Computer Graphics

DISPLAY DEVICES

Video Display Devices

The primary output device in a graphical system is the video monitor.

Cathode-ray tubes (CRT)

Focusing System Base Y deflect

Phosphor

Connector Pins Electron Gun

x deflect

Control grid voltage

Basic operations of a CRT

Steps

1. The electron gun emits a beam of electrons (cathode rays). 2. The electron beam passes through focusing and deflection systems that direct it towards specified positions on the phosphor-coated screen. 3. When the beam hits the screen, the phosphor emits a small spot of light at each position contacted by the electron beam.
Because the light emitted by the phosphor fades very quickly some method is needed for maintaining the screen picture.

4. Redraw the picture by quickly directing the electron beam back over the same screen points. 4

Phosphor Persistence
Definition: The time from the initial light output to the moment when has decayed to its 10%. There are different kind of phosphors for use in a CRT. Besides color, a major difference is their persistence how long they continue to emit light after the CRT beam is removed. A phosphor with low-persistence is useful in animation. A high-persistence phosphor is useful for displaying highly complex, static pictures. Graphics monitors are usually constructed with a persistence in the range from 10 to 60 microseconds.
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Brightness (Intensity) distribution of a phosphor spot on the screen

The intensity is greater at the center of the spot, and it decreases with Gaussian distribution out to the edges of the spot.

Two illuminated phosphor spots are distinguishable when their separation is greater than the diameter at which a spot intensity has fallen to 60% of maximum (at the center of the spot).

Raster Scan Displays

Developed in the early seventies. It is today's dominant hardware technology. Almost all graphics systems are raster-based. A picture is produced as an array the raster of picture elements. This elements are called Pixels or Pels (Picture Elements). A pixel corresponds to a location, or small area, in the image. Collectively, the pixels are stored in a part of memory called the refresh buffer or frame buffer.

Zooming Effects

Resolution

The maximum number of points (pixels) that can be displayed without overlap on a screen is referred to as the resolution, and determines the detail that can be seen in an image. A more precise definition is the number of points per centimeter that can be plotted horizontally and vertically, although it is often simply stated as the total number of points in each direction (i.e. 1280 1024). The physical size of a graphics monitor, on the other hand, is given as the length (in inches) of the screen diagonal. 10

 The aspect ratio gives the ratio of vertical points to horizontal points necessary to produce equallength lines in both directions on the screen. So 4:3 (most common) means that a vertical line plotted with 4 points has the same length as a horizontal line plotted with 3 points.

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The Frame Buffer

0 0 800

x
spot at (x,y)

pixel at address (x,y)

600

Frame buffer
at (800,600)

Display surface

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Refresh Rate
Definition: The number of times per second the image is redrawn. The entire contents of the frame buffer are displayed on the CRT at a rate high enough to avoid flicker. This rate is called the refresh rate. For a human to see a steady image on most CRT displays, the same path must be retraced, or refreshed, by the beam at least 60 times per second. Current raster-scan displays perform refreshing at the rate of 60 to 80 frames per second, although some systems now have refresh rates of up to 120 frames per second. Refresh rates are described in units of cycles per second, or Hertz (Hz), where a cycle corresponds to one frame (i.e. a refresh rate of 60 frames per second = 60 Hz).
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Refresh-rate for films and TV

The display technology on a monitor is different from that of film.
A film projector can maintain the continues display of a film

frame until the next frame is brought into view. On a video monitor a phosphor spot begins to decay as soon as it is illuminated.

On films, below 24 frames per second, we can perceive a gap between successive screen images.
Old silent films show flicker because they where photographed at

a rate of 16 frames per second. When sound systems were developed in the 1920s, motion picture film rates increased to 24 frames per second removing flickering. Today TV refresh rate is 25 frames per second in Europe and 30 frames per second in the USA.
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The depth (or intensity) of the frame buffer, defined as the number of bits that are used for each pixel, determines properties such as how many colors can be represented on a given system.
1-bit-deep frame buffer allows 21 colors (black and white) 8-bit-deep frame buffer allows 28 (=256) colors In full color systems (also called RGB-color systems), there are 24 (or more) bits per pixel in order to display sufficient colors to represent most images realistically.
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Scanning Approaches
0 800

600 y
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Raster Scan Displays

Electron beam paints the picture on screen one Scan line line at a time.
Horizontal retrace

Vertical retrace

000000000000000000000 000000000111000000000 000000111111111000000 000111111111111111000 000111110000011111000 000111111111111111000 000111111000111111000 000111111000111111000 000111111000111111000 000111111000111111000 000111111111111111000 000000000000000000000

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Raster Scan Displays

They are based on TV technology Refresh rate = 60 to 80 frames per second.
Note: Below 24 frames/second, eye detects flicker.

Each screen point is visited every refresh cycle. Their capability to store intensity information for each screen point makes them well suited for the realistic display of scenes containing shading and color patterns.
The frame-buffer with 1-bit intensity is called a bitmap. The frame-buffer with multiple-bits intensity is called a pixmap.

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Interlaced Raster Scan Displays

Odd/even scan lines covered in successive refresh cycles. Hence 30 frames/sec refresh rate appears like 60 frames/sec.
0 1 2

3
4 5 6
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Random-Scan (Vector) displays

Vector stands for line. Developed in the mid-sixties and in common use until the mid-eighties. The electron beam is directed only to parts of the screen where the picture is to be drawn.

MoveTo (300,800) LineTo (700,800) LineTo (500,300) LineTo (300,800)

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Random Scan Displays

Picture is stored as a set of point- and line-drawing commands with (x,y) or (x,y,z) endpoint coordinates, as well as character-plotting commands. Refresh rate depends on the number of lines to be displayed. To avoid flicker it must be at least 30 times per second (30 Hz). They are designed to draw all the component lines of a picture 30 to 60 times per second more than 60 could burn the phosphor. High quality vector systems are capable of handling approximately 100,000 lines at this refresh rate. They are designed for line drawing applications and cannot display realistic shaded images.
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Raster Scan Vs Random Scan

Ideal line drawing

Raster scan

Random scan

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The Bit-map
1-bit-deep frame-buffer

1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0

1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0

1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0

0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Frame buffer

Pixels
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Gray Level images

n-bits per pixel produce 2n gray levels. Many images use 8-bits per pixel, i.e. 256 gray levels since it gives acceptable quality.
00 01 10 11

2-bit per pixel 4 gray level

Color image

8-bit per pixel 256 gray level

1-bit per pixel 2 gray levels Black & White

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Color Images
Produce realistic images. Cost of high-quality color displays has decreased. Cost of scanners that digitize color photos has decreased.

Each pixel in a color image has a color value which is a combination of amounts of red, green and blue. Each pixel value is an ordered triple, such as (23,14,51), that prescribes the densities of the red, green and blue. Each value in the triple (RGB) has a certain number of bits, and color depth is the sum of these values.

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The Color Depth

Many images have a color depth of eight (one byte), 3 bits for the red and the green and 2 bits for the blue. Each pixel has one of 256 colors. In highest quality (true-color) images, have a color depth of 24, one byte for each component.
This achieves the best color production the eye can perceive: More bits do not improve an image. However, such images require a lot of memory. A true-color image of 1,080 1,024 pixels requires over 3 million bytes.

x
pixel value

y
Color depth = 6 bits 26 (= 64) colors

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Common Colors
Color depth of three
One bit for each component
Color Value (triple) 0,0,0 0,0,1 0,1,0 0,1,1 1,0,0 1,0,1 1,1,0 1,1,1 Value

Black Blue Green Cyan Red Magenta Yellow White

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Red Green - Blue

Color CRTs have three different colored phosphors (red, green, blue) usually arranged in triangular (delta) groups called triads. A metal screen with small holes the shadow mask allows electrons from each gun to hit only corresponding phosphors dots (of the proper color).

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Flat Panel Displays

All flat panel displays are raster refresh displays. Divided into two categories:
Active light emitting discharge (e.g. Flat CRTs, Plasma-gas)
Passive light modulating (e.g. Liquid crystal)

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Flat CRT
Initially projecting the electron beam parallel to the screen and then reflecting it through 90. It has all the performance advantages of the conventional CRT. Available only in small sizes.

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Liquid-Crystal Display (LCD)

It is a flat panel display. It is a thin, lightweight display device. It has no moving parts. It consists of an electrically-controlled lightpolarising liquid trapped in cells between two transparent polarising sheets. An electric current passed through the liquid causes the crystals to align or not so that light can/cannot pass through them. Each crystal, therefore, is like a shutter, either allowing light to pass through or blocking the light.
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Liquid-Crystal Display (LCD)

Made up of six layers:
1. Vertical filter film to polarize the light as it enters. 2. Glass substrate with ITO electrodes which lines up with the

3. 4.
5. 6.

vertical filter. The shapes of these electrodes will determine the shapes on the LCD. Twisted liquid crystals. Glass substrate with common electrode film (ITO) which lines up with the horizontal filter. Horizontal filter film to block/allow through light. Reflective surface to send light back to viewer.

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CRT vs LCD
Physical Size, Weight An LCD has one third the size of a CRT, and it is much lighter. Display Size LCDs are sized by their actual viewable diagonal measurement, but CRTs are not. E.g. the viewable area on a 17" LCD monitor will measure 17" diagonally, but the viewable area on a CRT monitor will only measure 16" diagonally. Colours Most CRT monitors are capable of displaying unlimited colours. Some LCD monitors are only capable of hundreds or thousands of colours, but many of the newer LCD's are capable of unlimited colours. Resolution CRT monitors are usually capable of displaying multiple video resolutions, each with the same quality. LCD monitors, however, usually have what is called a Native resolution, or the resolution that it displays best. The native resolution is generally the highest resolution that the LCD can display.

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CRT vs LCD
Viewing Angle A CRT screen can be looked at from a very wide angle, practically from the side, but an LCD monitor typically has a smaller viewing angle. From the side, the image on an LCD screen can seem to disappear, or invert colours. Newer displays that are coming out have wider viewing angles. Brightness is not a concern with CRT monitors. LCD monitors have different levels of brightness. The brightness rating for an LCD monitor is commonly referred to as 'nits', and commonly range from 70 to 300 nits. The higher the nits, the brighter the display. Power Consumption and Radiation Emission LCD monitors consume much less energy than CRT monitors. Secondly, CRT monitors are known to emit harmful radiation, whereas LCD monitors do not. Price CRT monitors are more affordable than LCD monitors. However the LCDs cost have come down quite a lot in the last 1-2 years. An LCD monitor will cost more but will conserve energy in the long run. The energy savings may not be much for an individual user, but with a corporation the energy savings might be more of an issue. 34

Plasma or Gas Discharge Display

Consists of a matrix of cells (the raster) in a class envelope. Each cell is filled with a gas (usually neon, or a neon/argon mixture) at low pressure (below atmospheric). When a sufficiently high voltage is applied the gas dissociates, i.e. electrons are stripped from the atoms. The dissociated gas is called a plasma, hence the name plasma display. When the electrons recombine, energy is released in the form of photons; and the gas glows. Plasma displays have large size and are high resolution displays (100 pixels/inch).
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Thin Film Transistor (TFT)

A type of LCD flat-panel display screen, in which each pixel is controlled by from one to four transistors. The TFT technology provides the best resolution of all the flat-panel techniques. It is the most expensive display. TFT screens are active-matrix LCDs.
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Three-Dimensional Viewing Devices

Timing and Control System
Projected 3D Image Vibrating Flexible Mirror

CRT
Viewer

Operation of a 3D display system using a vibrating mirror that changes focal length to match the depths of points in a scene.

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Stereoscopic and Virtual-Reality Systems

A 3D object is displayed in a stereoscopic view. It presents a different view to each eye of an observer so that scenes appear to have depth. The two views of a scenes are generated with viewing directions along the lines from the position of each eye (left and right) to the scene. The two views merge into a single image and we perceive a scene with depth. The scene is viewed through glasses , with each lens designed to act as rapidly alternating shutter that is synchronized to block out one of the views.

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A Graphical System

The frame buffer is implemented with special types of memory chips that enable fast redisplay of its contents:
Video Random-Access Memory (VRAM) or Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DRAM).

In simpler systems, the frame buffer is part of standard memory.

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Light
Radio
Light

Heat

Gamma rays X-rays Ultraviolet

Blue

Wavelength (nm)

Infrared Microwaves Radio waves

Red

Green

350

780

Light is a form of electromagnetic radiation. Electromagnetic energy travels as waves that can be characterized by either their wavelengths or their frequencies. frequency wavelength = speed of light
Light is the electromagnetic spectrum, which has wavelengths in the range of 350 to 780 nanometers (nm).

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Light in Computer Graphics

We do not deal with the wave nature of light. Light sources have a fixed rate of intensity. Light travels in straight lines. A point source emits energy from a single location at one or more frequencies equally in all directions. More complex sources, such as a light bulb, can be characterized as emitting light 41 over an area.

The Human Visual System

Light enters the eye through the lens and cornea, a transparent structure that protects the eye. The iris opens and closes to adjust the amount of light entering the eye. The lens forms an image on a 2D structure called the retina. The rods and cones are light sensors and are located in the retina. They are excited by electromagnetic energy in the range of 350 to 780 nm.
The rods are for low-level-light (night vision) monochrome The cones are for high-level light (day vision). Not too useful in 42 the dark 3 types (RGB)

Our Eyes
Fovea is the high-resolution area in the retina. Cones are mostly at the fovea. Rods are all over the retina. The optic nerve is the signal processor that sends the image to the visual cortex (brain), where high-level functions, such as object recognition, are carried out. The resolution of our visual system is the size of objects we can see. More technically, it is a measure of how close we can place two points and still recognize that there are two distinct points. Our eyes do not react the uniformly at different wavelength. It does not have the same response to a monochromatic (single-frequency) red light as to a monochromatic green light. If these two lights were to emit energy with the same intensity, they would appear to us to have different brightness we are most sensitive to green light, and least to red and blue.
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Objects
An object is a self-contained thing that has a structure (properties) and behavior (methods and/or functions). Object primitives
Points, lines, polygons, free-form surfaces, etc. that define the shape of the components of the object.

Object attributes
Line style, color or surface texture.

Connectivity relationships and positioning data that describe how the components fit together.
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Virtual Environments
A set of independent objects following laws and behaviors define a world or a virtual environment (VE). Virtual environments have:
content the objects that make up the environment geometry dimension, metric and the extent or boundaries of the environment dynamics consist of the rules of interaction between the objects
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Content of VE
At any moment of time any object has a description and a state.
Description: information about the objects geometry, substance and potential behavior. State: state of the object in relation to the rest of the environment.

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Actors and Virtual Reality

An actor is a special set of objects that can initiate an interaction with another object or actor through information exchange. A participant (human operator) has a visual representation within the environment and controls the behavior of one of the actors. Virtual Reality
The participant lives in the virtual environment, sees with the eyes of the actor and feels as being the actor itself. The participants movements are captured 47 by a tracking system.

Forming Synthetic Objects

Synthetic objects can be defined or approximated by specifying the position in space of various geometric primitives, such as
points (vertices) lines polygons

Examples A line can be defined by two vertices. A polygon can be defined by an ordered list of vertices. A sphere can be specified by two vertices, the center and any point on its circumference. 48

The Viewer
Image Object
The viewer forms the image (in 2D) of the object.
In the human visual system, the image is formed on the back of the eye, on the retina. In a camera, the image is formed on the film plane.

An object has a lot of images, depending on the position and the perspective of the viewer.

B-view

C-view

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Image Formation

The object and the viewer are in a threedimensional world. The image is two-dimensional.

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Light Sources

Without light sources the objects would have been dark and there would be nothing visible to the image. Light from the sources strikes various surfaces of the object, and a portion of the reflected light enters the camera through the lens.
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Displaying Images

Wire-frame image

Shaded image
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Realism
It is extremely difficult to create reality on a computer display.

What do you see?

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Explanations
In electrodynamics, polarization is a property of waves, such as light and other electromagnetic radiation. Unlike more familiar wave phenomena such as waves on water or sound waves, electromagnetic waves are threedimensional, and it is their vector nature that gives rise to the phenomenon of polarization.

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is a mixture of indium(III) oxide (In2O3) and tin(IV) oxide (SnO2), typically 90% In2O3, 10% SnO2 by weight. ITO is mainly used to make transparent conductive coatings for electronic displays, and heat-reflecting coatings for architectural, automotive, and light bulb glasses.
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Input Devices
Each device is more suitable for certain tasks than for others

Keyboard
Entering non-graphical data (i.e. text)
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 Mouse
Used to select a location to the screen.
The motion of the roller at the bottom of the mouse is

converted into signals sent back to the computer.

Optical Detector Mouse

Measure distance traveled by counting lines on a

special pad.

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 Trackball
Similar in use to the mouse.
Popular with portable computers because they can be incorporated directly into the keyboard.

There exist various pressure-sensitive devices in keyboards that perform similar functions to the mouse and trackball.
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 Data Tablet
It has rows and columns of wires embedded

under its surface. The position of the stylus is determined through electromagnetic interactions between signals traveling through the wires and sensors in the stylus.

Touch-Sensitive Screens
Have many of the same properties as Data Tablet.
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 Light pen
If it is positioned on the face of the CRT at a location, a signal is sent to the computer.

Not very popular as other devices.

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 Joystick
The motion of the screen in two orthogonal directions is encoded and integrated to identify a screen location.
Variable sensitive device well suited for flight simulators and games.
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 Spaceball
3D input device

Stick does not move but it has pressure sensors (rotations).

3 independent twists (translations).

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 Z-mouse
3D input device It has three buttons, a thumbwheel on the

sided, a trackball on the top, and a standard mouse ball underneath.

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 Data Glove
Used to grasp a virtual object. Sensors detect hand and finger motions.

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 Digitizers
2D or 3D input devices. Interactive selection of coordinate positions on

an object. Wireframe models rectangular grid

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