Computer Graphics

TK SMU [1]-1
 OVERVIEW OF GRAPHICS
SYSTEMS
Tilahun Kebede
Email: [email protected]
Mobile Phone: 0911171080

Chapter- 2
 Contents
Overview of Graphics Systems

Video Display Devices

Raster-Scan Systems

Random-Scan Systems

Graphics Software
TK SMU [1]-3
 Overview of Computer Graphics
 Graphics output technology may be split into
two categories:
Non-permanent output to a screen
Permanent output to a paper
 Recently all devices are digital in nature:
Therefore, producing images become the
process of setting individual points on the
screen or on paper
The points are laid out in a regular pattern
on the output media.

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 Video Display Devices
 Video Display Devices
 Cathode Ray Tube (CRT)
 Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)
 Plasma panels
 Thin-film electroluminescent display
 Light-emitting diodes (LED)
 Hard-Copy Devices
 Ink-jet printer
 Laser printer
 Film recorder
 Electrostatic printer
 Pen plotter
 Refresh Cathode-Ray Tubes (CRTs)
 Raster-Scan Displays
 Random-Scan Displays
 Color CRT Monitors
 Flat-Panel Displays
Type of Video Display
 Cathode-Ray Tubes (CRTs)
TV
RGB Monitor
Oscilloscope
 Flat-Panel Displays
PDA
Handphone
Laptop
Calculator
Digital Watch
 Refresh Cathode-Ray Tubes (CRT)

 A beam of electrons emitted by an electron gun,

passes through focusing and deflection systems
that direct the beam toward specified positions
on the phosphor-coated screen.

 Because the light emitted by the phosphor fades

very rabidly, the refresh process is needed to
maintain the picture on the screen.

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Refresh Cathode-Ray Tubes (CRT)

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Heating Accelerating
filament Anode

cathode
Refresh CRTs - continued
 Refreshing is done by redrawing the picture
repeatedly by quickly directing the electron
beam back over the same screen points.
 Refresh rate: the frequency at which a picture is
redrawn on the screen.

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 Components of the Electron Gun :
1. The heated metal cathode
2. A control grid
 Heat is supplied to the cathode by directing a
current through a coil of wire (the filament)
inside the cathode.
 This causes electrons to be “boiled off” the hot
cathode surface.
 Then, the free, negatively electrons are then
accelerated towards the phosphor coating by a
high positive voltage.

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 Overview of Graphics
12 Systems
13
 Intensity of the electron beam is controlled by the
voltage at the control grid.
 A high negative voltage applied to the control grid
will shut off the beam.
 A smaller negative voltage on the control grid
decreases the number of electrons passing through.
 The brightness of a display point is controlled by
varying the voltage on the control grid.
 The focusing system forces the electron beam to
converge to a small cross section as it strikes the
phosphor.
 Deflection of the electron beam can be controlled by
the deflection coils.
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Spots of light are produced on the screen by the
transfer of the CRT beam energy to the phosphor.
Persistence: how long phosphors continue to emit
light after the CRT beam is removed.
Persistence is defined as the time that it takes the
emitted light from the screen to decay to one-tenth
of its original intensity.
Lower-persistence phosphors require high refresh
rates to maintain a picture definition on the screen
without flicker and they are useful for animation.
Higher-persistence phosphors are useful for
displaying highly complex, static pictures.

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Few important points
Any given phosphor has several different quantom-
levels to which electors can be excited, each
corresponding to a color associated with the return
to an unexcited state.
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. It is typically 10-60
microsecond.
As refresh rate decreases , flicker develops
because eye can no longer integrate the individual
light impulses coming from pixel.
The refresh rate above which a picture stops
flickering and fuses into a steady image is called the
critical fusion frequency.

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 A flicker free picture appears constant or steady
to the viewer.
 The longer the persistence, the lower the CFF.
 To see the continuously refreshed image without
flicker the refresh rate has to be at least 60 c/s.
 To allow continuous refreshing of an image there
must be some stored representation of the
image from which the refresh system can obtain
the graphical information required to redraw the
image.

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 => A set of values of intensity/color at each of a
discrete set of points laid out in a rectangular
array covering the screen.
Advantages:
It is possible to edit an image by
changing the stored representation
between refresh cycles for what
appears to be instantaneous
updating of the image.
Animation

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Resolution: the maximum number of
points that can be displayed without
overlap on the CRT.
Resolution of the CRT is dependent
on the type of phosphor, the intensity
to be displayed, and the focusing and
deflection systems.
Typical resolution on high-definition
systems is 1280 by 1024

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Raster-Scan Displays
 The electron beam is swept across the screen
one row at a time from top to bottom. Each row
is referred to as a scan line.

 Picture definition is stored in the frame buffer.

This memory area holds the set of intensity
values for the screen points. These stored
values are then retrieved from the refresh buffer
and used to control the intensity of the electron
beam as it moves from spot to spot across the
screen.

Pixel
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  Refreshing on raster-scan display is carried
out at the rate of 60-80 frames per seconds,
this can be done by using following retrace
techniques
Horizontal retrace
Vertical retrace

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  Electron beam is
scanned from left-to-
right, top-to-bottom.
 Beam retraces to top-
left after reaching
bottom-right (vertical
retrace).
 Capable of displaying
continuous range of
intensities at discrete
positions.
 High-end displays
capable of 4k x 4k @
120 Hz

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The scan is synchronized with the
access of the intensity values held in
the frame buffer.
The maximum resolution is
determined by:
The characteristics of the monitor
Memory capacity available for storing
the frame buffer

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 Aspect ratio: the number of horizontal points to
vertical points necessary to produce equal-
length lines in both directions on the screen.

 An aspect ratio of 4/3 means that a horizontal

line plotted with four points has the same length
as a vertical line plotted with three points.

 The range of colors that can be displayed on a

raster system depends on both the types of
phosphor used in the CRT and the number of
bits per pixel available in the frame buffer.

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 For example, a system with 24 bits per pixel and
a screen resolution of 1024 by 1024 requires 3
megabytes of storage for the refresh buffer.
 A bitmap image: a frame buffer with one bit per
pixel.
 a pixmap image: a frame buffer with multiple bits
per pixel.
 Typically refresh rates are 60 to 80 frames per
second

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 Horizontal retrace: the return of the electron
beam to the left of the screen after refreshing
each scan line.

 Vertical retrace: the return of the electron beam

to the top left corner of the screen to begin he
next frame.

 On some raster-scan systems and TV sets, each

frame is displayed in two passes using an
interlaced refresh procedure.

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In the first pass, the beam sweeps across every
other scan line (even-numbered) from top to bottom.
After the vertical retrace, the beam then sweeps out
the remaining scan lines (odd numbered).

Advantages of interlacing:
 The screen is displayed in one-half the time taken by
the other method.
 Used with slower refresh rates to avoid flicker.
An effective technique provided that adjacent scan
lines contain similar display information.
More about scan conversion:
The conversion of continuous quantities to discrete
quantities can cause aliasing errors such as stair case
effect.

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Random-Scan Displays
 The electron beam directed only to those parts
of the screen where a picture is to be
displayed.
 Sometimes called: store-writing or calligraphic
displays.

 Picture definition is stored as a set of line-

drawing commands.

 Draws all the component lines of a picture 30

to 60 times each second, with up to 100,000
“short” lines in the display list.
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Random-Scan System

 Electron beam is
scanned along each
line segment.
 Capable of displaying
continuous lines and
very high resolution
curves.
 High-end displays
capable of 100k lines
per refresh.
 Designed for line-drawing applications and they
cannot display realistic shaded scenes.
 A pen plotter operate in a similar way.
 Draws the components lines of an object in any
order specified.

 Have higher resolution than raster-scan

systems.

 Produce smooth line drawing.

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 Refresh rate on a random scan system depends on the
number of lines to be displayed.
 Picture definition is now stored as a set of line-drawing
commands in an area of memory referred to as the
refresh display file.
 Other names: display list, display program or refresh rate
“A set of commands”.
 After all line drawing commands have been processed,
the system cycles through the set of commands in the
display file.
 All component lines of a picture are drawn 30 to 60 times
each second
 When a small set of lines is to be displayed each refresh
cycle is delayed to avoid refresh rates greater than 60
frames per second.
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 Overview of Graphics
32 Systems
 Frame Buffer

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 Advantages:
For line drawing applications
Higher resolution than raster scan systems
Smooth lines
 Disadvantages:
Cannot display realistic shaded scenes
Faster refreshing of the set of lines could burn
out the phosphor

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 Adv & Dis of Raster Graphics
 Advantages:
Inexpensive: Many facilities, e.g. filled areas, pattern,
colors, shaded images … etc. can be used to produce
realistic images
Because it is a refresh type system, it may be used
for image amendment and animation by changing the
contents of the frame buffer between refresh cycles
The refresh process is independent of the image
complexity
 Disadvantages:
Every graphical output primitive has to be scan
converted before display
Aliasing errors, e.g. stair case effect
35 Increasing resolution is expensive => more memory
 Color CRT Monitors
 Cathode Ray Tube(CRT) is the most common display
device
High resolution
Good color fidelity
High contrast (400:1)
High update rates
Techniques for producing color :
 Beam penetration method
 Shadow mask method
 Beam Penetration Method

 Random scan monitors use the beam

penetration method for displaying color picture.
In this, the inside of CRT screen is coated two
layers of phorphor namely red and green.
 A beam of slow electrons excites ony the outer
red layer, while a beam of fast electrons
penetrates red layer and excites the inner green
layer. At intermediate beam speeds,
combination of red and green light are emitted to
show two addtional colors- orange and yellow.
Advantages
 Less expensive

Disadvantages
 Quality of images are not good as comparatable
with other methods
 Four colors are allowed only
Shadow Mask Method
 Raster scan system are use shadow mask
methods to produced a much more range of
colors than beam penetration method.
 In this, CRT has three phosphor color dots.
One phosphor dot emits a red light, second
emits a green light and third emits a blue
light.
 This type of CRT has three electrons guns and a
shadow mask grid as shown in figure below:
 In this figure, three electrons beams are
deflected and focused as a group onto the
shadow mask which contains a series of holes.
When three beams pass through a hole in
shadow mask they activate dot triangle as
shown in figure below:
Advantages
 produce realistic images
 also produced different colors
 and shadows scenes.

Disadvantages
 low resolution
 expensive
 electron beam directed to whole screen
Direct View Storage Tube(DVST)
 A cathode-ray tube in which secondary emission
of electrons from a storage grid is used to
provide an intensely bright display for long and
controllable periods of time. Also known as
display storage tube; viewing storage tube.
 These monitors can play high resolution picture
without flicker.
 Flat Panel Displays
 Thin screen displays found with all portable
computers and becoming the new standard with
desktop computers. Instead of utilizing the cathode-
ray tube technology flat-panel displays use Liquid-
crystal display (LCD) technology or other alternative
making them much lighter and thinner when
compared with a traditional monitor.
3D Viewing Devices
 A 3D display is any display device capable of
conveying a stereoscopic perception of 3-D depth to
the viewer.
 As the varifocal mirror vibrates, it changes focal
length. These vibrations are synchronized with
the display of an object on a CRT so that each
point on the object is reflected from the mirror
into a spatial position corresponding to the
distance of that point from a specified viewing
position.
 This allows us to walk around an object or scene
and view it from different sides.
Raster Scan Systems
 Interactive raster-graphics systems typically
employ several processing units.
 In addition to the CPU, a special purpose
processor called the video controller or
display controller is used to control the
operation of the display device.
 Here the frame buffer is in the system
memory, the video controller access the
frame buffer to refresh the screen.
 1. Video Controller
 A fixed area of the system memory is reserved for
the frame buffer, and the video controller is given
direct access to the frame buffer memory.
 The co-ordinates of the graphics monitor starts at
the lower left screen corner. Positive x values
increasing to the right and y values increasing
from bottom to top.
 2. Display Processor
 The purpose of the display processor or graphics
controller is to free the CPU from the graphics chores. In
addition to the system memory a separate display
processor memory area can also provided.
 A major task of the display processor is digitizing a picture
definition given in an application program into a set of
pixel-intensity values for storage in the frame buffer. This
digitization process is called scan conversion.
 Lines and other geometric objects are converted into set
of discrete intensity points. Characters can be defined
with rectangular grids, or they can be defined with curved
outlines.
 To reduce the memory space required to store
the image information, each scan line are stored
as a set of integer pairs.
 One number of each pair indicates an intensity
value, and the second number specifies number
of adjacent pixels the scan line that is also
having same intensity. This technique is called
run-length encoding.
The above diagram shows the refresh operation of video
controller. Two registers are used to store the co-ordinates of the
screen pixels. Initially x=0 and y=ymax
 The value stored in the frame buffer
corresponding to this pixel position is
retrieved.
 And the x value is incremented by 1 and
the corresponding y value is retrieved, like
that the pixel values are retrieved line by
line.
 Once the last pixel is reached again the
registers are reset to initial value to repeat
the process.
Random Scan Systems
 An application program is input and stored
in the system memory along with a graphics
package. Graphics commands in the
program are translated by the graphics
package into a display file stored in the
system memory.
 This display file is then accessed by the
display processor to refresh the screen.
 The display processor cycles through each
command in the display file program once
during every refresh cycle.
 Graphic patterns are drawn on a random scan
system by directing the electron beam along the
component lines of the picture.

 Lines are defined by the values for their co-ordinate

endpoints, and these input co-ordinate values are
converted to x and y deflection voltages. A scene is
then drawn one line at a time by positioning the
beam to fill in the line between specified endpoints.
Basic input devices include the
 Keyboard
 Mouse
 Digitizer
 Trackball
 Touch Screens
 Light Pens
 Microphones
 Bar code readers
 Joysticks
 Scanners
 Voice Systems
 Video Display Devices
Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)

TK SMU [1]-62
 Pixel Depth
 Pixel depth refers to the number of bits used
to represent a pixel value.

1 bit/pixel: 0 2 Levels
(Bi-level image)
1

2 bits/pixel: 0 0 4 Levels
0 1

1 0

1 1
RM [1]-63
 Pixel Depth
1 bit per pixel produce 2 levels (bi-
level image).
2 bits per pixel produce 4 levels.
8 bits per pixel produce 256 levels.

 In general, if the pixel depth is n, then

it is possible to have 2n levels.

RM [1]-64
 Graphics Software
 There are 2 general classifications for
graphics software:
1. General programming packages
2. Special-purpose applications packages

TK SMU [1]-65
Graphics Software
GENERAL PROGRAMMING PACKAGES
 Provide an extensive set of graphics functions that
can be used in a high-level programming language,
such as C or FORTRAN.
 Basic functions in a general package include those
for
 generating picture components (straight lines, polygons, circles, and
other figures),
 setting color and intensity values,
 selecting views, and
 applying transformations.
 An example of a general graphics programming
package is the GL (Graphics Library) system on
Silicon Graphics equipment.

TK SMU [1]-66
Graphics Software
SPECIAL-PURPOSE APPLICATIONS PACKAGES
 The packages are designed for
nonprogrammers, so that users can generate
displays without worrying about how graphics
operations work.
 The interface to the graphics routines in these
packages allows users to communicate with the
program in their own terms.
 Examples of such applications packages are
the artist’s painting programs and various
business, medical, and CAD systems.

TK SMU [1]-67
 Computer Graphics Chapter Two

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TK SMU [1]-68