (FPD)
o FPDs in general and LCD panels in particular are most suitable for laptop computers but are
expensive to produce
o Thin CRT is produced by bending the tube of normal CRT in the middle
LCD
o Commonly used in small systems, such as calculators, and portable, laptop computers.
o These non-emissive devices 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 either block or
transmit the light
o LCD basically consists of a layer of liquid crystal, sandwiched between two polarizing
plates
o The polarizers are aligned perpendicular to each other (one vertical and the other
horizontal), so that the light incident on the first polarizer will be blocked by the second
o LCD displays are addressed in a matrix fashion. Rows of matrix are defined by a thin
layer or horizontal transparent conductors, while columns are defined by another thin
layer of vertical transparent conductors; the layers are placed between the LCD layer and
the respective polarizer plate
o The intersection of the two conductors defines a pixel position
o The liquid crystal material is made up of a long rod-shaped crystalline molecules
o The individual polar molecules in nematic (spiral) LC layer are normally arranged in a
spiral fashion such that the direction of polarization of polarized light passing through it
is rotated 90 degrees
o Light from an internal source enter the first polarizer (say horizontal) and is polarized
accordingly (horizontally). As light passes through the LC layer is twisted 90 degrees (to
align with the vertical) so that it is allowed to pass through the rear polarizer (vertical)
and reflect from the reflector behind the rear polarizer. The reflected light when reaches
the viewers travelling in reverse direction, the LCD appears bright
o In color LCD there are layers of three liquid crystal panels on top of another, each filled
with a colored (red, green or blue) liquid crystal
 Figure 1.5 shows LCD

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 Figure 1.5 Liquid Crystal Display
Plasma Panel
o Here a layer of gas (usually Neon) is sandwiched between two glass plates
o Thin vertical (column) strips of conductor run across one plate, while horizontal
(row) conductors run up and down the plate
o By applying high voltage to a pair of horizontal and vertical conductors, a small
section of gas at the intersection of the conductors breaks down into glowing plasma
of electrons and ions
o Thus, in the array of gas bulbs, each one can be set to an ‘on’ (glowing) state or ‘off’
state by adjusting voltages in the approximate pair of conductors
o Once set ‘on’ the bulbs remain in that state until explicitly made ‘off’ by momentarily
reducing the voltage applied to the pair of conductors. Hence no refreshing is
necessary
o Because of its excellent brightness, contrast and scalability to larger sizes, plasma
panel is attractive

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