Milan Chikanbanjar Computer Department Computer Graphics

Chapter 1

1.0 Introduction:
Computer graphics is one of the most exciting and rapidly growing computer fields. The computer graphics field
is related to the generation of graphics using computers. It includes the creation, Storage, and manipulation of
image objects. These objects come from diverse fields such as physical, mathematical, engineering,
architectural, abstract structures and natural phenomenon. Computer graphics today is largely interactive that
is, the user controls the contents, structure, and appearance of images of the objects by using input devices.
Such as a keyboard, mouse, or touch sensitive panel on the screen.
Until 1980’s computer graphics was a small specialized field, largely because the hardware was
expensive and graphics-based application programs that were easy to use and cost-effective were few. Then,
PC (Personal computers) with build in raster graphics displays such as the Xerox Star Apple Macintosh and
IBM PC-popularized the use of bitmap graphics for users computer interactions. A bitmap is ones (1) and zeros
(0) representation of the rectangular array points on the screen. Each point is called Pixel or Pel (shortened
forms of Picture Elements). Once bitmap graphics became affordable, an explosion of easy to use and
inexpensive graphics based applications soon followed. Graphics-based user interfaces allowed millions of new
users to control simple, low-cost application programs, such as word processors, spreadsheets, and drawing
programs.
The concept of a “desktop” now became a popular metaphor for organizing screen space. By means of
a window manager, the user could create, position, and resize rectangular screen areas called windows. This
allows user to switch among multiple activities just by pointing and clicking at the desired window, typically with
a mouse. Besides windows, icons which represent data files, application program, file cabinets, mailboxes,
printers, recycle bin, and so on, made the user computer interaction more effective. By pointing and clicking
icons, user could activate the corresponding programs or objectives, which replace much of the typing of the
commands, used in earlier operating systems and computer applications. Today, almost all interactive
application programs, even those for manipulating text (e.g. word processor) or numerical data (e.g.
spreadsheet programs) use graphics extensively in the user interface and for visualizing and manipulating the
application-specified objects.
Even people who do not use computers encounter computer graphics in TV commercial and cinematic
special effects. Thus computer graphics is an integral part of all computer user interfaces, and is indispensable
for visualizing 2D, 3D objects in almost all areas such as education, science, engineering, medicine, commerce,
the military, research, advertising and entertainment. The theme is that learning how to program and use
computers now includes learning how to use simple 2D graphics.

1.1 Early history of computer graphics:

We need to take a brief look at the historical development of computer graphics to place today’s system in
context. Crude plotting of hardcopy devices such as teletypes and line printers dates from the early days of
computing. The Whirlwind computer developed in 1950 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
had computer driven CRT displays for output.
The SAGE air-defense system developed in middle 1950s was the first to use command and control CRT
display consoles on which operators identified targets with light pens (hand held pointing devices that sense
light emitted by objects on the screen).
Later on Sketchpad system by Ivan Sutherland came in light. That was the beginning of modern interactive
graphics. In this system, keyboard and light pen were used for pointing, making choices, and drawing.

At the same time, it was becoming clear to computer, automobile, and aerospace manufactures that CAD
(Computer-Aided Design) and CAM (Computer-Aided Manufacturing) activities had enormous potential for
automating drafting and other drawing-intensive activities. The General Motors DAC system for automobile
designs and the Itek-Digitek System for lens designs were pioneering efforts that showed the utility of graphical

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Milan Chikanbanjar Computer Department Computer Graphics

interaction in the iterative design cycles common in engineering. By the mid-60s, a number of commercial
products using these systems had appeared.
At that time only the most technology-intensive organizations could use the interactive computer
graphics whereas others used punch cards, a non-interactive system.

Among the reasons for this were these:

• The high cost of the graphics hardware: at a time when automobiles cost a few thousand Dollars, computer
cost several millions of Dollars, and the first commercial computer displays cost more than a hundred
thousand Dollars.
• The need for large scale, expensive computing resources to support massive design database.
• The difficulty of writing large, interactive programs using batch-oriented FORTAN programming.
• One-of-a-kind non portable software, typically written for a particular manufacturer’s display devices. When
software is non portable, moving a new display device necessitates expensive and time consuming rewriting
of working programs.
Thus interactive computer graphics had a limited use when it started in the early sixties. But it became very
common once the Apple Macintosh and IBM PC appeared in the market with affordable cost.

1.2 Application of computer graphics:

Computer graphics is used today in many different areas of science, engineering, industry, business, education,
medicine, art and training. All of these are included in the following categories.

1. User Interface.
Most applications have user interfaces that rely on desktop window systems to manage multiple simultaneous
activities, and on point-and-click facilities to allow user to select menu items, icons, and objects on the screen.
These activities fall under computer graphics. Typing is necessary only input text to be stored and manipulated.
For example Word processor, Spreadsheet, and desktop-publishing programs are the typical examples where
user-interface techniques are implemented.

2. Plotting
Plotting 2D, 3D graphics of mathematical, physical and economics functions use computer graphics
extensively. The histogram, bar, and pi-chart; the task-scheduling charts are the most commonly used plotting.
These all are used to present meaningful and concisely the trends and patterns of complex data.

3. Office automation and electronics publishing

The computer graphics has facilitated the office automation and electronics publishing, which is also popularly
known as desktop publishing, giving more power to the organization to print the meaningful material in house.
Office automation and electronics publishing can produce both traditional print (hardcopy) documents and
electronics (softcopy) documents that contain text, tables, graphs, and other form of drawn or scanned in
graphics.

4. Computer aided drafting and design

One of the major uses of computer graphics is to design component and systems of mechanical, electrical,
electrochemical, and electronics devices, including structure such as building, automobile bodies, airplane and
ship hull, very large-scale integrated (VLSI) chips, optical systems, and computer networks. These designs are
more frequently used to test the structural, electrical, and thermal properties of the systems.

5. Scientific and business visualization

Generating computer graphics for scientific, engineering, and medical data set is termed as scientific
visualization whereas business visualization is related with non scientific data set such as those obtained in
economics. Visualization makes easier to understand the trends and patterns inherent in the huge amount of
data sets. It would otherwise be almost impossible to analyze those data numerically.

6. Simulation
Simulation is the imitation of the conditions like those, which is encountered in real life. Simulation thus helps to
learn or feel the conditions; one might have to face in near future without being danger at the beginning of the
course. For example, astronauts can exercise the feeling of weightlessness in a simulator. Similarly a pilot
training can be conducted in a flight simulator. The military tank simulator, the naval simulator, driving simulator,

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air traffic control simulator, heavy duty vehicle, and so on are some of the mostly used simulator in practice.
Simulators are also used to optimize the system. For example the vehicle, observing the reaction of the driver
during the operation of the simulator.

7. Entertainment
Disney movies such as Lion Kings and The Beauty and the Best, and other scientific movies like Star Trek, are
the best examples of the application of computer graphics in the field of entertainment. Instead of drawing
necessary frames with slightly changing scenes for the production of cartoon film, only the key frames are
sufficient for such cartoon-film where in-between frames are interpolated by the graphics system dramatically
decreasing the cost of production while maintaining the quality. Computer and video games such as Fifa,
Formula-1, Superbike, and Moto are few to name where computer graphics is used extensively.

8. Art and commerce

Here computer graphics is used to produce picture that express a message and attract attention such as a new
model of a car moving alone the ring of the Saturn. These pictures are frequently seen at transportation
terminals, supermarkets, hotels, etc. the slide production of commercial, scientific, or educational presentations
is another cost effective use of computer graphics. One of such graphics package is "Power-point".

9. Cartography
Cartography is a subject, which deals with making map and charts. Computer graphics is used to produce both
accurate and schematic representations of geographical and other natural phenomenon from measurement
data. Example includes geographic maps, oceanographic charts, weather maps, contour maps and population-
density maps. Surfer is one such graphics packages, which is extensively used for cartography.

Image Processing
• Computer graphics is used to create a picture while image processing is used to modify or interpret existing
pictures such as photographs and TV Scans. Two principle use in image processing are
1. improving picture quality
2. machine perception of visual information as used in robotics
• In image processing photograph is first digitize into an image file and then the rearrangement picture parts, to
enhance color separations or to improve the quality of shading.
• In medical application image processing is used to enhance the photograph for example “tomography” and
simulation operation. Tomography is a technique of X-ray photography that allows cross sectional views of
physiology system to be displayed.

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Chapter 2

2.0 Hardware Concepts:

Since a computer is an electronic machine, so without any input to a computer it doesn’t work anything. An
input device is an electromechanical device,
device, which accepts data from the outside world, and translates them
into a form, which the computer can interpret. Data input devices like keyboards are used to provide additional
data to the computers whereas pointing and selection devices like mouse, light
light pens, touch panels are used to
provide visual and indication-input
input to the application.

2.1 Keyboard, Mouse, Light pen, Touch screen and Tablet

1. keyboard:
Keyboard is a device primarily used for entering text string, i.e. keyboard is an efficient device for inputting
non graphics data. It is mainly used to input textual data. It generates a unique ASCII code corresponding to
each key pressed or combination. It usually consists of alphanumeric keys, function keys, cursor-keys,
cursor and a
separate numeric key pad. It is used to move cursor, select main item, enter screen coordinate and several
other functions. In some keyboard (multimedia keyboard) there are extra multimedia keys. These keys are
used to move the cursor, to select the menu items, predefined functions. The graphics keyboard is mainly
used for entering screen coordinates and text, to invoke certain functions. Now-a-days
Now ergonomically
designed keyboard (Ergonomic keyboard) with removable palm rests is available. The slope of each half of
the keyboard can be adjusted separately. Ergonomics is an applied science that coordinates the design of
devices, systems and physical working conditions with the capacities
capacities and requirements of the workers. It is
also called as human engineering.

Figure: Wireless Keyboard and Mouse

Fig: a simple keyboard.

2. Mouse:
Mouse is a small hand held device used to position
position the cursor on the screen. Wheels or rollers on the bottom of
the mouse can be used to report the amount and direction of movement. Another method for detecting mouse
motion is with an optical sensor. Mouse is a relative device, i.e. it can be picked
icked up, moved in space, and put
down again without any change in the reported position. For this computer maintains the current mouse
position, which is incremented or decremented by the mouse movements. Following are the mostly used mice
in computer graphics.

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A. Mechanical Mouse
When a roller in the base of this mechanical
mechanical mouse is moved, a pair of orthogonally arranged toothed
tooth
wheels, each placed in between a LED and a photo detector, interrupts the light path. An optical
detector counts the pulses. These pulses generated in the horizontal and vertical directions move
m the
cursor on the screen. Hence, the numbers of interrupts so generated are used to report the mouse
movements to the computer.

Fig: a mechanical mouse

B. Optical Mouse
Instead of rolling the ball, the optical mouse uses the light beam to detect the mouse movement across a
specific patterned. It is used on a special pad having a grid of alternating light and dark lines. A LED on the
bottom of the mouse directs a beam of light down onto the pad, from which it is reflected and sensed by the
detectors on the bottom of the mouse. As the mouse is moved,
move the reflected light beam is broken each e time a
dark line is crossed generating the number of pulses which is proportional to the movement of mouse. Hence,
the
he number of pulses so generated, which is equal to the number of lines crossed, is used to reportrepor mouse
movements to the computer.

Fig: a Fig: b
Fig: a and b showing cross-sectional
cross view of optical mouse
Advantages of optical mouse:
1. The cursor moves smoothly.
2. There are no moving parts; so there is less chance of failure.
3. No mechanical problem due to dusts, etc.

3. Light pen:
A light pen is a pencil shaped device and has a chord at the trailing end. It is a computer input device in
the form of a light-sensitive
sensitive wand used in conjunction with the computer's CRT monitor. It lets the user select
sele
screen position by detecting the light coming from point in the CRT screen. It also allows the user to point to
displayed objects, or draw on the screen, in a similar way to a touch screen but with greater positional
accuracy. They are sensitive to short
short bursts of light emitted from the phosphor coating at the instant electron
beam strikes a particular point. An activated light pen pointed at a spot on a screen as the electron beam lights
up the spot, generates an electrical pulse that causes the coordinate
coordinate position of the electron beam to be
recorded. The light pen when pointed to the screen detects the bright/dim effect and when light goes from dim
to light, it sends a signal pulse to the video chip. The video chip sets a latch which feeds two numbers: X-
location, Y-location
location into a memory location and can tell where the light pen is pointed on the screen by two
numbers. A light pen can work with any CRT-based
CRT based monitor, but not with LCD screens, projectors and other
display devices.

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A light pen is fairly simple

imple to implement. The light pen works by sensing the sudden small change in brightness
of a point on the screen when the electron gun refreshes that spot. By noting exactly where the scanning has
reached at that moment, the X, Y position of the pen can be be resolved. This is usually achieved by the light pen
causing an interrupt, at which point the scan position can be read from a special register, or computed from a
counter or timer. The pen position is updated on every refresh of the screen. Due to the fact
fa that the user was
required to hold his or her arm in front of the screen for long periods of time, the light pen fell out of use as a
general purpose input device.

Fig: showing light pen

Drawbacks:
• Prolong use of the light pen can cause arm fatigue.
• It gives sometimes false reading due to background lightning in a room
• It cannot report the coordinates of a point that is completely black as a remedy one can display a dark
blue field in place of the regular image for a single frame time.
time
• Light pen obscures
scures the screen images as it is pointed to required spot.
• When a light pen is pointed at the screen, part of the screen image is obscured by the hand and pen
and prolonged use of the light pen can cause arm fatigue.
• It requires special implementations forfor some applications because they cannot detect positions within
black areas.

4. Touch Panel:
Touch panel allows the user to directly point to the screen with the touch of the finger to move the cursor or to
select the menu item. Its application is in processing
processing of options where graphical icons are given. The touch
input can be recorded using optical, electrical or acoustical methods. There are three kinds of touch panels:
a) Optical Touch Panel
b) Electrical Touch Panel
c) Acoustic Touch Panel

A. Optical touch panel

It uses a series of infra-red
red emitting diodes (LED) along one vertical edge and along one horizontal
edge of the panel, that is, infra-red
red lens are employed along the vertical edges and one horizontal edge of the
frame. The opposite vertical and horizontal edges contain photo detectors or infra-red red sensors to form a grid of
invisible infra-red
red light beams over the display area.
area. When the user touches the screen, it breaks one or two
vertical and horizontal light beams falling on the screen thereby indicating the fingers positions which
determines the point of contact. The cursor is then moved to this position or the icon at this position is selected.
With closely spaced LEDS, it is possible to break two horizontal or two vertical beams simultaneously. In that
case, the average position between two interrupted beams is recorded. The LEDS operate at infra-red infra
frequency so that the light is not visible to the user. This is a low resolution panel which offers 10 to 50 positions
in each direction.
An optical touch panel is provided which includes a plurality of light-emitting
light emitting elements, reflectors for
reflecting the emitted light, and a plurality of light-receiving
light receiving elements for receiving the reflected light. The
plurality of light-emitting
emitting elements and the plurality of light-receiving
receiving elements are arranged alternately along

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each of first and second adjacent sides of a rectangular position-detecting

position detecting surface, and the reflectors are
arranged along each of third and fourth adjacent sides of the position-detecting
position detecting surface. A drive controller
causes the plurality of light emitting elements to light in a predetermined order to thereby cause respective ones
of the light-receiving
receiving elements arranged on opposite sides of each of the plurality of light-emitting
light elements to
receive the light reflected by the reflectors. Hollow cylinders opposed to the respective light-receiving
light elements
inhibit light other than the light reflected by the reflectors from being incident on the plurality of light-receiving
light
elements.

Fig: Optical Touch Panel

Sonic panel
Bursts of high frequency sound waves travelling alternately horizontally and vertically are generated at the edge
of the panel.. When a user touches the screen, the finger causes part of the wave to be reflected back from the
finger to the emitters/sources.. The screen position at the point of contact is then calculated from a
measurement of a time interval between the transmission of each wave and its reflection to the emitter i.e. the
time between emission of the wave and its arrival at the source itself. This is also the high resolution touch
panel having about 500 positions in each direction.

B. Electrical touch panel

It consists of slightly separated two transparent plates one is coated with a thin layer of conducting material
and the other with resistive material. When the panel is touch with a finger, the two plates are forced to touch at
the point of contact thereby creating the voltage drop across the resistive plate which is then used to calculate
the coordinates of the touch position.
tion. This is also the high resolution touch panel having about 500 positions in
each direction which is similar to that of sonic touch panel.

Fig: touch panel

5. Tablet:
A tablet is a digitizer. In general, a digitizer is a device which is used to scan over an object and to input a
set of discrete coordinate positions. These positions can then be joined with straight line segments to
approximate the shape of the original object. A tablet digitizes an object detecting the position of a movable
stylus (pencil-shaped
shaped device) or puck (like mouse with cross hairs for sighting positions) held in the user’s hand.
It is a common device for drawing, painting or interactively selecting coordinate position on an object. One type
of digitizer is the graphic tablet.. It is used to enter two dimensional coordinates by activating a hand cursor or
stylus at selected position on a flat surface. A tablet is a flat surfaces ranging from 6 x 6 inches to 48 x 72
inches which can detect tect the position of movable of stylus or pack held in user hand. The accuracy of tablets
usually falls below 0.2 mm.
There are three types of digitizer:
a) Electrical Tablet
b) Sonic Tablet
c) Resistive Tablet

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Electrical Tablet:
A grid of wires on ¼ to ½ inch
ch center is embedded in the tablet surface, and electromagnetic signals generated
by the electric pulses applied in the sequence to the wire in the grid induce electrical signals in a wire coil in the
stylus (or puck). The strength of the signal induced by
by each pulse is used to determine the position of the stylus.
The signal strength is also used to determine roughly how far the stylus is from the tablet. When the stylus is
within ½ inch from the tablet, it is taken as “near” otherwise it is either “far” or “touching”. When the stylus is
“near” or “touching”, a cursor is usually shown on the display to provide visual feedback to the user. A signal is
sent to the computer when the tip of the stylus is pressed against the tablet, or when any button on the puckpu is
pressed. The information provided by the tablet repeats 30 to 60 times per second.

Sonic Tablet
The sonic tablet use sound waves to couple the stylus to microphones positioned on the periphery of the
digitizing area. An electric spark at the tip of the stylus creates sound bursts. The position of the stylus or
coordinate value s is calculated using the
the delay between when the spark occurs and when its sound arrives at
each microphone. The main advantage of sonic tablet is that it doesn’t require the dedicated working area for
the microphone can placed on any surface from the “tablet” work area. These facilitat
f ates digitizing drawing on
thick books, because in an electrical tablet this is not convenient for the stylus cannot get closer to the tablet
surface.

Resistive Tablet
The resistive tablet consists of a piece of glass coated with thin layer of conducting material. When a battery-
battery
powered stylus is activated at certain position, it emits high frequency radio signals, which induce the radio
signal on the conducting layers. The strength of the signal received at the edges of the tablet is used to
calculate the position of the stylus.
When the stylus is activated at certain point, it emits high frequency radio signal which induces radio signal into
the conducting layer. The strength of the signal at the edges of the tablet determines the position of the stylus.

Several types of tablets are transparent and thus can be backlit for digitizing x-rays
x rays film and photographic
negatives, the resistive tablet can be used to digitize the objects on CRT because it can be curved to the shape
of the CRT. The mechanism of sonic tablet or electrical tablets can be used to digitize the 3D objects, while the
resistive tablets can be used to digitize on CRT because it can be curved to shape of the CRT.

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2.1. Raster and Random display architecture

Raster Scan displays
Raster display technology is developed in early 70’s based on TV (television technology) technology. The
electron beam in raster scan display is swept across the screen, one row at a time from top to bottom. As the
electron beam moves across each row, row, the beam intensity is turn on as 1 and off as 0 to create a pattern of
illuminated spots. Picture definition is stored in a memory called the refresh buffer or frame buffer. This
memory holds the set of intensity values for all the screen points. The intensity
intensity values are retrieving from the
buffer and repaint on the screen one row at a time. The intensity range for pixel positions depends on the
capability of the raster system. In monochrome monitor frame buffer consists of one bit for each pixel (i.e. eitherei
1 for on or 0 for off) and for color monitor or for variation of intensity of each pixel frame buffer require additional
bits consists up to 24 bits for each pixel for high quality system. Which require several megabytes of storage for
frame buffer, depending upon on the resolution of the system.
system
For example:
If resolution of a display is 1024*1024,
1024*1024
24 bits are included for each pixel.
i.e. 8 bits for RED, 8 bits for GREEN,, 8 bits for BLUE, then
Frame buffer require = (1024*1024*24) bits
= (1024*1024*24)/8 bytes
= (1024*1024*24)/(8*1024*1024) Mega bytes
=3 MB
24
And the capability of color combination of that display is 2 = 16 millions of color combination
The refresh rate of raster scan display is typically 60 to 80 frames per seconds. That means the redrawn of
image is 60 to 80 so that user view the non flickering image.
Some of the rater scans display system each frame is displayed in two pass using an interlaced refresh
procedure. It is primarily used lower refresh rate for preserving
preserving the phosphor from burn out.

Raster Display Technology

It consists of central processing unit, a video controller, a monitor, system memory, peripheral devices such as
mouse and keyboard. The application program and graphical subroutine package both reside in the system
memory and execute on CPU. When a particular particular command such as a line(x1, y1, x2, y2) is called by the
application program, the graphics subroutine package sets the appropriate pixels in the frame buffer, a portion
of the system memory. The video controller then cycles through the frame buffer, one on scan line at a time
typically 50 times per second. It brings a value of each pixel contained in the buffer and uses it to control the
intensity of the CRT electron beam. So there exists a one to one relationship between the pixel in the frame
buffer and that on the CRT screen.

Figure: Simplified Raster Display Architecture

A 640 pixels by 480 lines is an example of medium resolution raster display. A 1600 by 1200 is a high
resolution one. A pixel in a frame buffer may be represented by one bit as in monochromatic system where
8
each pixel on CRT screen is either ON '1' or OFF '0' or it may be represented by eight bits resulting 2 = 256
gray levels for continuous shades of gray on CRT screen.
screen. In color system, each of the three colors – red, green
24
and blue is represented by eight bits producing 2 = 16 million colors. A medium resolution color display having
640 x 480 pixels will thus require (640 x 480 x 24)/8 = 9 kb of RAM.

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Advantages
• It has an ability
bility to fill the areas
area with solid colors or patterns.
• The time required for refreshing
efreshing is independent of complexity of an image
• Low cost

Disadvantages
• For Real-Time
Time dynamics not only the end points are required
r to move but all the pixels in between
be the
moved end points have to be scan converted with appropriate algorithms which might slow down the
dynamic process.
• Required special algorithm to move all pixels.
• Due to scan conversion "jaggies
jaggies" or "stair-casing" are unavoidable.

Video Controller:
It is a special purpose processor. It accesses the frame buffer to refresh the screen. It is given direct access to
the frame buffer memory. Some transformation such as enlargement, reduction, or movement from one location
to another can also be accomplished with the video controller. Some systems are designed to allow the video
controller to mix the frame buffer image with an input from television camera or other input device.

Raster Display Processor:

The raster display with a peripheral display
display processor is a common architecture that avoids the
disadvantage of simple raster display system. It includes a separate graphics processor to perform graphics
functions such as scan conversion and raster operation and a separate frame buffer for image refresh. The
display processor has its own separate memory called display processor memory. The purpose of the display
processor is to free the CPU from the graphics chores. The display processor digitizes the picture definition
given in an application program
ogram into a set of pixel intensity values for storage in the frame buffer. This
digitization is called as scan conversion.
System memory holds data and those programs that execute on the CPU, and the application program,
graphics package and OS. The displaydisplay processor memory holds data plus the program that perform scan
conversion and raster operations. The frame buffer stores displayable image created by scan conversion and
raster operations. The organization is given below in figure:
CPU Peripheral Devices

System Bus

Display
Display System
processor
Processor Memory

Display
Display Frame Video Monitor
Processor
Processor Buffer Controller
memory
memory
Figure: Raster Display Architecture with Display Processor

Random Scan Displays (vector display technology)

Random/Vector display technology was developed around 60’s and used as a common common display device until
80’s. It is also called a random scan, a stroke, a line drawing, or a calligraphic display.
display The architecture of a
simple vector display is shown in figure
ure below:

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Figure: The architecture of a simple vector display

It consists of a central processing unit (CPU), a display processor, a monitor, system memory and peripheral
devices such as mouse and keyboard. A display processor is also called a display processing unit (DPU), or
graphics controller.. The application program
pro and graphics subroutine package both reside in the system
memory, and execute on CPU. A graphics subroutine packages create a display list, and stores in the system
memory. A display list contains point and line plotting commands with end point coordinates
coordi as well as
character plotting commands. The DPU interprets the commands in the display list and plots the respective
output primitives such as point, line and characters. As a matter of fact, the DPU sends digital point coordinates
to a vector generator
tor that converts the digital coordinate values to analog voltage for circuits that display an
electron beam hitting on the CRT’s phosphor coating. Therefore the beam is deflected from endpoint to
endpoint, as dictated by the arbitrary order of the commands
commands in the display list, hence the name Random Scan
Display.. Since the light output of the phosphor decays in tens or at most hundreds of microseconds, the DPU
must cycle through the display list to refresh the image around 50 times per second to avoid flicker.
flick A portion of
the system memory where the display list is resided is called a refresh buffer. This display technology is used
with monochromatic CRTs, or beam-penetration
penetration color CRTs.

Advantages:
1. It can produce a smooth output primitive with higher resolution
resolution unlike the raster display technology.
2. It is better than raster display for real time dynamics such as animation.
3. For transformation, only the endpoints has to be moved to the new position in vector display, but in raster
display it is necessary to move those endpoints, and at the same time all the pixels between the endpoints
must be scan-converted
converted using appropriate algorithm, no prior information on pixels can be reused.

Disadvantage:
1. A vector display cannot
not fill areas with patterns, and manipulate bits.
2. Time required for refreshing an image depends upon its complexity (more the lines, longer the time), the
flicker may therefore appear as the complexity of the image increases. The fastest vector display can draw
about 100,000 short vectors in a refresh cycle without flickering.

Comparison of Random and Raster Displays

Random Raster
1. Restricted to engineering, line drawing 1. Stores intensity information for each screen point,
applications. well suited for displaying shading and color areas.
2. Doesn't use interlacing. 2. Use interlacing.
3. Higher resolution. 3. Lower resolution.
4. More expensive. 4. Less expensive.
5. Uses monochrome or beam penetration type. 5. Usess monochrome or shadow mask type.
6. Image is displayed by steering the beam along the 6. Image is displayed by scanning the whole display
vectors. area.
7. Editing is easy. 7. Editing is difficult.
8. Solid fill/pattern fill is difficult. 8. Solid
d fill/pattern fill is easy.
easy
9. Refresh rate depends directly on picture 9. Refresh rate is independent of picture complexity.
complexity.

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Display device
1. Fluorescence / Phosphorescence
When electron beam strikes phosphor coated screen, the individual electron is moving with kinetic energy that
is proportional to the acceleration voltage. Some of this energy is dissipated as heat and the rest of the energy
is transferred to the electrons of phosphor atom, making them jump to higher quantum energy levels. In
returning to their previous quantum levels the excited electrons give up their extra energy in the
th form of light,
predicated by quantum theory. Any given phosphor has several quantum levels to which electrons can be
excited each corresponding to a color associated with return to an unexcited state. Further, the t electrons at
some levels are less stable and turn in an unexcited state more rapidly than others.. A phosphor’s fluorescence
is the light emitted as these
hese very unstable electrons lose
lose their excess energy while the phosphor is being struck
by electrons. Phosphorescence is the light given off by the the return of the relatively more unstable excited
electrons to their unexcited state once the electron beam excitation is removed. Since fluorescence
f usually last
just a fraction of a microsecond, most of the light emitted is phosphorescence for a given phosphor.
pho

2. Persistence
A phosphor’s persistence is defined as the time from the removal of excitation to the moment when
phosphorescence has decayed to 10% of the initial light output. The range of persistence of different phosphors
can reach many seconds. The he phosphors used for graphics display devices usually have persistence of 10 to
60 microseconds. A phosphor with low persistence is useful for animation; a high persistence phosphor is
useful for highly complex, static pictures.

3. Refresh Rate
The refresh rate is the number of times per second the image is redrawn to give a feeling of un-flickering
un
pictures, and it is usually 50 per second. As the refresh rate decreases flicker develops because the eye can no
longer integrate the individual light impulses coming from a pixel. The refresh rate above which a picture stops
flickering and fuse into a steady image is called critical fusion frequency (CFF).
The factors affecting the CFF are:
• Persistence: longer the persistence the lower the CFF, but the relation between the CFF and persistence is
non linear.
• Image intensity: increasing the image intensity increase the CFF with nonlinear relationship.
• Ambient room light: Decreasing the ambient room light increase the CFF with nonlinear relationship.
• Wavelengths of emitted light
• Observer

4. Horizontal scan rate:

The horizontal scan rate is the number of scan lines per second. The rate is approximately the product of the
refresh rate and the number of scan lines.

5. Resolution
Resolution is defined as the maximum number of points that can be displayed horizontally and vertically without
overlap on display device. Factors affecting the resolution are follows.

• Spot profile: the spot intensity has a Gaussian distribution

dist as depicted in fig a. So
o two adjacent spots on the
display device appear distinct as long as their separation (D2) is greater than the diameter of the spot (D1) at
which each spot has an intensity of about 60% of that at the center of the spot as shown in fig b

Fig. b
• Intensity: as the intensity of the electron beam increases, the spot size on display tends to increase because
of spreading of energy beyond the point of bombardment. This phenomenon is also known as blooming.
Consequently the resolution decreases.
Thus it is noted that resolution is not necessarily
necessarily a constant, and it is not necessarily equal to the resolution of a
pixmap which is allocated in buffer memory.
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Milan Chikanbanjar Computer Department Computer Graphics

Cathode Ray Tube (CRT)

1. Monochromatic CRT
2. Color CRT
2.1. Beam penetration
2.2. Shadow mask
2.2.1. Delta- Delta shadow mask
2.2.2. Precision in line CRT

1. Monochromatic CRT
The electron gun emits a stream of electrons that is accelerated towards the phosphor coated screen by a high
positive voltage applied inner side of the tube near the screen. The electrons are forced into a narrow beam by
the focusing mechanism and directed towards a particular point on screen by the deflection mechanism. The
mechanism may be electrostatic or magnetic. When electron hit the screen the phosphor emits visible light and
then the phosphor’s light output decays exponentially with time. The entire picture must be refreshed (redrawn)
many times per-second so that the viewer sees an un-flickering pictures.

The stream of electrons from the heated cathode is accelerated towards the phosphor coated screen by a high
voltage 15,000 to 20,000 volts. The control grid voltage determines how many electrons are actually in the
electron beam. More negative the control grid voltage, fewer the electrons that pass through the grid. Since the
light output of the phosphor depends upon the number of electrons in the beam the brightness of the screen is
therefore controlled by varying the grid voltage.

Since electrons in electron-beam repel to each other and tends to diverge. The focusing mechanism employs
an electron lens (electrostatic or magnetic) to concentrate the electrons in thin beam, and converge to thin small
point when it hits phosphor coating. The cross-sectional electron density of the beam is Gaussian (normal) and
the intensity spot on the phosphor has the same distribution as shown in fig. typically spots size of high
resolution monochrome CRT is 0.005 inches.

Fig cross-sectional view of monochromatic CRT

2. Color CRT
2.1. Beam penetration
There are two layers namely red and green in the display screen. A display color depends upon how far the
electron beam penetrates into phosphor layer. Slow the electron excites only outer red layer and give red color
as display while the fast electron excites inner green layers ad give green as display. And electron beam with
intermediate speeds penetrate the middle of the screen and hence give the combination of red and green color.
i.e color of the display is controlled by acceleration voltage. The quality of the display is not so good.

2.2. Shadow Mask

The inner side of the viewing surface of a color CRT consists of closely spaced groups of red, green and blue
phosphor dots. Each group is called a triad. A thin metal plate perforated with many small holes is mounted
close to the inner side of the viewing surface. This plate is called the shadow-mask. The shadow mask is
mounted in such a way that each hole is correctly aligned with a triad. In color CRT, there are three electron
guns one for each dot in triads. The electron beam from each gun therefore hits only the corresponding dot of a
triad as the three electron beams deflects. A triad is so small that light emanating from the individual dots is
perceived by the viewer as a mixture of the three colors. Thus, a wide range of color can be produced by each

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Milan Chikanbanjar Computer Department Computer Graphics

triad, depending on how strongly each individual phosphor dot is a triad is excited. There are two types of color
CRTs.

2.2.1. A Delta-Delta CRT

A triad has a triangular (delta) pattern as are three electron guns. The beam of electron are deflected and
focused onto the shadow mask, which contains the series of holes. When electron hit phosphor they activate a
dot triangle. The phosphor dots triangle are arranged such that each electron beam activate only its
corresponding color dots.

Fig Showing the parts of

o Delta Delta CRT
Drawback:
The drawback of this CRT is that a high precision display is very difficult to achieve because of technical
difficulties involved in the alignment of shadow mask holes and the triads on one to one basis.
basis

2.2.2. Precision in line

A triad has an in-line pattern as are three electron guns. The introduction of this type of CRT has eliminated the
drawback of delta-delta
delta CRT. But a slight reduction of image sharpness at the edge of the tubes has been
noticed.. Normally 1,000 scan line can be achieved.

Fig: Precision in line

The necessity of triad has reduced the resolution of a color CRT. The distance between the centers of adjacent
triads is called a pitch. In very high resolution tubes pitch measures 0.21 mm (0.61 mm for home TV tubes).
The diameter of each electron beam is set at 1.75 times the pitch.
For example:
A color CRT (15.5 * 11.6) inches has pitch of 0.01 inches.
Then beam diameter = 0.01 * 1.75 =0.018 inches
Resolution per inch = 1/0.018 =55 lines
Hence resolution achievable for given CRT is 15.5 * 55 = 850 by 11.6 * 55 = 638 lines
Therefore the resolution of a CRT can be increased by decreasing the pitch. But small pitch CRT is difficult to
manufacture because it is difficult to set small triads and the shadow mask is more fragile
f owing to too many
holes on it. Besides the shadow mask is more likely to warp from heating by the electrons.
The shadow mask of color CRT also decreases the brightness because only 20% of electrons in the beam hit
the phosphor and rest hits the shadowow mask.

Flat Panel Display:

Flat Panel means reduction of volume, weight and power requirements compared to a CRT. A current
applications are calculators, laptops computers, etc. It is classified into two types:
a) Emissive Displays: These are the devices that that converts electrical energy into light. E.g.: plasma
panel, electro luminescent display, etc.
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Milan Chikanbanjar Computer Department Computer Graphics

b) Non-Emissive Display: It uses optical effects to converts sunlight or other light sources into graphical
patterns. E.g.: LCD

Plasma Panel Display (Gas-discharge rge display):

It consists of matrix of cells in a glass envelope. Each cell is filled with gas usually neon. In broader sense,
region between two glass plates is filled with a mixture of gases such as neon, xenon and other inert gases. A
series of vertical conducting ribbons is placed on one glass panel and a set of horizontal ribbons is built into
other gas panel. Firing voltages applied to a pair of horizontal and vertical conductor causes gas at intersection
of the two conductors to break down into glowing plasma of electrons and ions. By controlling the amount of
voltage applied at various points on grid, each point acts as a pixel (intersection of conductors)
conductors to display an
image. Picture definition is stored in a refresh buffer and firing voltages are applied to refresh pixel positions 60
times per second.
The cells in a glass envelop are luminous when they are electrified through "electrodes”.
"electrodes” With a sufficiently
high voltage, some of the atoms in the gas of a cell lose electrons and become ionized creating electrically
conducting plasma of atoms, free electrons, and ions. This disassociated gas is called as plasma. The collisions
of the flowing electrons in the plasma
plasm with the inert gas atoms lead to light emission; such light-emitting
light
plasmas are known as glow discharges. To turn on a bulb, system adjusts voltages on the corresponding lines.
Once a glow discharge starts, it can be maintained by applying a low-level
low level voltage between all the horizontal
and vertical electrodes–even after thehe ionizing voltage is removed. When the electrons recombined
recombine energy is
released in the form of protons,then the gas glows with orange-red red color. To turn on a bulb, system adjusts
voltages on the corresponding lines. Once the glow starts, a lower voltage
voltage is applied to sustain it. To turn off a
bulb, the system momentarily decreases the voltage on the appropriate line than the sustaining voltage.

Electro Luminescent Display:

It consists of same grid line structure as used in plasma display. Between front and back panels is a thin layer
of electro luminescent
inescent material such as zinc Sulphide
Sulphide doped with manganese that emits light when a light
electric field is applied. Electrical energy is absorbed by a manganese atom which then release energy as a
spot of light similar to the glowing plasma effect in the plasma panel.

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display):

Liquid Crystal has a crystalline ne arrangement of molecules, and they get flow like liquids. Two glass plated
sandwiched the liquid crystal material to present information on a screen. Rows of horizontal transparent
conductors are built into one glass plate and columns
columns of vertical transparent conductors are put into the other
plate. The intersection of two conductors defines the pixel position. Polarized
Polarized light passing through the material
is twisted so that it will pass through the opposite polarizer. The light is then reflected back to the viewer. This
type of device is called passive matrix LCD and when we use transistors at each pixel position, it is i called as
active matrix displays. Depending upon how much they twist, some light waves are passed through while other
light waves are blocked. This creates the variety of color that appears on the screen. LCD monitors produce
color using either passive-matrix
atrix or active-matrix
active technology. Active matrix display, also known as a TFT (thin-
(thin
film transistors) display, uses separate transistors to apply changes to each liquid crystal cell and this display
high quality color that is viewable from all angles.

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Milan Chikanbanjar Computer Department Computer Graphics

1. Polarizing
larizing filter film with a vertical axis to polarize light as it enters.
2. Glass substrate with electrodes with vertical ridges.
3. Twisted nematic liquid crystal.
4. Glass substrate with common electrode film with horizontal ridges to line up with the horizontal
horizont filter.
5. Polarizing filter film with a horizontal axis to block/pass light.
6. Reflective surface to send light back to viewer.

In a LCD display each pixel acts as a switch, they don’t emit any light. Instead there is a white back lighting.
This light passes through the liquid crystal then through color filter. The liquid crystal solution is trapped
between two polarized glasses. Each sub-pixel
sub pixel is controlled electrically and thus more or less light is allowed to
pass through the crystal, then through the polarized glass on to the display surface. Controlled red, green, and
blue shades are thus emitted.

In addition, LCD display panels do not emit harmful electromagnetic radiation. To top-up
top this whole pro list,
some of the latest LCD panels have
ve a rated lifetime of around 100,000hrs of use!

LCD displays have their drawbacks as well. In particular, viewing angle and display response time may be
nd
issues of concern especially with LCD panels from 2 tier display manufactures. And price may also be b an
issue especially as one moves towards the larger screen sizes in excess of 50-inch
50 inch diagonal - this apart from
the high price tag associated with the latest LED LCD HDTV sets.

1. Active Matrix
Place transistor at each pixel location using thin film transistor
transistor (TFT) technology. Transistors are used to
control voltage at each pixel location and prevent the charge from gradually leaving out of the liquid crystal
cells.

2. Passive Matrix
Refresh buffer stores picture definition. The screen is refreshed at 60 frames per seconds. Color can be
displayed by using different material or dyes and by placing a triad of pixels at each screen location.

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