Major components (HW/SW) for computer

graphics

Hardware Components:
monitors, mouse and joy-sticker, and hard-copy
devices, e.g. high-resolution color printer

For software Components:

Special purpose utilities (device-dependent and
device independent)
needed for handling processing

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 Input Hardware
Tablet
Tablet a tablet is a digitizer.
- scan over an object and 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

(a pencil shaped device) or a puck(a mouse like device with cross
hairs for sighting positions) held in the user’s hand

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Input Hardware

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 Input Hardware
i. Electrical Tablet
 
A grid of wires is embedded in the tablet surface
 
Electromagnetic signals generated by electrical pulses
applied in sequence to the wires in the grid induce an
electrical signal in a wire coil in the stylus or puck
 
The strength of the signal induced 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
 
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 Input Hardware
ii. Sonic Tablet

The sonic tablet uses sound waves to couple the stylus to

microphones positioned on the periphery of the digitizing
area
 
An electrical spark at the tip of the stylus creates sound
bursts.
 
The position of the stylus or the coordinate values is
calculated using the delay between when the spark
occurs and when its sound arrives at each microphone
 

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 Input Hardware

The main advantage of sonic tablet is that it doesn’t

require a dedicated working area as the microphones can
be placed on any surface to form the tablet work area
 
This facilitates digitizing drawing on thick books because
in an electrical tablet this is not convenient for the stylus
can not get closer to the tablet surface

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 Input Hardware

iii. Resistive Tablet

The tablet is just a piece of glass coated with a thin layer

of conducting material
 
When a battery powered stylus is activated at certain
position it emits high frequency radio signals which
induces the radio signals on conducting layer.
 
The strength of the signal received at the edges of the
tablet is used to calculate the position of the stylus
 

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 Input Hardware

Several types of tablets are transparent, and thus

can be backlit for digitizing x-ray films 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 used in the electrical or sonic
tablets can also be used to digitize the 3D objects
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 Input Hardware

Touch Panels
 
The touch panel allows the user to point at the screen directly with a
finger to move the cursor around the screen or to select the icons.
 
i. Optical Touch Panel

It uses a series of infrared light emitting diodes (LED) along one

vertical edge and along one horizontal edge of the panel
  
The opposite vertical and horizontal edges contain photo detectors
to form a grid of invisible infrared light beams over the display area.
 

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 Input Hardware
Touching the screen breaks one or two vertical and horizontal light
beams thereby indicating the fingers position
 
The cursor is then moved to this position or the icon at this position is
selected
 
 This is a low resolution panel which offers 10 to 50 positions in each
direction

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 Input Hardware

ii. Sonic Touch Panel

 
Bursts of high frequency sound waves traveling alternately
horizontally and vertically are generated at the edge of the panel .
 
Touching the screen causes part of each wave to be reflected back to
its source
 
The screen position at the point of contact is then calculated using
the time elapsed between when the wave is emitted and when it
arrives back at the source
 
 This is a high resolution touch panel having about 500 positions in
each direction
 

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 Input Hardware

iii. Electrical Touch Panel

 
It consists of slightly separated two transparent panel one coated
with a thin layer of conducting material and the other with resistive
material
 
When the panel is touched 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
coordinate of the touched position
 
The resolution of the touch panel is similar to that of sonic touch
panel
 

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Input Hardware

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 Input Hardware

Light pen
 
It is a pencil shaped device to determine the coordinates of a point on the
screen where it is activated such as pressing the button .
 
In raster display ‘y’ is set at ymax and ‘x’ changes from 0 to xmax the first scan
line .
 
For the second line ‘y’ decreases by one and ‘x’ again changes from 0 to x max
and so on
 
When activated light pen sees a burst of light at certain position as the
electron beam hits the phosphor coating at that position it generates an
electric pulse
 

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 Input Hardware
This is used to save the video controller’s ‘x’ and ‘y’ registers and interrupt
the computer
 
By reading the saved valued the graphics package can determine the
coordinates of the position seen by the light pen
 
Drawbacks
i. Light pen obscures screen images as it is pointed to required spot
 
ii. Prolong use of it can cause arm fatigue
 
iii. 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
 
iv. It gives sometimes false reading due to back ground lighting in a
room
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 Types of Displays:
• Emissive Displays
– The emissive display converts electrical energy into light energy.
– The image is produced directly on the screen Phosphors convert
electron beams or UV light into visible light
e.g.: Plasma, Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) Light-Emitting Diode
Displays (LED), Plasma Display Panel (PDP)
• Non-Emissive Displays
– Light is produced behind the screen and the image is formed by
filtering this light e.g.: LC-Display (LCD)
– The Non emissive display uses optical effects to convert the
sunlight or light from any other source to graphic form
Cathode Ray Tube (CRT)
 LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)
• LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)
– A type of flat-panel display
– Uses liquid crystals between two sheets of material
to present information on a screen
– An electric current passes through the liquid crystals,
they twist
– Depending on 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
 How LCD works?

Step 2. As light passes through liquid crystal, electrical

charge causes some of the cells to twist, making light waves
bend as they pass through color filter.
Step 1. Panel
of fluorescent
tubes emits
light waves
through
polarizing glass filter,
which guides light
toward layer of liquid
Liquid crystal cells Step 3. When light reaches
crystal cells.
second polarizing glass filter, light
is allowed to pass through any
Transparent electrodes
cells that line up at the first
Alignment layer polarizing glass filter. Absence
Color filter and presence of colored light cause
Polarizing glass filter image to display on the screen.
Fluorescent tube panel
 LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)
• LCD monitors produce color using either
passive-matrix or active-matrix technology
• Active-matrix display, also known as a TFT
(thin-film transistor) display, uses a separate
transistor to apply changes to each liquid
crystal cell and thus display high-quality color
that is viewable from all angles
 LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)
• Passive-matrix display uses fewer transistors
and requires less power than an active-matrix
display
• The color on a passive-matrix display often is not
as bright as an active-matrix display
• Users view images on a passive-matrix display
best when working directly in front of it
• Passive-matrix displays are less expensive than
active-matrix displays
 LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)

• An importance measure of LCD monitors is

the response time, which is the time in
millisecond (ms) that it takes to turn a pixel
on or off
• LCD monitors’ response times average 25 ms
• The lower the number, the faster the
response time
• Resolution and dot pitch determines quality of
LCD monitor
 Gas plasma monitor
• A flat-panel display that uses gas plasma
technology
• A layer of gas between two sheets of material
• When voltage is applied, the gas releases
ultraviolet (UV) light that causes the pixels on
the screen to glow and form an image
• Larger screen sizes and higher display quality
than LCD, but much more expensive
Gas plasma monitor
ADVANTAGES:
1. Refreshing is not required.
2. Produce a very steady image free of Flicker.
3. Less bulky than a CRT.

DISADVANTAGES:
1. Poor resolution of up to 60 d.p.i.
2. It requires complex addressing and wiring.
3. It is costlier than CRT.
Hard Copy Devices
Printers
Printed output is referred to as hard copy and do not
require electric power as they are printed on papers to
read after printing and provide permanent readable
form information
 
According to how they print printers can be of different
types:
Character printers prints one character of a text at a
time
Line printer prints one line of the text at a time
A page printer prints one page of the text a t a time
 
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According to the technology used printers produce
output by either impact or non impact methods

Impact printers
Impact printers press the formed character faces against
an inked ribbon onto paper
Individual characters or graphics patterns are obtained
by retracting certain pins so that the remaining pins
form the pattern to be printed.
 
Non-Impact Printers
Non impact printers use laser techniques, ink-jet sprays
etc to get images onto paper.
 
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Ink-jet Devices

Ink-jet methods produce output by squirting ink in

horizontal rows across a roll of paper wrapped on a drum.
 
When a heater is activated a drop of ink is exploded onto
the paper
 

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Laser Devices
These are page printers
 They use laser beam to produce an image of the page
containing text graphics on a photosensitive drum which
is coated with negatively charge photo conductive
material
 In a laser device a laser beam creates a charge
distribution on a rotating drum coated with a photo
electric material such as selenium. Toner is applied to
drum and then transferred to paper.

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Potters
Plotter is a device that draws pictures on paper based on
commands from a computer
 
They are used to produce precise and good quality
graphics and drawing under computers control
 
They use motor driven ink pen or ink jet to draw graphic
or drawings
 
Drawings can be prepared on paper, Velluym or Mylar
(Polyester film)
 

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 Display Devices
Fluorescence / Phosphorescence
A phosphors fluorescence is the light emitted as the very unstable electrons
lose their excess energy whole the phosphor is being struck by electrons
 
Phosphorescence is the light given off by the return of the relatively more
stable excited electrons to their unexcited state once the electron beam
excitation is removed

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 Display Devices

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

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 Display Devices
Refresh rate
The refresh rate is the number of times per second the image is redrawn to
give a feeling of un-flickering 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 fuses into a steady
image is called the critical fusion frequency (CFF)
 
 
 

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 Display Devices
 
 
The factors affecting the CFF are:
 
i. Persistence: longer the persistence the lower the CFF But the
relation between the CFF and persistence is non linear
 
ii. Image intensity: Increasing the image intensity increases the CFF
with non linear relationship
 
iii. Ambient room light Decreasing the ambient room light increases
the CFF with nonlinear relationship
 
iv. Wave lengths of emitted light
 
v. Observer

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 Display Devices

Resolution
Resolution is defined as the maximum number of points that can be
displayed horizontally and vertically with out overlap on a display device
Factors affecting the resolution are as follows
 
i. Spot profile:
The spot intensity has a Gaussian distribution. So 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 percent of that at the center of the
spot
  Intensity 60%

D1

D2

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 Display Devices

 
ii.Intensity:
As the intensity of the electron beam increases the spot size on the
display tends to increase because of spreading of energy beyond the point of
bombardment
 
This phenomenon is called blooming Consequently , the resolution decreases.
 
Thus it is noted that resolution is no necessarily a constant and it is not
necessarily equal to the resolution of a pix-map, which is allocated in a buffer
memory

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 Display Devices

Color CRTs
 
Color depends on the light emitted by phosphor.
 
Two type:
 
Beam Penetration Method
 
Shadow Mask Method

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 Display Devices

i. Beam Penetration Method:

Two different layers of phosphor coating used Red (outer) and Green
(inner)
Display of color depends on the depth of penetration of the electron beam
into the phosphor layers
•A beam of slow electrons excites only the outer red layer
•A beam of very fast electrons penetrates thru the red phosphor and
excites
the inner green layer
•When quantity of red is more than green then color appears as orange
•When quantity of green is more than red then color appears as yellow
Screen color is controlled by the beam acceleration voltage.
Only four colors possible, poor picture quality

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 Display Devices

ii. Shadow Mask Method

 
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 shadow mask
 
The shadow mask is mounted in such a way that each hole is correctly
aligned with a triad in color CRT
 

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 Display Devices

There are three electron guns one for each dot in a

triad
 
The electron beam form each gun therefore hits only
the corresponding dot of a triad as the three electron
beams deflect
 
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 colors can be produced by each
triad depending on how strongly each individual
phosphor dot in a triad is excited.
 

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 Display Devices
a. A Delta –Delta CRT
A triad has a triangular (delta) pattern as are the three electron guns
 
Main drawback of this type of 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 triad on one to one basis
 b. Precision Inline CRT
A triad has an in-line pattern as are the three electron guns
 
The introduction of this type of CRT has eliminated the main drawback of a
Delta-Delta CRT
 
But a slight reduction of image sharpness at the edges of the tube has been
noticed
 
Normally 1000 scan lines can be achieved

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i. Vector Display Technology

CPU Peripheral
Devices

System Bus

System Display Monitor

Memory Processor

.
. Display
MoveTo(10,10) List ->
LineTo(639,479)
.
.
.

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i. Vector Display Technology

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i. Vector Display Technology

It is also called random scan, a stroke, a line drawing or calligraphic display

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

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i. Vector Display Technology

Disadvantages:
 
i. A vector display can not fill areas with patterns and manipulate bits
 
ii. 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 100000 short vectors in a refresh cycle without flickering

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ii. Raster Display Technology

CPU Peripheral
Devices

System Bus

System Video Controller Monitor

Memory

0000000000
0100000000
0010000000 Frame Buffer ->
0001000000
0000100000

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ii. Raster Display Technology

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ii. Raster Display Technology

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ii. Raster Display Technology

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ii. Raster Display Technology

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ii. Raster Display Technology
Disadvantages
 
i. For Real-Time dynamics not only the end points are required
to move but all the pixels in between the moved end
points have to be scan converted with appropriate
algorithms which might slow down the dynamic
process
 
ii. Due to scan conversion “jaggies” or “stair-casing” are
unavoidable
 

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O
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 RDT/VDT

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 Frame Buffer

0000000000 0 Screen
0100000000 Electron
0010000000 Gun
0001000000
0000100000

Frame Buffer

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 Frame Buffer

0000000001 1 Screen
0100000000 Electron
0010000000 Gun
0001000000
0000100000

Frame Buffer

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 Frame Buffer

0000000001 1
0100000000 r Screen
0 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1 1
0 00 01 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 0
0000000000
0 00 00 01 10 00 00 00 00 00 0 0 Electron
0 00 01 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 0
0 00 00 01 10 00 00 00 00 00 0 Guns
0001000000
0000100000

Frame Buffer

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 Frame Buffer

0000000001 1
0100000000 r Screen
0 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1 1
0 00 01 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 0
0000000001
0 00 00 01 10 00 00 00 00 00 0 1 Electron
0 00 01 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 0
0 00 00 01 10 00 00 00 00 00 0 Guns
0001000000 R G B
0000100000
11 1 white
Frame Buffer 0 1 0 green
1 0 0 red
0 0 1 blue
1 1 0 yellow
0 1 1 cyan
10 1 purple
0 0 0 black

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 Frame Buffer Total number of intensities achievable
out of a single pixel on the screen
= 2n
n = number of
00000000000000000011
bits assigned to
0 10000000000000000000000000011
0100000000
a single pixel
0 0001101000000000000000000000000000000000000000001011
0 0 11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0000000011110000000000000000000000000000000
0 0 00 00 1 11 00 0 0 0 0 0 0
000000000000000
110 001
111
00000
000000000000000000000000000
0 0 0 1
00000000000111000000000000000 0 11111111
0 00 00 00 11 00 00 00 00 00 0
00000000110000000000

Screen
0000000001
0000000001
0 10000000000000000000000000011
0100000000
0 000110100000000000000000000000000000000011 Electron
0 0 1 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 0 0
0 0000000011 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 Guns
0 0 00 011110000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000
11111
000000000000000000000000 0 11111111
0000000000000011110000000000000000000000
0000100000
0000100000
If n bits are assigned to a single
Frame Bufferpixel and the
resolution of the screen is 1024 x 800 then the total
size of the required frame buffer is n x 1024 x 800
00000000000000000001
0 10000000000000000000000000011
0100000000
0 000110100000000000000000000000000000000011
0 0 111000000000000000000000 0
0 00000000
10
0 0 0 111110000000000000000000000000000000000
0 000000000000
100000
00000000000111110000000000000000000000000
11111111

0 00 00 00 11 00 00 00 00 00 0
00000000110000000000
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 Video Cards and CRT Monitors
• Many CRT monitors use an analog signal to
produce an image
• Video card converts digital output from the
computer into an analog video signal and
sends the signal through a cable to the
monitor
– Also called a graphics card
Look up Tables
 Video Cards and CRT Monitors
• The number of colors a video card displays is determined
by its bit depth
• The video card’s bit depth, also called the color depth, is
the number of bits it uses to store information about
each pixel
• i.e. 8-bit video card uses 8 bits to store information
about each pixel; this video card can display 256 colors
(2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2)
• i.e. 24-bit video card uses 24 bits to store information
about each pixel and can display 16.7 million colors
• The greater the number of bits, the better the resulting
image
Video Cards and CRT Monitors
Video Display StandardsVideo Electronics Standards
Association (VESA), which consists of video card and
monitor manufacturers, develops video stands to define
the resolution, number of colors, and other display
properties.
Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA)
Hercules Graphics Card
Color Graphics Adapter (CGA)
Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA)
Video Graphics Adapter (VGA)
Super VGA (SVGA) and Other Standards Beyond VGA

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 Refresh rate

When electron beam strikes a dot in CRT, the

surface of the CRT only glows for a fraction of
a second and then fades.

Monitor must redraw the picture many times

per second to avoid having the screen flicker

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 Refresh rate

The refresh rate is the number of times per

second that monitor redraws the images on
the screen.

Very few people notice flicker at refresh rates

above 72 Hz.

Higher refresh rates are preferred for better

comfort in viewing the monitor

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If the image dimension is 1366 x 768 then what is the
size of the image in terms of Mega Pixels
Ans: 1

If the image dimension is 2500 x 3192 then what is the

size of the image in terms of Mega Pixels
Ans: 8
 Quality of a CRT Monitor
An RGB raster system is to be designed using an 8-inch by 10-inch screen with a
resolution of 100 pixels per inch in each direction. If we want to store 6 bits per
pixel in the frame buffer, how much storage (in bytes) do we need for the frame
buffer?
The size of frame buffer is (8 x 10 x 100 x 100 x 6)/ 8= 600000bytes

How long would it take to load a 640 by 480 frame buffer with 12 bits per pixel, if
105bits can be transferred per second? How long would it take to load a 24-bit
per pixel frame buffer with a resolution of 1280 by 1024 using this same transfer
rate?

Total number of bits for the frame = 640 x 480 x 12 bits = 3686400 bits
The time needed to load the frame buffer = 3686400 / 105 sec = 36.864 sec

Total number of bits for the frame = 1280 x 1024 x 24 bits = 31457280 bits
The time needed to load the frame buffer = 31457280 / 105 sec = 314.5728 sec

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 Quality of a CRT Monitor
Assuming that a certain full-color (24-bit per pixel) RGB raster system has a 512-
by-512 frame buffer, how many distinct color choices (intensity levels) would we
have available? How many different colors could we display at any one time?
Total number of distinct color available is 224
Total number of colors we could display at one time is 512 x 512

Assuming that a certain RGB raster system has 512*512 frame buffer with 12
bit per pixel
1. How many distinct color choice we have available
2. How many different color could we display at any one time?

Total number of distinct color available is 224

Total number of different color could display at any one time is 212
The storage spent for frame buffer is 512 X 512 X 12 bit = 3145728 bit

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Quality of a CRT Monitor

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Refresh Rate 60i Hz or 60p Hz

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 Quality of a CRT Monitor
If on an average it takes 20 nanoseconds to glow a single pixel on the screen
and the resolution of the screen is 1024 x 800, will there be a flickering effect
seen on the screen?

To glow 1 pixel on screen it takes 20 x 10-9 s

T = To glow all pixels on screen it takes 1024x 800 x 20 x 10-9 s
F = 1 / T = 1 / (1024x 800 x 20 x 10-9)
System Refresh rate = 61 frames per sec
Standard refresh rate = 50 frames per sec
There will be no flickering effect seen on the screen as the refresh rate of the
screen is 61 fps which is higher than the standard refresh rate!!!

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 Quality of a CRT Monitor
What is the fraction of total refresh time spent in retrace of electron beam for a
non interlaced raster system with a resolution of m x n and refresh rate of r Hz ,
the horizontal retrace time is th microsecond and vertical retrace time of tv
microsecond?
Here ,
The fraction of total refresh time = n x th + t v
spent in retrace of electron beam 1/r
where th is horizontal retrace
tv is vertical retrace and r is the refresh rate

n x m = ‘m’ scan lines and ‘n’ pixels in each scan line

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 Quality of a CRT Monitor
Consider a raster system with resolution of 640 by 480. How many pixels could
be accessed per second in this system by a display controller that refreshes the
screen at a rate of 60 frames per second? What is the access time per pixel in
this system?

The access time per pixel is 1 / (640x480x60)sec

The access time per pixel is 1 / (1280x1024x60)sec

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 Quality of a CRT Monitor
A Raster system can produce a total number of 1024 different levels of
intensities from a single pixel of a black and white monitor. If the total resolution
of the screen is 640 x 480 what will be the required size of frame buffer for the
display purpose?

Your mobile phone has a total resolution of 1080 x 2160 with 401 PPI.
What is the display size of your mobile?

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 Quality of a CRT Monitor
How much time is spent scanning across each row of pixels during screen refresh
on a raster system with a resolution of 1280 x 1024 and refresh rate of 60 frames
per second.

Here time required to refresh the screen (t) = 1/60 seconds

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 Quality of a CRT Monitor
A Raster system can produce a total number of 1024 different levels of
intensities from a single pixel composed of red, green and blue phosphor dots. If
the total resolution of the screen is 640 x 480 what will be the required size of
frame buffer for the display purpose?

Your mobile phone has a total resolution of with PPI. What is the
display size of your mobile?

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 Aspect Ratio
The ratio of vertical points to the horizontal points necessary to produce length
of lines in both directions of the screen is called Aspect Ratio.
Usually the aspect ratio is ¾.

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 Aspect Ratio

Aspect Ratio TVs

4:3 1.33 : 1 Old TV
16:9 1.77 : 1 HDTVs
21:9 2.35 : 1 Theaters

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 Aspect Ratio

Suppose we have a video monitor with display area that measures 12

inches across and 9.6 inches high. If resolution is 1280 by 1024 what is the
aspect ratio and the diameter of each pixel?

Aspect ratio = w/h i.e. 1280/12 / 1024/9.6 =1

Diameter of each pixel = 12/1280 or 9.6/1024 = 0.0094 inches

Computer Graphics, Nepal College of Information Technology, 2009 89