Chapter 1

Prepared By:
Ishita Theba
Computer Engineering Dept,
A.D.I.T.
 Contents
Introduction to computer graphics
Basic terms
Characteristics of computer graphics
Application areas of computer graphics
Introduction to computer graphics
It refers to creation, storage and manipulation of
pictures and images using a digital computer.
Effective tool for presenting information.
 Basic Terms
1) Digital Image: A 2x2 representation consisting of
an 2D array of dots or picture elements is
termed as digital image.
It consists of discrete pixels or picture
elements.
2) Pixel: The smallest unit of a screen addressable
by the computer.
3) Resolution: The number of pixel per unit length
(in horizontal and vertical direction) is called
resolution of an image.
It is usually quoted as width x height with the
units in pixels.
 eg. 3 x 2 inch image at resolution 300 contains
540,000 pixels.
4) Aspect Ratio: The ratio of image’s width to its
height measured in unit length (or no. of pixels)
is referred as aspect ratio.
eg. Aspect ratio of an image having width=3
inches and height=2 inches is 1.5
Aspect ratio of the image having resolution
1024 x 768 is same as that of 640 x 480.
i.e. aspect ratio is 4/3.
Characteristics of computer graphics
Interactive nature and preview capability.
- create drawing as per requirement.
Impressive to look and user friendly.
Can do work faster.
eg. Coloring, hatching, shading.
Production of high quality graphics packages are
not cheap.
- reasons:
-development of graphics package consume
much time.
-hardware to run the package is quite
expensive involving large storage, very high
resolution monitors, fast machines with math co-
processors.
 Applications of Computer Graphics
Computer Aided Design (CAD)
Presentation Graphics
Computer Art
Entertainment (animation, games, …)
Education & Training
Visualization (scientific & business)
Image Processing
Graphical User Interfaces
1.Computer Aided Design (CAD)
Used in design of buildings, automobiles, aircraft,
watercraft, spacecraft, computers, textiles & many other
products
Objects are displayed in wire frame outline form ( overall
shape and internal features of an object).
Software packages provide multi-window environment.( It
shows enlarged sections or different views of an object.
Graphics design package provides standard shapes (useful
for repeated placements).
Circuits and networks constructed with repeated graphical
shapes. Also personalized symbols can be created.
Animations are also used in CAD applications
Realistic displays of architectural design permits simulated
“walk” through the rooms (virtual -reality systems)
Graphics for Engineering and Architectural
System
Design of Building, Automobile, Aircraft,
Machine etc.

AutoCAD 2002 Interior Design

 2.Presentation Graphics
Used to produce illustrations for reports or generate slides for
use with projectors
Commonly used to summarize financial, statistical,
mathematical, scientific, economic data for research reports,
managerial reports & customer information bulletins
Examples : Bar charts, line graphs, pie charts, surface
graphs, time chart
2D graphics combined with geographical informations.
Graphs and charts can be displayed in 2D and also in 3D to
provide additional information.
Examples of presentation graphics
Examples of presentation graphics
Examples of presentation graphics
Time chart used in task planning.
It is used in project management to schedule
and monitor the progress of project.
 3.Computer Art
Used in fine art & commercial art
Includes artist’s paintbrush programs, paint packages,
CAD packages and animation packages
These packages provides facilities for designing object
shapes & specifying object motions.
Examples : Cartoon drawing, paintings, product
advertisements, logo design
Electronic art:
In paint brush program: pressure sensitive stylus
is used to produce electronic painting.
It creates variable line widths, brush sizes and
color gradation.
Fine artists use variety of other computer
Technologies to produce images. They are
combination of 3D modelling packages, texture
mapping, drawing programs and CAD software.
Automatic art: Paintings produced on a pen plotter can
create automatic art.
Mathematical art: Artists uses a combination of
mathematical functions , fractal procedures,
mathematic s/w, inkjet printers and other systems to
create variety of 2D and 3D shapes.
Commercial art: Methods are used for creating logo
and other design, page layouts combining text and
graphics and TV advertisements.
Animations are used in advertising.
Graphics for Artist

Metacreation Painter
Examples :
Electronic painting
Picture painted electronically on
a graphics tablet (digitizer) using a stylus
Cordless, pressure sensitive stylus
Morphing
A graphics method in which one object is
transformed into another
 4.Entertainment
Movie Industry
Used in motion pictures, music
videos, and television shows.
Used in making of cartoon
animation films.
Graphics objects are combined with the
actors and live scenes.

Slide information from Leonard McMillian's slides

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~mcmillan/comp136/Lecture1/
compgraf.html
 Computer Graphics is about animation (films)

•Graphics and image processing techniques are used for

morphing.
Game Industry
Focus on interactivity
Cost effective solutions
Avoiding computations and
other tricks
 5.Education & Training
Computer generated models of physical,
financial and economic systems are used as
educational aids.
Models of physical systems, physiological
systems, population trends, or equipment such
as color-coded diagram help trainees
understand the operation of the system
 Simulation
Computer-Generated Models of Physical,
Financial and Economic Systems for
Educational Aids

Flight Simulator Mars Rover Simulator

 Specialized systems used for
training applications
 simulators for practice
sessions or training of ship
captains
 aircraft pilots
 heavy equipment operators
 air traffic-control personnel
Training
 6.Visualization
Scientific Visualization
Producing graphical representations for scientific,
engineering, and medical data sets and processes is
called scientific visualization.
 Scientific Visualization
Scientific and Information visualization are
branches of computer graphics and user
interface design that are concerned with
presenting data to users, by means of images.
For example, scientists interpret potentially huge
quantities of laboratory or simulation data or the
results from sensors out in the field to aid
reasoning, hypothesis building and cognition.
Desktop programs capable of presenting
interactive models of molecules and
microbiological entities are becoming relatively
common (Molecular graphics).
Medical imaging is a huge application domain for
scientific visualization with an emphasis on
enhancing imaging results graphically, e.g. using
pseudo-coloring or overlaying of plots.
Scientific Visualisation
To view below and
above our visual range
Business Visualization is used in connection with
data sets related to commerce, industry and other
non-scientific areas
Techniques used- color coding, contour plots,
graphs, charts, surface renderings & visualizations
of volume interiors.
Image processing techniques are combined with
computer graphics to produce many of the data
visualizations
 7. Image Processing
CG- Computer is used to create a picture
Image Processing – applies techniques to modify or
interpret existing pictures such as photographs and TV
scans
Medical applications
Picture enhancements
Tomography
Simulations of operations
Ultrasonics & nuclear medicine scanners
Two Applications of image processing
Improving picture quality
Machine perception of visual information (Robotics)
Basic principle of tomography:
superposition free tomographic cross sections S1 and
S2 compared with the projected image P
To apply image processing methods
Digitize a photograph (or picture) into an image file
Apply digital methods to rearrange picture parts to
enhance color separations
Improve quality of shading
Tomography – technique of X-ray photography that allows cross-
sectional views of physiological systems to be displayed
Computed X-ray tomography (CT) and position emission
tomography ( PET) use projection methods to reconstruct cross
sections from digital data
Computer-Aided Surgery is a medical application technique to
model and study physical functions to design artificial limbs and to
plan & practice surgery
 8.Graphical User Interfaces
Major component – Window manager (multiple-window areas)
To make a particular window active, click in that window (using
an interactive pointing device)
Interfaces display – menus & icons
Icons – graphical symbol designed to look like the processing
option it represents
Advantages of icons – less screen space, easily understood
Menus contain lists of textual descriptions & icons
 Graphics Software
Graphics Software

General Programming Special purpose

package application package
1) General Programming package:
- It provides extensive set of graphics
functions that can be used in a high level
programming languages such as C or FORTRAN.
- eg: GL( Graphics Library) on silicon
Graphics equipment.
-Basic functions in a general purpose
package includes:
a) generating picture components ( straight
lines, polygons, circles and other figures).
 b) setting color and intensity values.
c) selecting views & applying
transformations.
- General graphics package are designed to be
used with cartesian coordinate specifications. If
the coordinate values for a picture are specified in
some other reference frame (spherical, hyperbole,
etc…), they must be converted to cartesian
coordinates before they can be input to the
graphics package.
2) Special purpose application packages:
-application graphics 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 such
packages allows users to communicate with the
programs in their own terms.
- eg: -artist's painting programs
-various business, medical, and CAD
systems.
- Special purpose graphics packages may allow
use of other coordinate frames that are
appropriate to the application.
Coordinate system
Modeling coordinates ( local coordinates or
master coordinates):
We can construct the shape of individual
objects, such as trees or furniture, in a scene
within separate coordinate reference frames called
modeling coordinates, or sometimes local
coordinates or master coordinates.
World coordinates:
Once individual object shapes have been
specified, we can place the objects into
appropriate positions within the scene using a
reference frame called world coordinates.
Device coordinates ( Screen coordinates):
Finally, the world-coordinate description of
the scene is transferred to one or more output-
device reference frames for display.
These display coordinate systems are
referred to as device coordinates or screen
coordinates in the case of a video monitor.
Normalized Device coordinates:
Generally, a graphics system first converts
world-coordinate positions to normalized device
coordinates, in the range from 0 to 1, before final
conversion to specific device coordinates. This makes
the system independent of the various devices that
might be used at a particular workstation.
An initial modeling-coordinate position transferred to a
device coordinate position with the sequence:

The modeling and world-coordinate positions in this

transformation can be any floating-point values;
normalized coordinates satisfy the inequalities:
 Graphics Functions
A general-purpose graphics package provides users with a
variety of functions for creating and manipulating pictures.
Functions in graphics programming packages can be divided into
the following categories:
output primitives,
attributes,
geometric and modeling transformations,
viewing transformations,
structure operations,
input functions, and
control operations.
Output primitives:
The basic building blocks for pictures are
referred to as output primitives.
They include character strings and geometric
entities, such as points, straight lines, curved
Lines, filled areas (polygons, circles, etc.), and
shapes defined with arrays of color points.
Routines for generating output primitives provide
the basic tools for constructing pictures.
Attributes:
Attributes are the properties of the output primitives; that is,
an attribute describes “how a particular primitive is to be
displayed”.
They include
- intensity and color specifications,
- line styles,
- text styles, and
- area-filling patterns.
Functions within this category can be used to set attributes
for an individual primitive class or for groups of output
primitives.
Geometric transformations:
We can change the size, position, or orientation
of an object within a scene using geometric
transformations.
Modeling transformations:
Similar modeling transformations are used to
construct a scene using object descriptions
given in modeling coordinates.
Viewing transformation:
Given the primitive and attribute definition of a
picture in world coordinates, a graphics package
projects a selected view of the picture on an output
device.
Viewing transformations are used to specify the
view that is to be presented and the portion of
the output display area that is to be used.
Pictures can be subdivided into component parts,
called structures or segments or objects,
depending on the software package in use.
Each structure defines one logical unit of the
picture. A scene with several objects could
reference each individual object in a separate
named structure.
Routines for processing structures carry out
operations such as the creation. modification,
and transformation of structures.
Input functions:
Interactive graphics ,applications use various
kinds of input devices, such as a mouse, a tablet, or a
joystick. Input functions are used to control and
process the data flow from these interactive
devices.
Control operations:
A graphics package contains a number of
housekeeping tasks, such as clearing a display
screen and initializing parameters. Such functions are
categorized as control operations.
 Software Standards
The primary goal of standardized graphics software is
portability.
When packages are designed with standard
graphics functions, software can be moved easily from
one hardware system to another and used in different
implementations and applications. Without standards,
programs designed for one hardware system often
cannot be transferred to another system without
extensive rewriting of the programs.
1) GKS-Graphics Kernel System – first graphics
package – accepted by ISO & ANSI
-Although GKS was originally designed as
a two-dimensional graphics package, a three-
dimensional GKS extension was subsequently
developed.
2) PHIGS (Programmer’s Hierarchical Interactive
Graphics Standard)-accepted by ISO & ANSI.
extension of GKS
Increased capabilities for
-object modeling,
-color specifications,
-surface rendering, and
-picture manipulations are provided In PHIGS.
3) PHIGS + (Expanded package)
Subsequently, an extension of
PHIGS, called PHIGS+, was developed to
provide three dimensional surface shading
capabilities not available in PHIGS.
Standard graphics functions are defined as a set
of specifications that is independent of any
programming language.
A language binding is then defined for a
particular high-level programming language.
This binding gives the syntax for accessing the
various standard graphics functions from this
language.
For example, the general form of the PHIGS (and GKS)
function for specifying a sequence of n-1 connected
two-dimensional straight Iine segments is

In Fortran:
CALL GPL(N, X, Y) // Where X & Y are 1-D
array of coordinate values for line endpoints.
In C:
ppolyline(n, pts); // where pts is a list of
coordinates end point positions.
Limitations of PHIGS:
Although PHIGS presents a
specification for basic graphics functions, it
does not provide a standard methodology for
a graphics interface to output devices.
Nor does it specify methods for storing and
transmitting pictures.
Separate standards have been developed for
these areas.
Computer Graphics Interface (CGI) system:
Standardization for device interface
methods is given in the (CGI) system.
Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) system:
It specifies standards for archiving and
transporting pictures.