Computer Graphics with OpenGL

UNIT I – Graphics System

By
Dr.Gnana Prakasi O S
Assistant Professor
Dept of CSE
Faculty of Engineering
CHRIST (Deemed to be University)

MISSION VISION CORE VALUES

CHRIST is a nurturing ground for an individual’s Excellence and Service Faith in God | Moral Uprightness
holistic development to make effective contribution to Love of Fellow Beings
the society in a dynamic environment Social Responsibility | Pursuit of Excellence
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Introduction

What is Graphics?
- Images/Pictures
- objects – 2D/3D
How Captured and Produced?
- Manually
- Computer Graphics Technology

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What is Computer Graphics?

- Creation, Manipulation, and Storage of geometric objects and their images

- computer-generated image data created with the help of specialized graphical
hardware and software
- Technology that deals with designs and pictures on Computers
- Hardware
- Software
- Applications

- According to Niklus Writh’s:

Computer Graphics = Graphics Algorithm + Data Structures + Languages

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Computer Graphics - Classification

● Non Interactive ( Passive Computer Graphics)

○ User has no control on pictures
○ No interaction between user and hardware
○ One way communication
○ Eg : TV Monitor
● Interactive (Active Computer Graphics)
○ has control on structure and display on screens
○ 2-way communication
○ Interaction between user and hardware
○ Eg: games

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Interactive Computer Graphics - Architecture

Creates the image Application Model

Stores and retrieve the Application Software

image Program Level

Commands that says what

Graphics System
to see & when to see

Interactive
Receives Display Devices
Devices
input
Display the
images
Hardware Level
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Computer Graphics : History

Ivan Edward Sutherland

AMERICAN ELECTRICAL ENGINEER
AND COMPUTER SCIENTIST

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Computer Graphics: History

■ 1963 – Sketch pad

■ First human machine interaction

■ First drawing program

■ 1966 –Sword of Damocles

■ first virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display (HMD) system.

■ help of his student Bob Sproull

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Computer Graphics: History

● 1950 – first graphic image – Oscilloscope – by Ben Laposky

■ By manipulating electronic beam and reading them into high speed film

● 1977 - APPLE – II first graphics personal computer.

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Computer Graphics: History

● January 1984, Apple Computers released the first Macintosh computer. It was
the first personal computer to use a graphical interface.
● 1987 - VGA graphics standard introduced – by IBM
● 1995 – Toy Story

The First Web site

● 1989- Tim Berners-Lee creates the very first website ever (this is even the
actual original URL). The version linked here is from 1993,
● 1993 UIUC releases Mosaic, the first web browser for general usage.
Mosaic's “codename” was mozilla

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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

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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

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1.Computer Aided Design (CAD)

● Animations are also used in CAD applications

● Realistic displays of architectural design permits simulated “walk”
through the rooms (virtual -reality systems)

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1.Computer Aided Design (CAD)

● The key benefits of CAD

○ increased range of design ideas

○ improved accuracy

○ Ease of modification

○ repeatability of output

○ Quality of output

○ reduction of wastage

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2.Presentation Graphics

● Used to produce illustrations for reports or generate slides for use with
projectors
● Slides in a presentation (aka: slide show) may contain
text, graphics, sound clips, video clips, and special effects.

● 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

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Examples of presentation graphics

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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

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3. Computer Art

● 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

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3. Computer Art

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4.Entertainment

● Movie Industry
○ Used in motion pictures, music videos,

and television shows.

○ Used in making of cartoon animation films

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4.Entertainment

Game Industry
Focus on interactivity
Cost effective solutions
Avoiding computations and
other tricks

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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

Specialized systems used for training applications

simulators for practice sessions or training of
• ship captains
• aircraft pilots
• heavy equipment operators
• air traffic-control personnel

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Training

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5.Education & Training

• Learning difficulties characteristics

• Use of Virtual Reality for people with learning difficulties
• Environment understanding
Spatial concepts understanding:
Quantity concepts understanding:
Visual concepts and adaptation to visual profiles
• From literality to symbolism
• Social abilities

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6.Visualization
Scientific Visualization
Producing graphical representations for
scientific, engineering, and medical data sets

Weather Map

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6.Visualization

Scientific Visualization

relative humidity and wind vectors

produces a display of two scalars
and a two-dimensional vector

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6.Visualization

Scientific Visualization
IBM Interactive Maps Technology provides scalable
interactive visualization of geo-located big data

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6.Visualization

• 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

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6.Visualization
Business Visualization

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7. Image Processing

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
• 2 applications of image processing
Improving picture quality
Machine perception of visual information (Robotics)

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7. Image Processing

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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

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8.Graphical User Interfaces

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Graphics System

Raster Graphics Random Graphics

Represent image as a set of pixels Represent image as a set of

geometric shapes
Electron beam move along the Electron beam directed only to
row of pixels to display the those parts of the where a picture
image. is to be displayed
Slow and expensive Only need to store the coordinate

Lager storage and more redundant SVG – Scalable vector format

information

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Graphics System – Raster & Vector

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Raster Scan Displays

● Common type of graphics monitor of CRT
● Electron beam move across the screen , one row at a time from top to
bottom.
● The intensity of the beam is turned ON/OFF when electron beams across the
screen
● Pictures stored in refresh buffer/frame buffer – which holds set of intensity
values for all screen points –Pixel/pel.
● These values restored from buffer and painted one row at a time.

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Raster Scan Displays

● Black and White – one bit per pixel – turn ON/OFF

○ Bilevel system – frame buffer commonly known as bitmap
● Color display – depends on resolution
○ 24 bit pixel with 1024 by 1024 resolution
○ Frame buffer commonly known as pixmap
● Refreshing Speed
○ 60 to 80 frames per second
● Horizontal retrace – return to left of the screen at the end of
each line.
● Vertical retrace – top left corner to begin next frame.

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Random Scan Displays

● Electron beam directed only to those parts of the where a picture is to be

displayed
● Pictures are generated as line drawing in any specified order
● Also known as vector Displays, stroke writing Displays, Calligraphic
Displays.
● Refresh rate – depends on number of lines displayed on that.
● Picture Definition is stored as a set of line drawing commands in memory –
display list, refresh display file, vector file or display program.
● Draw all line components 30 to 60 lines per second with 100000 short lines in
the display list.

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Random Scan Displays

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Raster Scan Systems

● Raster graphics system includes CPU, system memory and a special

processing unit known as Video Controller/Display Controller
● Frame buffer – anywhere in system memory and direct access to frame
display

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Raster Scan Systems

● Frame buffer and screen positions – referred as Cartesian coordinates.

● With ymax at top and xmin in left
● Basic refresh operations of video controller

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Raster Scan Systems

Refresh operations:
● Two registers – store coordinates of screen pixels
○ Initial x = 0; y = ymax
○ Set the value of this pixel from frame buffer
■ Inc x by one
■ Continue until x = x max (end of line)
○ Reset x = 0; and dec y by one (Scan next line)
○ Continue until y reaches zero.
● Two frame buffers to speed up the process
○ One to refresh
○ To fill the intensity values

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Raster Scan systems

Raster Scan Display Processor

● With separate display processor – Graphics Controller or display coprocessor

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Raster Scan Systems

● Main task - To digitize a picture into a set of pixel intensity values for storage
in frame buffer - Scan Conversion
○ Objects are scan converted into discrete intensity points.

● Helps to improve line styles, color etc

● To reduce memory requirements

○ Organize frame buffer as linked list and encoding the color information

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Video Display Devices (CRT)

● Video Monitor – Primary Output in Graphics System
○ Main operation based on Cathode Ray Tube(CRT)
○ The cathode ray tube (CRT), invented by German physicist Karl Ferdinand Braun in 1897
● Working Principle
○ Electron Gun – emits beam of Electrons/Cathode Rays
○ Rays passes through Focusing and Deflection System towards Phosphor-coated screen
○ Screen emits – small spot of light at each position connected by beam

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Video Display Devices (CRT)

● Electron Gun –heated gun and control grid
○ Heated by coil of wire - Filament

● that is focused into an electron beam by two anodes(+): accelerating anode

and focusing anode.

● Intensity of electron beam – controlled by setting voltage levels on control

grid

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Video Display Devices (CRT)

● Focusing system – force beam to converge into small spot in phosphor.

● By electric or magnetic fields

● Helps the system to focus in at all screen positions

● Deflection of electron beam – controlled by either electric or magnetic fields

○ CRT – mainly based on magnetic deflection coils mounted on outside of CRT enevelope
○ Two pair of coil is used
○ The magnetic filed produced by each pair is perpendicular to both the direction of
magnetic filed and the direction of travel of the electron beam.

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Video Display Devices (CRT)

● In electrostatic deflection
○ Two pair of parallel plates are mounted inside CRT envelope

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Video Display Devices (CRT)

● Spots of light – produced by transfer of CRT beam energy to the phosphor

○ When electrons collide on phosphor coating – beam energy converted to heat energy

● Persistence
○ Time that the emitted light from the screen to decay
○ Lower persistence – high refresh rates
■ Useful in animation
○ High persistence – low rates
■ Used in highly complex and static pictures

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Video Display Devices (Color CRT Monitors)

● Displays color pictures – using combination of phosphors that emit different

colored light – merged to single color
● 1)Beam – penetration method
○ Coat the screen with layers of different colored phosphors & the emitted color depends
on how far the electron beam penetrates into phosphor layer.
○ Two layers – Red and Green
○ Slow beam touches only outer red
○ Very fast beam penetrates red and touch green
○ Intermediate beam generates two more colors orange and yellow by combination of red
and green
○ Speed of beam controlled by beam acceleration voltage
○ Inexpensive – but produce only few colors & picture quality is not good.

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Video Display Devices (Color CRT Monitors)

● 2) Shadow Mask Method – produce wide range of colors

○ Based on RGB Model
○ Uses 3 phosphor dots in each pixel position for each Red, green and blue lights.
○ Uses 3 electron gun and a shadow-mask grid
○ Light emitted from three phosphors results in a small spot of color at each pixel position
into a single composite color.
○ Delta-delta shadow-Mask Method
○ Beams are deflected and focused as a group onto the shadow mask- which contains a
series of holes aligned with phosphor –dot pattern
○ When beams passes through hole activate dot triangle

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Video Display Devices (Color CRT Monitors)

● Operation of delta-delta shadow mask CRT

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Video Display Devices (Flat-Panel Displays)

● A class of video devices that have reduced volume, weight

and power requirement compared with CRT
● Two main categories
○ Emissive Displays (Emitters)
■ Convert electrical energy to light energy
■ e.g. Plasma panels, thin-film electroluminescent displays, LEDs
○ Non-emissive Displays
■ Use optical effects to convert light from other sources into graphics
patterns
■ e.g. LCD monitors

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Video Display Devices (Flat-Panel Displays)

● Plasma panels (gas-discharge display)

○ Contracted by filling the region between two glass plates with a mixture
of gases (neon)
○ With series of vertical conducting ribbons and horizontal conducting
ribbons in glass plates

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Video Display Devices (Flat-Panel Displays)

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○ Refresh buffer used to store picture information

○ 60 times per second
○ Firing voltages applied to refresh the pixel positions
■ at intersection of two conductors – makes the gas to break down into
glowing plasma of electrons and icons.

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Video Display Devices (Flat-Panel Displays)

Thin-film electroluminescent displays

● Similar to plasma panels.
● But uses glass plates is filled with a phosphor, such as zinc sulfide doped with
manganese, instead of a gas.
● When high voltage passes the pair of crossing electrodes, the phosphor
becomes a conductor in the area of the intersection of the two electrodes.
● Electrical energy is absorbed by the manganese atoms, which releases the
energy as a spot of light
● Electroluminescent displays require more power than plasma panels, and
good color displays are harder to achieve.

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Video Display Devices (Flat-Panel Displays)

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Video Display Devices (Flat-Panel Displays)

light-emitting diode (LED).

● A matrix of diodes is arranged to form the pixel positions in the display, and
picture definition is stored in a refresh buffer.
● As in scan-line refreshing, 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.

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Video Display Devices (Flat-Panel Displays)

● Liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) – non-emissive

○ Commonly used in small systems, such as laptop computers and calculators
● pass polarized light through a liquid-crystal material that can be aligned to
either block or transmit the light.
● The term liquid crystal refers - Crystalline arrangement of molecules, (flow
like a liquid). – nematic
● Picture definitions are stored in a refresh buffer,
● Refreshed at the rate of 60 frames per second,

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Video Display Devices (Flat-Panel Displays)

The light-twisting,
shutter effect of LCD

ON STATE:
Polarized light passing through the
twisted material allows the light to
pass through the opposite
polarizer.
The light is then reflected back to
the viewer.
To turnoff the pixel, we apply a
voltage to the two intersecting
conductors to align the molecules

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OFF STATE:
the light is not twisted.

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Video Display Devices (Three-Dimensional Viewing Devices)

● Reflects a CRT image from a vibrating, flexible mirror

○ The mirror vibrates, it changes focal length.
○ To match depth of points in a scene
● This allows us to walk around an object or scene and view it from different
sides.

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Video Display Devices (Three-Dimensional Viewing

Devices)
● Genisco SpaceGraph system,
○ which uses a vibrating mirror to project three-dimensional objects into a 25-cm by 25-cm
by 25-cm volume.
● This system is also capable of displaying two-dimensional cross-sectional
“slices” of objects selected at different depths.

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Video Display Devices (Stereoscopic and Virtual-Reality

Systems)
● Different view to each eye of an observer so that scenes do appear to have
depth
● Construct the two views as computer-generated scenes with different viewing
positions, -
● simultaneously look at the left view with the left eye and the right view with the
right eye,
● the two views merge into a single image and that perceive a scene with
depth.

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Video Display Devices (Stereoscopic and Virtual-Reality

Systems)
● To produce a stereoscopic effect on a raster system
○ Display each of the two views on alternate refresh cycles.
○ The screen is viewed through glasses, with each lens designed to act as a rapidly
alternating shutter that is synchronized to block out one of the views.

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Video Display Devices (Stereoscopic and Virtual-Reality

Systems)
● Stereoscopic viewing is also a component in virtual-reality systems,
○ where users can step into a scene and interact with the environment.
○ to generate the stereoscopic views can be used in conjunction with interactive input
devices to locate and manipulate objects in the scene.
○ A sensing system in the headset keeps track of the viewer’s position, so that the front
and back of objects can be seen as the viewer “walks through” and interacts with the
display.

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Traditional Input Device (1/4)

● Commonly used today

● Mouse-like devices
○ mouse
○ wheel mouse
○ trackball
● Keyboards
Traditional Input Device (2/4)

● Pen-based devices
○ pressure sensitive
○ absolute positioning
○ tablet computers
■ IPAQ, WinCE machines
■ Microsoft eTablet coming soon
○ palm-top devices
■ Handspring Visor, PalmOS™
Traditional Input Device (3/4)

● Joysticks
○ game pads
○ flightsticks
○ Touchscreens
● Microphones
○ wireless vs. wired
○ headset
Traditional Input Device (4/4)

● Digital still and video cameras,

scanners
● MIDI devices
○ input from electronic musical
instruments
○ more convenient than entering
scores with just a
mouse/keyboard
3D Input Device (1/2)

● Electromagnetic trackers
○ can be attached to any head, hands, joints, objects
○ Polhemus FASTRAK™(used in Brown’s Cave)

http://www.polhemus.com/ftrakds.htm
http://www.isense.com/products/prec/is900/index.htm
3D Input Device (2/2)

● Gloves
○ attach electromagnetic tracker to the hand
● Pinch gloves
○ contact between digits is a “pinch” gesture
○ in CAVE, extended Fakespace PINCH™ gloves with extra contacts

http://www.fakespacelabs.com/products/pinch.html
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Graphics Network

● Multiuser Environment and Computer networks are common elements in

graphics Application.
● Resources such as - Processors, Printers, Plotters and data files are
distributed on network and shared by multiple users
● Graphics Monitor – known as Graphics Server (with standard input devices)
● Computer on networks – Client that exe graphics application program
● Workstation – act as both client and server
● In network :
○ Client transmits instructions - a collection of instructions made into packets before
transmission.

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Graphics on Internet

● the computer graphics researchers who had access to the network in the first
decade of the Internet-1969 to 1979-weren't interested

The first online graphics, created with simple ASCII characters.

(Image courtesy of James D. Murray

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Graphics on Internet

● Faces three major Problem

○ The first was that the network was small and lack of computing resources
○ The second problem - limited number of sites with a graphics orientation, and the
resources were typically unique.
○ The third problem was that no way existed to exchange data and software between these
graphics devices. "All the different [hardware] manufacturers had device-specific
software designed for their products

● Network Graphics Protocol (NGP)

○ translate commands and data between graphics hardware devices .
○ The goal was total device independence such that a researcher at any location could
perform graphics research using the equipment at any other network location.

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Graphics on Internet

● Graphics development is now done on the Internet, a global network of

computer networks.
● Computers on the Internet communicate using TCP/IP (transmission control
protocol /internetworking protocol).
● In addition, the World Wide Web provides a hypertext system that allows
users to locate and view documents that can contain text, graphics, and
audio.
● Resources, such as graphics files, are identified by a uniform resource locator
(URL). Each URL,
○ the protocol for transferring the document, and the server that contains the document
and, optionally, the location (directory) on the server.
○ For example, the URL http://christuniversity.in/
○ indicates a document that is to be transferred with the hypertext transfer protocol (http)

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Graphics on Internet

○ Another common type of URL begins with ftp://.identifies an “ftp site”, where programs or
other files can be downloaded using the file-transfer protocol.
● Documents on the Internet can be constructed with the Hypertext Markup
● Language (HTML).
○ The development of HTML provided a simple method for describing a document
containing text, graphics, and references (hyperlinks)
● it was difficult originally to find information on the Internet.
● Subsequently, the National Center for Super computing Applications (NCSA)
○ developed a “browser” called Mosaic for users to search for Web resources.
○ The Mosaic browser later evolved into the browser called Netscape Navigator.
● The Hypertext Markup Language provides a simple method for developing
● graphics on the Internet, but it has limited capabilities.

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Coordinate Representation

● Primitives Are Made of Pixels:

○ Primitives are 2-D shapes (lines, triangles, circles, etc.)
○ Even 3-D shapes are drawn with 2-D primitives

● Objects Are Made of Primitives:

○ More primitives mean a more realistic object
○ Thousands of primitives can make up each object: •

● Scenes Are Made of Objects:

○ Thousands of objects per scene
○ Millions of primitives make up a scene

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● Modelling Coordinates
● The shapes of individual objects can be defined within individual coordinate
reference frames. • These are called modelling coordinates or local
coordinates, or master coordinates • Each object is defined in "model space“

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● World Coordinates
● Once the objects are defined/specified they can be placed where needed in
the scene being modelled. • The reference frame of the scene is specified in
world coordinates. • This step involves the transformation of the individual
modelling coordinate frames to specified positions and orientations within the
world-coordinate frame. • All objects,light sources and cameras live in world
space.

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● Viewing Coordinates
● After all parts of a scene have been specified, the description based on world
coordinates is processed through various routines onto one or more output-
device reference frames for display. • World coordinates are first converted to
viewing coordinates corresponding to the view we want of the scene, based
on the position and orientation of a hypothetical camera.

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● Projection Coordinates
● The object locations are then transformed from the viewing coordinates to a
2- dimensional projection of the scene (in projection coordinates) which
corresponds to what we will see on the output device.

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● Normalized Coordinates
● The projected scene is then stored in normalised coordinates, where each
coordinate value is in the range [-1, 1] or [0, 1], depending on the system. •
Normalised coordinates are also called normalised device coordinates. •
Using this normalised representation makes a graphics package independent
of the coordinates range for any specific output device.

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● Device Coordinates
● Finally, the individual device drivers transfer the normalised coordinate
representation of the scene to the output devices for display. The coordinate
systems of the devices are device coordinates, or screen coordinates in the
case of a video monitor. • Often both normalised coordinates and screen
coordinates are specified in a left handed coordinate reference frame so that
increasing positive distance from the xy plane (the screen) can be interpreted
as being further from the viewing position.

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● The Viewing Pipeline •

● Processing the scene description (in world coordinates) through the series of
routines into output device coordinates is called the viewing pipeline. • Note
that at reaching the scene description defined in projection coordinates or
normalised coordinates we also need to identify visible surfaces and eliminate
picture parts outside of the bounds for the view we want on the display
device.

● (xmc, ymc, zmc) -> (xwc, ywc, zwc) (xvc, yvc, zvc) (xpc, ypc, zpc) (xnc,
ync, znc) (xdc, ydc)

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