Graphics Display

Devices

Lecture 2
 Vector Displays

– Early computer displays: basically an oscilloscope

– Control X,Y with vertical/horizontal plate voltage
– Intensity or brightness of the display is sometimes called
the Z axis.
Vector Drawing’s Commands
– Each line segment to be displayed takes
very few data values
– Vector displays can draw a picture very rapidly
– Each XY pair is used to generate deflection voltages
– which will sweep the beam across the face of
screen
– When the beam strike the phosphor,
– visible light is produced for certain time
 Vector Displays Disadvantages
– Complex object drawing is difficult
– list of commands becomes very long
– Complex scenes
– visible flicker
– first line may have faded out before last is drawn
– Vector displays can not show
– smoothly shaded regions
– Scanned images
– Cross hatching effect
 Raster Displays

– Raster: A rectangular array of points or dots

– Pixel: One dot or picture element of the raster
– Scan line: A row of pixels
 Raster Displays Contd…
– Video Monitor – Dot matrix

– Flat panel – Ink jet plotter

– Laser printer – Film recorder

Raster Displays Contd…

– Line/vector display raster display

– no pixels array of pixels

 Display Technologies

– Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs)

– Most common display device today
– Evacuated glass bottle
– Electrons pulled towards anode focusing cylinder
– Vertical and horizontal deflection plates
– Beam strikes phosphor coating on front of tube
 CRT
– It converts electrical signals to visual signals. It has specialized evacuated
tube in which image is produced when an electron beam strikes a surface.
Components:
1. Electron gun ( heated filament, cathode and anode)
– electron beams , electrons emitted by the cathode are accelerated by the
anode.
2 Deflecting system:
– X plate and y plate deflecting. X horizontal deflection and y cause
vertical deflection
3 Florescence screen :
- glows when the beam of electron hits it,
Working

Working: Electron gun generates narrow beam of electrons,

anode accelerates electrons, then plates produces low
electromagnetic filed that changes the direction of electron
beam and it produces tiny spot when it strikes the screen.

– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwkuCgYI91w
– Phosphers
– Flourescence:
– Light emitted while the phospher is being struck by electrons
– Phospherescence:
– Light emitted once the electron beam is removed
– emits visible light for a certain period after the bombardment has
ceased
– Persistence:
– Time from the removal of the excitation to the moment when
phosphorescence has decayed to 10% of the initial light output
– Long persistence -> image smears as picture is moved on screen.

– Short persistence -> no smearing as image moves but more refreshing

needed
 CRT Display Devices
A few examples of Computer Graphics devices are:
– CRT(Cathode Ray Tube) – Films
– EGA (Enhanced Graphics Adapter – Flat panel devices
– CGA (Color Graphics Adapter – Video digitizer
– VGA(Video Graphics Adapter – Scanners
– SVGA(Super Video Graphics Adapter – LCD Panels
– Monitors – Keyboard
– Plotters – Joystick,
– Data Matrix – Mouse,
– Laser printers
 CRT
CRT monitor is most commonly used device
Types of CRT monitors:
1. DVST(Direct View Storage Tube)
2. Calligraphic or Random scan Display system
3. Refresh and Raster Scan Display System.
The common feature in all these three display devices is the
cathode ray tube.
 DVST
– Long persistent Phosphor.
– Doesn’t need to refresh
– Provides flicker free display
– A slow moving electron stream draws a line on the screen.
– The screen has a storage mesh in which the phosphor is
embedded.
– Image is stored as a distribution of charges on the inside
surface of the screen.
– It has very limited interactive support.
 Components of DVST
The heating filament heats the cathode element of the CRT to generate the
electrons and the electrons then boil off the filament and are guided along the
Electron Beam Path.
1. Control Grid:
– It controls the intensity of the beam which is coming out of the cathode i.e.
screen brightness.
– Both control grid and electron beam are negatively charged so the control grid
adjusts the intensity of the beam by adjusting its negative charge
– the more the negative charge (voltage) of the control grid, the less the no of
electrons that it allows to pass through it and the lower the intensity of the
beam.  
2. Focusing Anode:
– It is positively charged and focus the electron beam on a particular point
– Same as lens focusing light , electrostatic lens.
3. Accelerating Anode:
– Accelerates the electrons to hit the screen at very high speed, Positively
 Working of DVST
– Use square matrix to draw image
– Produce Horizontal and vertical deflections by the magnetic
defection coils
– Top Bottom opposite sides Magnetic Deflection Coils
– Electron beam generated by coils directs or deflects on any
part of the phosphor coated screen
– Firstly beam passes through the two horizontal deflection
plates then through the vertical deflection plates.
 DVST Limitations
– Modifying any part of the image will require the redrawing of
the entire image
– Animations cannot be displayed using DVST
– Change in the image requires the generation of new charge in
DVST
– Slow process
– Erasing a picture takes about 0.5 seconds
– All the elements on the screen should be erased
 Calligraphic or Random
Scanned Display Systems
– Vector stroke or line drawing display because the electron
beam is deflected from one point to another
– Those sequence of commands that guide the beam to move
from one point to another in order to create short strokes or
lines
Raster displays

– Fixed scan pattern

– left to right, top to bottom
– To paint the screen, computer needs to synchronize with the
scanning pattern
– Framebuffer
– special memory to buffer image with scan-out synchronous to the raster
display device.
– Region of memory should be large enough to hold all pixel values

– Graphic card
House the memory require for frame buffer
Scanning process

– RGB Frame buffer

Index Colour and lookup table

– Each pixel go through an intermediate step

– Before they drive CRT
– These bits are used as an index in to a table of 2n
values
 Color is expensive …

– The more color you want, the more bits you will need for
each pixel
– Exercise: 1024 x 1280 screen with
24 bits per pixel, how large is the frame buffer?

1024 x 1280 x 24 / 8 = 4M Byte

Colour Index Framebuffer
 Without lookup table

Frame buffer memory = 4MB

24 bits per pixel

With lookup table

Frame buffer memory = 1 MB

8 bits per pixel
 Color Lookup Table

– only 3 bits per pixel

– But one insist on having high quality pictures …
– Use Color Look Up Table (LUT)

R G B
0
1
2 You can still have 24 bits
3
4
in each of the color table
5 entries
6 24 bit wide
7

3 bits/pixel frame buffer

 LUT memory
– If Raster display has color depth= b bits
– Each LUT entry is w bits wide then
– System can display
– 2w colors 2b at one time

– So it require very little memory

– Only 2b words of w bits each
– System have capability of 24 bit colors
– Frame Buffer
– 1024 x 1280 x 8 / 8 = 1M Byte
– LUT
– 768 bytes (2b *w/8 )
– Summarizing LUT
– System has color depth of b bits.
– LUT entry is w bit wide
– System will display: 2w colors 2b at one time
– Relationship b/w bitplanes and width of LUT
– W is multiple of 3 derive each DAC.
– Memory required by LUT
– 2b *w/8
– Storage required by System
– b/3*rows *cols + size of LUT
–Size of frame buffer:
– rows *col * bits per pixel/ 8
–Memory required by LUT
–2b *w/8
–Storage required by System
–b/3*rows *cols + size of LUT
 Task 1
– A system with b=8 bits and LUT width w=12 can
display _____________ colors , and ___________
colors at 1 time?
– A system with b=8 bits and LUT width w=24 can
display ____________ colors , and ___________
colors at 1 time?
– A system with b=12 bits and LUT width w=18 can
display _____________ colors , and ___________
colors at 1 time?
– Exercise:
– 640 × 480 screen with 12 bits per pixel, how
large is the frame buffer?
– 1280 x 1024 screen with 12 bits per pixel, how
large is the frame buffer?
– 2560 × 2048 screen with 12 bits per pixel, how
large is the frame buffer?
Display Technology: LCDs

– Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs)

– organic molecules
– naturally in crystalline state
– that liquefy when excited by heat or E field
– Crystalline state twists polarized light 90º.
 Display Technology: LCDs

– Converts electric field to visible dots

– Each pixel is addressed by horizontal and vertical grid
wire
 Active matrix panels
– Are LCD panels
– Have tiny transistors at each pixel
– Transistors responds to electric field
– adjusts the liquid crystal by an amount proportional to the field
– Allow the display of different level of brightness
– Transistors provide some “memory”
– that holds the crystals in their adjusted states
– so that the display need not be refreshed
– This produce much brighter display
 Display Technology
– Plasma
– Display geometry
– Neon bulb turn on and off by electric field
– DMD / DLP
– optical semiconductor, called a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD),
– uses mirrors made of aluminum to reflect light to make the picture
– Organic LED Arrays
– It consists of a series of organic layers between two electrical contacts
(electrodes).
– Each layer is deposited on the other, creating a single unit.
 Hard Copy Raster Devices
– Film Recorder
– Strip of photographic film
– electron beam exposes as it sweeps over it in raster pattern
– Electronic Hard copy of Image
– Laser Printer
– Sweep a laser beam on internal defined buffer
– Surface becomes electronically charged causing toner to
follow spots.
– InkJet Plotter
– A tiny nozzle sweeps over the paper and squirts (sprays)
proper color of ink at each pixel position.
– Post Script Language
– Printer are equipped with micro processor.
– Generate high quality text and graphics
References

– Computer Graphics using open GL( chapter 1) by F.S Hill

– InterNET Resources
– Howstufff works.com/lcd.htm

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