CHAPTER 2

Overview of Graphics System

Contents

• Video Display Devices

• Refresh Cathode-Ray Tubes
• Raster-Scan Displays
• Random-Scan Displays
• Color CRT Monitors
• Direct-View Storage Tubes
• Raster –Scan System
• Video Controller
• Raster-Scan Display Processor
• Random –Scan System
Introduction

• For higher-quality application, choose from a number

of sophisticated special-purpose graphics hardware
system and technologies.

• The basic features of graphics hardware components

and graphics software packages.
Video Display Devices

• 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.

Figure 1. A computer graphics

workstation.
Refresh Cathode-Ray Tubes
•A beam of electrons (cathode rays), emitted by an electron
gun, passes through focusing and deflection systems that direct
the beam towards specified position on the phosphor-coated
screen.

•The phosphor then emits a small spot of light at each position

contacted by the electron beam.

•The light emitted by the phosphor fades very rapidly.

Refresh Cathode-Ray Tubes (cont’d)
•To redraw the picture repeatedly by quickly directing the
electron beam back over the same points is called a refresh
CRT.

Figure 2. Electrostatic deflection of the electron beam in a CRT

Refresh
ComputerCathode-Ray Tubes
Aided Design (cont’d)
(CAD)
• The primary components of an electron gun in a CRT are
the heated metal cathode and a control grid.

• The cathode is heated by an electric current passed through

a coil of wire called the filament.

• In the vacuum inside the CRT envelope, negatively charged

electrons are then accelerated toward the phosphor coating
by a high positive voltage.
Refresh
ComputerCathode-Ray Tubes
Aided Design (cont’d)
(CAD)
Control Grid
•Intensity of the electron beam is controlled by setting voltage level
on the control grid.
• 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 decrease the
number of electrons passing through.
• The amount of light emitted by the phosphor coating depends on
the number of electrons striking the screen.
• The brightness of a display point is controlled by varying the
voltage on the control grid.
Refresh
ComputerCathode-Ray Tubes
Aided Design (cont’d)
(CAD)
Focusing system
• The focusing system is needed to force the electron beam to
converge into a small spot as it strikes the phosphor.
• The electrons would repeal each other, and the beam would spread
out as it approaches the screen.
• Focusing is accomplished with either electric or magnetic fields.
• Electrostatic focusing is commonly used television and computer
graphics monitors.
• Electron beam passes through a positively charged metal cylinder
that forms and electrostatic lens that focuses the electron beam at the
center of the screen.
Refresh
ComputerCathode-Ray Tubes
Aided Design (cont’d)
(CAD)
Focusing system (cont’d)
• Magnetic lens focusing produces the smallest spot size on the screen
and is used in special purpose devices.
Deflection of the electron beam
• Deflection of the electron beam can be controlled either with
electric fields or with magnetic fields.
• Magnetic deflection coils mounted on the outside of the CRT
envelope
• In case of magnetic field, two pairs of coils are used, one for
horizontal deflection and other for vertical deflection.
• In case of electric field, two pairs of parallel plates are mounted
inside the CRT envelope, one for horizontal deflection and second
for vertical deflection
Refresh
ComputerCathode-Ray Tubes
Aided Design (cont’d)
(CAD)
• Spots of light are produced on the screen by the transfer of the CRT
beam energy to the phosphor.
• The excited phosphor electrons begin dropping back to their stable
ground state, giving up their extra energy as small quantum of light
energy.
• Persistence: how long they continue to emit light 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.
Refresh
ComputerCathode-Ray Tubes
Aided Design (cont’d)
(CAD)
• 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.

• Resolution: The maximum number of points that can be displayed

without overlap on a CRT.
Refresh
ComputerCathode-Ray Tubes
Aided Design (cont’d)
(CAD)
• Resolution of a CRT is dependent on:
• The type of phosphor
• The intensity to be displayed
• The focusing and deflection system.

• Aspect ratio:
• This number gives the ratio of vertical points to horizontal points
necessary to produce equal-length lines in both directions on the
screen.
Raster-Scan Displays

• The most common type of graphics monitor employing a CRT.

• It is based on television technology
• . In raster scan system electron beam sweeps across the screen,
from top to bottom covering one row at a time.
• A pattern of illuminated pattern of spots is created by turning
beam intensity on and off as it moves across each row.
• A memory area called refresh buffer or frame buffer stores
picture definition.
Raster-Scan Displays (cont’d)

• This memory area holds intensity values for all screen points.
• Stored intensity values are restored from frame buffer and
painted on screen taking one row at a time.
• Each screen point is referred to as pixels.
• The frame buffer with one bit per pixel is called a bitmap.
• The frame buffer with multiple bits per pixel is referred to as
a pixmap.
Raster-Scan Displays (cont’d)

Figure 3. A raster scan system displays an object as a set of discrete points

across each scan line
Raster-Scan Displays (cont’d)

• When each scan of the line is refreshed

it returns to the left side of the screen.
This motion is known as Horizontal
retrace.
• As a particular frame ends, the beam of
electron moves to the left top corner of
the screen to move to another frame.
This motion is referred to as Vertical
retrace.
Raster-Scan Displays (cont’d)

 On some raster-scan systems , each frame is displayed in two

passes using an interlaced refresh procedure.

 In the first pass, the beam sweeps across every other scan line
(even-numbered) from top to bottom.

 And the beam then sweeps out the remaining scan lines (odd
numbered).

 Interlacing is primarily used with slower refreshing rates.

 An effective techniques for avoiding flicker.

Random-Scan Displays (cont’d)

 A CRT has the electron beam directed only to the parts of

the screen where a picture is to be drawn.

 Draw a picture one line at a time and for this reason are
also referred to as vector displays.

 The component lines of a picture can be drawn and

refreshed by a random- scan system in any specified order.
Random-Scan Displays (cont’d)

Figure 4. A random-scan system draws the component lines of an object in

any order specified.
Random-Scan Displays (cont’d)

 Refresh rate on a random-scan system depends on the

number of lines to be displayed.

 Picture definition is stored as a set of line-drawing

commands in an area of memory referred to as the refresh
display file, display list, display program.

 After all line drawing commands have been processed, the

system cycles back to the first line command in the list.
Random-Scan Displays (cont’d)

 Random scan displays are designed to draw all the

component lines of a picture 30 to 60 times each second.

 Random-Scan systems are designed for line-drawing

applications and cannot display realistic shades scenes.

 Vector displays generally have higher resolution than raster

system and displays produce smooth line drawings.
Color CRT Monitors
 A CRT monitor displays color pictures by using a
combination of phosphors.

 The phosphor are different color.

 The two basic techniques for producing color displays with a

CRT :

 The beam-penetration method

 The show-mask method

Color CRT Monitors (cont’d)

Beam-penetration method

• The CRT screen is coated with two layers of phosphor, red

and green The displayed color depends on how far the
electron beam penetrates the phosphor layers.

• This method produces four colors only, red, green, orange

and yellow.

• The quality of pictures is not as good as with other methods.

Color CRT Monitors (cont’d)
Shadow-mask method

• Shadow Mask Method is commonly used in Raster-Scan System.

• They produce a much wider range of colors than the beam-
penetration method.
• It is used in the majority of color TV sets and monitors.
• A shadow-mask CRT has three phosphor color (red, green, blue
light) dots at each pixel position.
• This type of CRT has 3 electron guns, one for each color dot and a
shadow mask grid just behind the phosphor coated screen.
Color CRT Aided
Computer Monitors (cont’d)
Design (CAD)
Delta-delta show-mask method

• Commonly used in color CRT systems.

• The 3 electron beams are deflected and focused as a group onto the
shadow mask, which contains a sequence of holes aligned with the
phosphor- dot patterns.
• When the three beams pass through a hole in the shadow mask,
they activate a dotted triangle, which occurs as a small color spot
on the screen.
• The phosphor dots in the triangles are organized so that each
electron beam can activate only its corresponding color dot .
Color CRT Monitors (cont’d)
An in-line arrangement

• Commonly used in hit-resolution color CRT systems.

• The corresponding red-green-blue color dots on the screen, are
aligned along one scan line rather of in a triangular pattern.

Figure 5. Shadow-mask CRT

Color CRT Monitors (cont’d)
• Color CRTs in graphics systems are designed as RGB monitors.

• Use shadow-mask methods and take the intensity level for each
electron gun directly from the computer system .

• High-quality raster-graphics systems have 24 bits per pixel in the

frame buffer.

• Allowing 256 voltage settings for each electron gun and nearly 17
million color choices for each pixel.

• An RGB color system with 24 bits of storage per pixel is generally

referred to as a full-color system or a true-color system.
Direct-View Storage Tubes
• A direct-view storage tube (DVST) stores the picture information as a
charge distribution just behind the phosphor-coated screen.
• Two electron guns are used :
• The primary gun-to store the picture pattern.
• The flood gun- maintain the picture display.
Advantages of DVST :
• For picture display it does not require refreshing.
• Display complex pictures at high resolution without any flicker.
• No use of frame buffer or refresh buffer.
Disadvantages of DVST :
• These systems do not display colors.
• To erase selected part of an image, entire screen needs to be erased
and modified pictures needs to be redrawn.