Module 1:

Introduction: A survey of Computer Graphics, overview of graphics systems-Video

display devices-
Refresh CRT, Raster-Scan and Random-Scan Displays, Color CRT Monitors, DVST,
Flat-Panel Displays, Raster Scan systems, Random scan systems, Input devices, Hard
copy devices, Graphics software.

Computer graphics is an art of drawing pictures, lines, circles, charts etc. using a computer
with the help of programming

•In a broad sense it includes everything on computers that is not text or sound. Typically
CG refers to,
•Representation and manipulation of image data by computer.
•Various technologies used to create and manipulate images.
•The subfield of computer science which studies methods for digitally
synthesizing and manipulate visual content.

APPLICATIONS OF COMPUTER GRAPHICS

1. Computer aided design (cad)
2. Presentation graphics
3. Computer art
4. Entertainment
5. Education and training
6. Visualization
7. Image processing
8. GUIs

1. COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN (CAD)

 A major use of computer graphics is in design processes, particularly for engineering

and architectural systems, but almost all products are now computer designed.
 Generally referred to as CAD, computer-aided design methods are now routinely used
in the design of buildings, automobiles, aircraft, watercraft, spacecraft, computers,
textiles, and many, many other products.

1. Realistic, three-dimensional rendering of Room design. 2. CAD work station

 AUTO CAD

•Multi window environment: shows enlarged sections and different views

•Wireframe: objects are first displayed in a wireframe outline form that shows the overall
sham and internal features of objects.

•Electronics: Circuits and networks for communications, water supply, or other utilities are
constructed with repeated placement of a few graphical shapes.

•Real time animations using wireframe displays on a video monitor are useful for testing
performance of a vehicle or system.

•Realistic display for layout floor plans that shows the positioning of rooms, doors,
windows, stairs and other building features.

•Virtual reality system, designers can even go for simulated walk through the rooms or
around the out sides of building to view all.

2. PRESENTATION GRAPHICS

•To summarize financial, statistical, mathematical, scientific and economic data.

•Used to produce illustrations for reports for use with projectors.
•Presentation graphics is commonly used to summarize financial, statistical, mathematical,
scientific, and economic data for research reports, managerial reports, consumer
information bulletins, and other types of reports.

•Examples
•Bar charts (2D, 3D)
•Line graphs
•Surface charts
•Pie charts
•Power point presentations
3. COMPUTER ART

•Any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the artwork
•They are used in both fine art and commercial art.
• Fine artiste’s use a variety of technologies like special purpose h/w, artist’s paint brush
program, other paint packages, cad packages to produce image.
•In commercial art they are used for logos and other design, advertising etc.
•paintbrush program that allows artists to "paint" pictures on the screen of a video monitor.
Actually, the picture is usually painted electronically on a graphics tablet (digitizer)
using a stylus, which can simulate different brush strokes, brush widths, and colours.
•mathematical art. This artist uses a combination of mathematical functions, fractal
procedures, Mathematics software, ink-jet printers, and other systems to create a variety
of three-dimensional and two-dimensional shapes and stereoscopic image pairs.

4. ENTERTAINMENT

•Computer graphics methods are now commonly used in making motion pictures, music
Videos, Games and television shows.
•Sometimes the graphics scenes are displayed by themselves, and sometimes graphics
objects are combined with the actors and live scenes.

Games
•Interactive virtual worlds
Movies
•Animation – movement on the screen created by displaying sequence of still
images (frames)
•Special effects
Television
•Cartoons - simple animation
•Advertisements - simple special effects, graphics and image processing
techniques can be used to produce a transformation of one person or object
into another (morphing).

5. EDUCATION AND TRAINING

•Computer-generated models of physical, financial and economic systems are often used
as educational aid.
•It can help trainees to understand the operation of the system.
• Examples are the simulators for practice sessions or training of

•Ship captains
• Aircraft pilots
• Heavy-equipment operators
• Air traffic control personnel.
•Some simulators have no video screens; for example, a flight simulator with only a
control panel for instrument flying. But most simulators provide graphics screens for
visual operation.
6. SCIENTIFIC VISUALIZATION

•Scientists, engineers, medical personnel, business analysts, and others often need
to analyse large amounts of information or to study the behaviour of certain processes.
•Produce graphical representation from numerous data.
•Scientific, engineering and medical data sets to graphical images.
• Scalar, vector also 2d and 3d images are produced
•For better visualization use Color coding, graphs, charts, also image processing with
graphics

•Some applications
* Numerical visualization of ocean currents
* Thunderstorm simulation
* Molecular visualization

7. IMAGE PROCESSING

•Image processing is a techniques to modify existing pictures.

•In CG a computer is used to create a picture, image processing applies techniques to

modify or interpret existing pictures such as photographs & tv scans.

 Two principle applications of image processing are:

 Improving picture quality
 Machine perception of visual information, as used in robotics

•Photo enhancement - sharpening blurred photos

•Medical Imaging-MRI, CT scan, Non-invasive internal examination
•Commercial art- enhancing images
•Tomography – cross-sectional views of physiological systems to be displayed
•computer aided surgery
 8. GUIs
•GUI, A graphic, mouse-oriented paradigm which allows the user to interact with a
Computer.
•Computer graphics methods now provides GUIs for s/w packages.
•A major component of GUI is window manager, which allows a user to display
multiple-window areas.
•Each window can contain graphical or non-graphical displays.
•A typical GUI contains a window manager that holds icons, menus etc.

Example GUI window

VIDEO DISPLAY DEVICES

Refresh Cathode-Ray Tubes (CRT)

•The primary output device in a graphics system is a video monitor.

•The operation of most video monitors is based on the standard cathode-ray tube
(CRT) design.
Important parts of CRT
•Phosphor screen
•Electron gun
•Heated metal cathode
•Control grid
•Accelerating anode
•Focusing system
•Deflection system
Working of CRT
•A beam of electrons (cathode rays), emitted by an electron gun, passes through focusing
and deflection systems that direct the beam toward specified positions on the phosphor
coated screen.
•The phosphor then emits a small spot of light at each position contacted by the electron
beam
•Light emitted by the phosphor fades very rapidly, redraw the picture repeatedly by quickly
directing the electron beam back over the same points. This type of display is called
a refresh CRT(Frequency at which picture is redrawn on the screen:-Refresh Rate)

Refresh cathode ray tube(CRT) Structure of CRT

 Electron Gun
•Major elements are the heated metal cathode and the control grid.
•Heat is supplied to the cathode by directing a current through filament.
•This causes electrons to be ‘boiled off’ the hot cathode surface.
•Intensity of the electron beam is controlled by setting voltage levels on the control grid.

•A high positive voltage accelerates the free, negatively charged electrons towards the
phosphor coating
•A high negative voltage applied to the control grid will shut off the beam by repelling
electrons.
•A smaller negative voltage on the control grid simply decreases the no of electrons passing
through.
•We control the brightness of a display by varying the voltage on the control grid.
  The accelerating anode
•The accelerating voltage can be generated with an accelerating anode.
•Sometimes the electron gun is built to contain the accelerating anode and focusing system
within the same unit.

 The focusing system

•Used to force the electron beam to converge into a small spot as it strikes the phosphor.
• Focusing is accomplished with either electric fields or magnetic fields
•Electrostatic focusing is commonly used in TV and computer graphics monitors.
•With electrostatic focusing, the electron beam passes through a positively charged metal
cylinder that forms an electrostatic lens.
•The action of the electrostatic lens focuses the electron beam at the center of the screen.
•Magnetic lens focusing produces the smallest spot size on the screen and is used in special
purpose devices.

 The deflection system

•The system is used to control the deflection
•When electrostatic deflection is used, two pairs of parallel plates are mounted inside the
CRT envelope.
•One pair of plates is mounted horizontally, to control the vertical deflection, and the other
pair is mounted vertically, to control horizontal deflection

 Phosphor screen
•Different kinds of phosphors are available for use in a CRT.
•Besides color, a major difference between phosphors is their persistence:
•How long they continue to emit after the CRT beam is removed.
•Persistence is defined as the time it takes the emitted light from the screen to decay to
one-tenth of its original intensity.
•Lower persistence phosphors require higher refresh rates to maintain a picture on the screen
without flicker.
•A phosphor with low persistence is useful for animation;
•A high-persistence phosphor is useful for displaying highly complex, static pictures
•Another important properties of phosphor includes Resolution and Aspect Ratio
•The maximum number of points that can be displayed without overlap on a CRT is referred
to as the resolution.
•Number of pixels per square inch
•The ratio of vertical points to horizontal points necessary to produce equal-length lines in
both directions on the screen is known as Aspect Ratio.
•An aspect ratio of ¾ means that a vertical line plotted with 3 points has the same length as
a horizontal line plotted with 4 points

RASTER AND RANDOM DISPLAY

Pixel:
The smallest element of an image that can be individually processed in a video display
system.

• In Digital imaging, a pixel, pel, dots, or picture element is a physical point in a raster
image, or the smallest addressable element in a display device.

•Pixels are arranged in rows and columns and are lit up in a specific pattern to create a
n image

Framebuffer:

•The portion of memory reserved for holding the complete bit-mapped image that is
sent to the monitor.

•This memory area holds the set of intensity values for all the screen points.

• Stored intensity values are then retrieved from the frame buffer and "painted" on the
screen.

• Frame buffer containing 1 bit/pixel is called as bitmap

• Frame buffer containing more than 1 bit per pixel is pixmap

  There are two kinds of computer graphics –

1) Raster (composed of pixels)

2) Vector or random (composed of paths).

•Raster images are more commonly called bitmap images.

•Bitmaps are composed of pixels
•Vector graphics use mathematical relationships between points and the
paths connecting them to describe an image.
•Vector graphics are composed of paths.

Raster-bitmap image Random Display-Vector Image

RASTER SCAN DISPLAY

•Almost all current computer output devices, including CRTs, LCDs, LEDs, and
plasma screens, use raster graphics.

•In this systems, an electron beam is swept across the screen, one row at a time
from top to bottom.

•As the electron beam moves across each row, the beam intensity is turned on and off to
create a pattern of illuminated spots.

Fig: Electron beam in raster display

•Picture definition is stored in a memory area called the refresh buffer or frame buffer.

•This memory area holds the set of intensity values for all the screen points.
•Stored intensity values are then retrieved from the refresh buffer and "painted" on the
screen one row (scan line) at a time

•The refreshing rate, called the frame rate, is normally 60 to 80 frames per second, or
described as 60 Hz to 80 Hz

Horizontal Retrace – Return to the left of the screen, after refreshing each scan line is
horizontal retrace of the electron beam.
Vertical retrace – At the end of the each frame the electron beam returns to the top left
corner of the screen to begin the next frame.

RANDOM-SCAN DISPLAYS

•Here the CRT's electron beam is directed only to the parts of the screen where a
picture is to be drawn.
•Random scan monitors draw a picture one line at a time and for this reason are also
referred to as vector displays (or stroke-writing or calligraphic displays or line drawing
displays)

Electron beam in Random scan display

•The picture definition is stored as a set of line-drawing commands in a refresh display

file or a refresh buffer in memory.

•Random-scan displays are designed to draw all the component lines of a picture 30 to
60 times each second

•A pen plotter operates in a similar way and is an example of a random-scan device.

PROS AND CONS

•Raster systems

+ It is well suited for realistic display of scenes containing colors and shaded patterns
 - It produces jagged lines that are plotted as discrete point sets

•Random systems (Vector)

+ They produce smooth line drawings because the CRT beam directly follows the line
path.
+ Used by both analog and digital computers
+ Vector displays generally have higher resolution than raster systems

- Expensive
- Designed for line drawing applications and cannot display realistic shaded scenes

COLOR CRT MONITORS

• A CRT monitor displays color pictures by using a combination of phosphors that emit
different-colored light
• By combining the emitted light from the different phosphors, a range of colors can be
generated
The two basic techniques for producing color displays with a CRT are,
 Beam penetration method
 Shadow-mask method
1. Beam Penetration Method
•The beam-penetration method for displaying color pictures has been used with
random-scan monitors.
•Two layers of phosphor, usually red and green, are coated onto the inside of the
CRT screen
•Displayed color depends on how far the electron beam penetrates into the phosphor
layers.

•A beam of slow electrons excites only the outer red layer.

•A beam of very fast electrons penetrates through the red layer and excites the inner
green layer.
•At intermediate beam speeds, combinations of red and green light are emitted to show
two additional colors, orange and yellow.
•The speed of the electrons, and hence the screen color at any point, is controlled by the
beam-acceleration voltage.
•Beam penetration has been an inexpensive way to produce color in random-scan
monitors
•But only four colors are possible i.e. Red, green, orange and yellow.
•The quality of pictures is not as good as with other methods

2. Shadow mask method

•They are commonly used in raster scan systems (including color TV)
•Because they produce a much wider range of colors than the beam- penetration method.
•A shadow-mask CRT has three phosphor color dots at each pixel position.
• One phosphor dot emits a red light, another emits a green light, and the third emits a
blue light.
•This type of CRT has three electron guns, one for each color dot, and a shadow-mask
grid which is pierced with small round holes in a triangular pattern just behind the
phosphor-coated screen.

 2 types of arrangements are possible

In-line Method and delta delta method (Triad arrangement)

Delta- Delta method

•Delta- Delta method is commonly used in color CRT systems

•A shadow mask is often used to ensure that the electron beams from the guns fall on
the correct phosphors
•The three electron beams are deflected and focused as a group onto the shadow mask
•When the three beams pass through a hole in the shadow mask, they activate a dot
triangle, which appears as a small color spot on the screen.
•The phosphor dots in the triangles are arranged so that each electron beam can activate
only its corresponding color dot when it passes through the shadow mask.
•Color variations in a shadow-mask CRT are obtained by varying the intensity levels
of the three electron beams
•A white (or gray) area is the result of activating all three dots with equal intensity
•A black is produced with zero intensity of all colors
•Yellow=Red+ Green
•Magenta=Red+Blue
•Cyan= Blue +Green
•This produce 8 colors
Inline arrangement
•3 electron guns and the corresponding red-green-blue color dots on the screen, are
aligned along one scan line rather of in a triangular pattern.
•This inline arrangement of electron guns is easier to keep in alignment and is commonly
used in high-resolution color CRT’s
• In some low-cost systems, the electron beam can only be set to on or off, limiting
displays to eight colors.
•More sophisticated systems can set intermediate intensity levels for the electron
beams, allowing several million different colors to be generated
•Color CRTs in graphics systems are designed as RGB monitors.
•These monitors use shadow mask method and take the intensity level for each gun.
• A RGB color system with 24 bits of storage per pixel is known as full color system or
true color system.
Pros & Cons of shadow mask method
Advantages
 Produce realistic images
 Million different colors to be generated
 Shadow scenes are possible
Disadvantages
 low resolution
 expensive
Direct View Storage Tube(DVST)

FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS

•Flat panel displays are class of a class of video devices that have reduced volume,
weight, and power requirements compared to a CRT.
•A significant feature of flat-panel displays is that they are thinner than CRTs, and we
can hang them on walls or wear them on our wrists.
•Current uses for flat-panel displays include small TV monitors, calculators, pocket
video games, laptop computers etc
•Flat-panel displays are divided into two categories:
 Emissive displays
 Non emissive displays
•The emissive displays (or emitters) are devices that convert electrical energy into light.
Ex: PLASMA PANEL, LED, THIN- FILM ELECTROLUMINESCENT
•Non emissive displays (or non-emitters) use optical effects to convert sunlight or light
from some other source into graphics patterns, Ex: LCD
1. PLASMA PANEL DISPLAYS (emissive display)

Structure of plasma panel

•Plasma panels, also called gas-discharge displays, are constructed by filling the region
between two glass plates with a mixture of gases that usually includes neon.
•Firing voltages applied to a pair of horizontal and vertical conductors cause the gas
at the intersection of the two conductors to break down into a glowing plasma of
electrons and ions.
•Picture definition is stored in a refresh buffer, and the firing voltages are applied to
refresh the pixel positions 60 times per second.
•Major advantage of gas plasma is that it produces Flicker free display
•Disadvantage: Relatively poor resolution (60 dots /inch)

2. LIGHT EMITTING DIODES(LED) (emissive display)

•A matrix of diodes is arranged to form the pixel positions in the display, and picture
definition is stored in a refresh buffer.
•Information is read from the refresh buffer and converted to voltage levels that are
applied to the diodes to produce the light patterns in the display
3. THIN- FILM ELECTROLUMINESCENT (emissive display)

4. LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY (LCD) (Non – Emissive)

•They are commonly used in small systems, such as calculators, TVs and portable laptop
computers.
•These non-emissive devices produce a picture by passing polarized light from the
surroundings or from an internal light source through a liquid-crystal material that can
be aligned to either block or transmit the light.
•The term liquid crystal refers to the fact that these compounds have a crystalline
arrangement of molecules, yet they flow like a liquid.
•Flat-panel displays commonly use nematic (threadlike) liquid-crystal compounds
that tend to keep the long axes of the rod-shaped molecules aligned.
STRUCTURE OF LCD

•Two glass plates, each containing a light polarizer at right angles to the-other plate,
sandwich the liquid-crystal material.
• Rows of horizontal transparent conductors are built into one glass plate, and
columns of vertical conductors are put into the other plate.
• The intersection of two conductors defines a pixel position.
WORKING OF LCD

• Polarized light passing through the material is twisted so that it will pass through
the opposite polarizer.(On state)
• The light is then reflected back to the viewer.
• To turn off the pixel, we apply a voltage to the two intersecting conductors to align
the molecules so that the light is not twisted.
• This type of flat-panel device is referred to as a passive-matrix LCD.
•Colors can be displayed by using different materials or dyes and by placing a triad of
color pixels at each screen location.
•Another method for constructing colors is to place a transistor at each pixel location,
using thin-film transistor technology.
•The transistors are used to control the voltage at pixel locations and to prevent charge
from gradually leaking out of the liquid-crystal cells.
•These devices are called active-matrix displays.