JOMO KENYATTA UNIVERSITY

OF
AGRICULTURE & TECHNOLOGY
JKUAT SODeL

SCHOOL OF OPEN, DISTANCE AND eLEARNING

P.O. Box 62000, 00200
©2014

Nairobi, Kenya
E-mail: [email protected]

ICS 2311 Computer Graphics

JJ II LAST REVISION ON October 16, 2014

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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
This presentation is intended to covered within one week.
The notes, examples and exercises should be supple-
mented with a good textbook. Most of the exercises have
solutions/answers appearing elsewhere and accessible by
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clicking the green Exercise tag. To move back to the same

page click the same tag appearing at the end of the solu-
tion/answer.
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Errors and omissions in these notes are entirely the re-

sponsibility of the author who should only be contacted
through the Department of Curricula & Delivery
(SODeL) and suggested corrections may be e-mailed to
[email protected].
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
LESSON 4
Raster Displays - details

4.1. introduction
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
4.2. Raster Memory:
Pixmap:
• A pixmap is storage for a whole raster of pixel values.
• Usually a contiguous area of memory, comprising one row
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(or column) of pixels after another.

Bitmap:
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• Technically a bitmap is a pixmap with 1 bit per pixel, i.e.

boolean colour values, e.g. for use in a black-and-white
display.
• But ’bitmap’ is often misused to mean any pixmap - please
try to avoid this!
JJ II Pixrect:
J I • A pixrect is any ’rectangular area’ within a pixmap. A
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
pixrect thus typically refers to a series of equal-sized frag-
ments of the memory within a pixmap, one for each row
(or column) of pixels.

4.2.1. Frame Buffer:

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• Frame buffers are often special two-ported memory devices

(’video memory’) with one port for writing and another for
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concurrent reading.
• Alternatively they can be part of the ordinary fast RAM
of a computer, which allows them to be extensively recon-
figured by software.

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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
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Defn:
JJ II A frame buffer is a video output device that drives a video
J I display from a memory buffer containing a complete frame of
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
data.
The information in the buffer typically consists of color val-
ues for every pixel (point that can be displayed) on the screen.
Color values are commonly stored in:
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• 1-bit monochrome,
• 4-bit palettized,
• 8-bit palettized,
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• 16-bit highcolor and

• 24-bit truecolor formats.
An additional alpha channel is sometimes used to retain infor-
mation about pixel transparency.
JJ II The total amount of the memory required to drive the frame
J I buffer depends on the resolution of the output signal, and on
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
the color depth and palette size.
Frame buffers differ significantly from the vector graphics
displays that were common prior to the advent of the frame
buffer.
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With a vector display, only the vertices of the graphics prim-

itives are stored.
The electron beam of the output display is then commanded
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to move from vertex to vertex, tracing an analog line across the

area between these points.
With a framebuffer, the electron beam (if the display tech-
nology uses one) is commanded to trace a left-to-right, top-to-
bottom path across the entire screen, the way a television ren-
JJ II ders a broadcast signal.
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
At the same time, the color information for each point on the
screen is pulled from the frame buffer, creating a set of discrete
picture elements (pixels).
Option1: Frame buffer is anywhere in system memory
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
Option2: Permanent place for frame buffer
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With respect to color displays, there are two types of frame

buffers:
1. Direct color frame buffer
JJ II
J I 2. Color lookup frame buffer
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
the frame buffer refresh rate is ussually 60-120hz

4.3. Raster memory cont. . .

In a bit-mapped display, the display processor refreshes the
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screen 25 or more times per second, a line at a time, from a

pixmap termed its frame buffer.
In each refresh cycle, each pixel’s colour value is ’copied’ from
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the frame buffer to the screen.

Additional raster memory may exist ’alongside’ that for colour
values.
For example there may be an ’alpha channel’ (transparency
values) a z-buffer (depth values for hidden object removal), or
JJ II an a-buffer (combining both ideas).
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
4.3.1. Key Attributes of Raster Displays:
•.1. Major attributes that vary between different raster displays
include the following:
1. ’Colour’: bi-level, greyscale, pseudo-colour, true colour:
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Refer to ’pixel values’ in lecture3

2. Size: usually measured on the diagonal: inches or degrees;
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3. Aspect ratio: now usually 5:4 or 4:3 (625-line TV: 4:3;

HDTV: 5:3);
4. Resolution: e.g. 1024×1280 (pixels). Multiplying these
numbers together we can say e.g. ’a 1.25 Mega-pixel dis-
play’. Avoid terms such as low/medium/high resolution
JJ II which may change over time.
J I 5. Pixel shape: now usually square; other rectangular shapes
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
have been used.
6. Brightness, sharpness, contrast: possibly varying signifi-
cantly with respect to view angle.
7. Speed, interlacing: now usually 50 Hz or more and flicker-
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free to most humans;

8. Computational features, as discussed next...
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• Computational features:
Since the 1970s, raster display systems have evolved to offer in-
creasingly powerful facilities, often packaged in optional graphics
accelerator boards or chips.
These facilities have typically consisted of hardware imple-
JJ II mentation or acceleration of computations which would other-
J I wise be coded in software, such as:
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
Raster-ops: fast 2D raster-combining operations explained
next;
2D scan conversion, i.e. creating raster images required by
2D drawing primitives such as:
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• 2D lines, e.g. straight/circular/elliptical lines, maybe spline

curves (based on several points);
• 2D coloured areas, e.g. polygons or just triangles, possibly
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with colour interpolation;

• Text (often copied from rasterised fonts using raster-ops);
3D graphics acceleration - now often including 3D scan conver-
sion.
It is useful for graphics software developers to be aware of
JJ II such features and how they can be accessed, and to have insight
J I into their cost in terms of time taken as a function of length or
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
area.

4.3.2. Raster Ops:

’Raster Ops’ are logical operations affecting multiple pixels in a
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pixmap (or raster frame buffer).

Raster graphics terminals typically have special hardware
which executes Raster Ops very quickly.
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A raster-op assigns to a destination pixrect D a logical func-

tion of the initial state D and an equal-sized source pixrect S.
• This logical function is the same for each pixel of D and
each corresponding pixel of S.
All bits in a destination pixel are processed in parallel.
JJ II • So each bit in a destination pixrect D is assigned the spec-
J I ified logical function of its initial value and the value of
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
the corresponding bit in a congruent source pixrect S.
• Or S may be a bitmap; then the same source bit is applied
with each bit of a destination pixel.
There are 16 possible ’logical functions’ (boolean operators) which
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may be used,
The functions commonly used are 0 (clear), 3 (copy), 6 (xor),
a (invert) and f (set), especially copy.
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• Scrolling is generally done by repeated use of the copy

function such that the source and destination pixrects are
overlapping regions of the frame buffer.
• Another frequent use of the copy function is to save a copy
of part of a background image before drawing a moving
JJ II object over it, then copying back the saved image and re-
J I peating this process for further positions and states of the
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
moving object.
The basic raster-op scheme is often extended as follows:
• By the use of a clip mask to distinguish between desti-
nation pixels the raster-op affects and destination pixels
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which are unaffected.

• The clip mask is usually just a bitmap. Some raster-op
hardware allows a clip mask bitmap to be used in with in-
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dependent source and destination pixrects. In some cases

a clip mask and a colour may be used as an alternative to
a source pixrect.
By the use of a plane mask to limit the planes of a frame buffer
that will be affected.
JJ II • A plane mask is a pixel value in which (usually) 1’s specify
J I affected planes and 0’s specify unaffected planes.
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
• Thus pixmaps with n-bit pixel values can be treated as
having n different ’bit-planes’.
– For example an 8-bit-pixel pixmap can be used to
hold two 4-bit-pixel images or four 2-bit-pixel images.
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Among other things, raster-ops enabled draggable icons, sprites

(animated icons) and a whole generation of computer games us-
ing 2D graphics operations to achieve cheap-and-cheerful pseudo-
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3D effects.
Multiple window user interfaces make extensive use of raster-
ops.
• The X window system has long done this with particu-
lar efficiency, both in using raster-ops in conjunction with
JJ II advanced repainting algorithms and in making raster-op
J I functionality accessible to applications programmers.
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
Revision Questions

Example . define a frame buffer and describe the type of

information it consists
Solution:
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frame buffer is a video output device that drives a video

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display from a memory buffer containing a complete frame of

data.
The information in the buffer typically consists of color val-
ues for every pixel (point that can be displayed) on the screen.
Color values are commonly stored in:
1-bit monochrome,
JJ II
4-bit palettized,
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 ICS 2311 Computer Graphics
8-bit palettized,
16-bit highcolor and
24-bit truecolor formats.
. 
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Exercise 1.  ...
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