Chapter two

Multimedia Basics and Representation

Text
All multimedia content consists of texts in some form
Text is used to communicate information to the user
Text in Multimedia
Words and symbols in any form, spoken or
written, are the most common system of
communication. They deliver the most widely
understood meaning to the greatest number of
people.
Most academic related text such as journals, e-
magazines are available in the Web Browser
readable form.
 Text Elements
Text elements can be categories into:
–Alphabets characters: A –Z
–Number: 0 –9
–Special characters: . , ; : ‘ “
–Symbols: @ # $ & *

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 Text Usages

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About Fonts and Faces
 A typeface is family of graphic characters that usually includes many
type sizes and styles.
 A font is a collection of characters
 Typical font styles are bold face and italic.
 The size of a text is usually measured in points. One point is
approximately 1/72 of an inch i.e. 0.0138.
 Typefaces of fonts can be described in many ways, but the most
common characterization of a typeface is serif(eg. Times, Times New
Roman, Bookman) and sans serif(eg. Arial, Optima, Verdana).
 Serif fonts are generally used for body of the text for better readability
and sans serif fonts are generally used for headings
 Fonts
A design for a set of characters.
A collection of characters of a single size and style
belonging to a particular typeface family.
There is some basic consistency of look that makes the
individual characters, regardless of size and style
variations, part of the same family

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 Font Size
The size of a font, typically represented in points (pt).
The font size is the distance from the top of the capital
letters to the bottom of the "descenders" in letters such
as "g" and "y."

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 Font Style
Refers to whether text is bold, italicized, underlined, or
any combination of the three
The term font style refers to the particular style of
textual characters.
Styles are usually standard

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 Cont,,,
Use bold fonts for emphasis, to highlight important
points.

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 Cont,,,
When they are not a common part of your language,
italicize foreign words and phrases.

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 Font Categories

Fonts can be characterized as

–Serif
–Sans serif
–Decorative

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 Cont,,,
Font Categories -Serif
Serif characters have a little "flag" or decoration at the
end of the letter stroke.

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 Cont,,,
Font Categories –San Serif
Sans Serif (sans is French for "without") characters
don't have these decorations.

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 Cont,,,
Font Categories –Decorative
Used to decorate, embellish, and beautify a text.
With the help of decorative fonts any informal passage
can become more reader-friendly: it will quickly
capture attention of the readers and make a text easier
to perceive, unusual, and fascinating.

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Selecting Text fonts
Following are a few guidelines which help to choose a font in a
multimedia
 As many number of type faces can be used in a single
presentation, this concept of using many fonts in a single
page is called ransom-note topography
 For small type, it is advisable to use the most readable font
 In large size headlines, the kerning (spacing between the
letters) can be adjusted
 Drop caps and initial caps can be used to pronounce the
words.
 The different effects and colors of a font can be chosen in
order to make the text look in a distinct manner.
 Meaningful words and phrases can be used for links and
menu items.
 Font Editing and Design tools

 There are several software that can be used to create

customized font
 list of software that can be used for editing and creating fonts
 Fontographer : It is macromedia product, it is a specialized
graphics editor for both Macintosh and Windows platforms.
You can use it to create postscript, truetype and bitmapped
fonts for Macintosh and Windows.
 Fontmonger
 Cool 3D text
 What is SOUND?
Sound comprises the spoken word, voices, music and
even noise.
It is a complex relationship involving:
a vibrating object (sound source)
a transmission medium (usually air)
a receiver (ear) and;
a preceptor (brain).

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Audio

 Sound is the most important element of multimedia. It is meaningful “speech” in

any language, from a whisper to a scream.
 Sound is a continuous wave that travels through the air
 Sound is the terminology used in the analog form, and the digitized form of
sound is called as audio.
 Acoustics is the branch of physics that studies sound. Sound pressure levels are
measured in decibels (db); a decibel measurement is actually the ratio between a
chosen reference point on a logarithmic scale and the level that is actually
experienced.

The human Ear detecting Sound

 Sound Facts
Wave Characteristics
• Frequency: Represents the
number of periods in a second
and is measured in hertz (Hz)
or cycles per second.

Air Pressure
Amplitude
Human hearing frequency
range: 20Hz to 20kHz (audio) Time

• Amplitude: The measure of

One Period
displacement of the air pressure
wave from its mean. Related to One particular frequency
but not the same as loudness component

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Multimedia Sound Systems:
 The multimedia application user can use sound
 Macintosh and on a multimedia PC running Windows
because beeps and warning sounds
 are available as soon as the operating system is installed
Digital Audio

 Digital audio is created when a sound wave is converted into numbers

– a process referred to as digitizing.
 It is possible to digitize sound from a microphone, a synthesizer,
existing tape recordings, live radio and television broadcasts, and
popular CDs. You can digitize sounds from a natural source or
prerecorded.
 To store audio or video data into a computer digitization is must
Formula for determining the size of the digital audio
 Monophonic = Sampling rate * duration of recording in seconds * (bit
resolution / 8) * 1 (sampling rate determines the frequency at which samples will be drawn
for the recording.)
 Stereo = Sampling rate * duration of recording in seconds * (bit
resolution / 8) * 2
Audio Quality vs. Data Rate
Quality Sample Rate Bits Mono/ Data Rate Frequency
(kHz) pe Stereo (kBytes/sec) Band
r (uncompressed)
Sample

Telephone 8 8 Mono 8  200-3400 Hz

AM Radio 11.025 8 Mono 11.0  540-1700

KHz

FM Radio 22.050 16 Stereo 88.2

CD 44.1 16 Stereo 176.4 20-20000 Hz

DAT 48 16 Stereo 192.0 20-20000 Hz

Editing Digital Recordings

The basic sound editing operations

1. Multiple Tasks: merge the tracks and export them in a final mix to a
single audio file
2. Trimming: Removing dead air or blank space from the front of a
recording
3. Splicing and Assembly: remove the extraneous noises that
inevitably creep into recording.
4. Volume Adjustments: to assemble different recordings they must
have the same volume.
Con’t

5. Format Conversion:
6. Resampling or downsampling: If you have recorded and edited
your sounds at 16 bit sampling rates but are using lower rates you
must resample or downsample the file.
7. Equalization: helps to make the sound brighter or darker
8. Digital Signal Processing: using special effects
9. Reversing Sounds:
10. Time Stretching: alter the length of a sound file without changing its
pitch
Making MIDI Audio
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a communication
standard(protocol) developed for electronic musical instruments and
computers.
MIDI is the quickest, easiest and most flexible tool for building a
multimedia project.
 The process of creating MIDI music is quite different from digitizing
existing audio.
 To make MIDI scores, however you will need sequencer software and
a sound synthesizer.
A MIDI file format is used in the following
circumstances :
 Digital audio will not work due to memory constraints and more
processing power requirements
 When there is high quality of MIDI source
 When there is no requirement for dialogue.
A digital audio file format is preferred in the following
circumstances:
 When there is no control over the playback hardware
 When the computing resources and the bandwidth requirements are
high.
 When dialogue is required.
MIDI: Data Format
o Information traveling through the hardware is encoded in MIDI data
format.
o The encoding includes note information like beginning of note,
frequency and sound volume; upto 128 notes
o The MIDI data format is digital
o The data are grouped into MIDI messages
o Each MIDI message communicates one musical event between
machines. An event might be pressing keys, moving slider controls,
setting switches and adjusting foot pedals.
o 10 mins of music encoded in MIDI data format is about 200 Kbytes of
data. (compare against CD-audio!)
Software used for Audio
 Soundrecorder fromMicrosoft
 Apple’s QuickTime Player pro
 Sonic Foundry’s SoundForge for Windows
 Soundedit16
Audacity
Image formats and color models
 Pixels -- picture elements in digital images
 Image Resolution -- number of pixels in a digital image
(Higher resolution always yields better quality.)
 width x height (e.g., 640X480)
 Most common Aspect ratio: 3:4 (lines:columns)
 Dots (pixels) per inch, dpi or ppi (e.g., 72 dpi)
 Bit-Map -- a representation for the graphic/image data in
the same manner as they are stored in video memory.
 Bits/pixel – also contributes to the quality of the image
 Color Models
 Representing color on a computer is done by having a mapping of colors
to numbers.
 Such a mapping is called a color model.
 There are many color models, the 2 most widely used models are RGB
(additive) & CMYK (subtractive)
 RGB (red, green, blue) model assumes a blank picture is black (no light)
and describes what colored lights need to be added to get a desired color.
Red, green, and blue are the primaries.
 CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, key) model assumes a blank picture is
white (pure light) and describes what colored lights need to be removed to
get a desired color. Cyan, magenta, and yellow are the primaries.
 Such a model is called subtractive because inks "subtract" the colors
red, green and blue from white light. White light minus red leaves
cyan, white light minus green leaves magenta, and white light minus
blue leaves yellow.
Color Depth
 Colors are virtually infinite in number since each color is a
wave.
 However, to the human eye, many colors are
indistinguishable from one another.
 Color Depth refers to number of bits of data used to
represent color.
 Using too few causes a loss of information.
 Using too many leads to a very large image size.
Digital Images
Digital images are a collection of pixels arranged in
rectangles.
Conceptually a pixel is a number that represents a
color depending on the color model.
In imaging a pixel represents a single point in a raster
image.
Monochrome (1 bit)
 1 bit of color per pixel (black and white)
 Assuming a perfect algorithm an uncompressed picture’s size is
1 (bit of color) * length * width
CGA (2 bit grayscale)
 2 bit of color per pixel (black, white, and 2 shades of gray)
 Assuming a perfect algorithm an uncompressed picture’s size is
2 (bits of color) * length * width
 The original Game Boy used 2 bits of color
 Because of advances in technology today’s grayscale generally uses 8
bits allowing 256 shades of gray.
3 bit RGB
 3 bit of color per pixel
 1st 2nd and 3rd bit represents presence of red, green and blue respectively
 000 – black 100 – red
 001 – blue 101 – magenta
 010 – green 110 – yellow
 011 – cyan 111 – white
 Assuming a perfect algorithm an uncompressed picture’s size is
3 (bits of color) * length * width
6 bit RGB
 6 bit of color per pixel (64 colors)
 2 bits for red, 2 bits for green, 2 bits for blue
 4 shades for each primary
 Assuming a perfect algorithm an uncompressed picture’s size is
6 (bit of color) * length * width
9 bit RGB
 9 bit of color per pixel (512 colors)
 3 bits for red, 3 bits for green, 3 bits for blue
 8 shades for each primary
 Assuming a perfect algorithm an uncompressed picture’s size is
9 (bits of color) * length * width
 Many older computers use 8-bit (256 colors)
 This is basically 9 bit color with 1 less bit for the blue channel, because
blue is less sensitive to the human eye.
Highcolor (15 bit RGB)
 15 bit of color per pixel (32,768 colors)
 5 bits for red, 5 bits for green, 5 bits for blue
 32 shades for each primary
 Assuming a perfect algorithm an uncompressed picture’s size is
15 (bits of color) * length * width
 Many computers use 16-bit (65,536 colors)
 This is basically 15 bit color with 1 more bit for the green channel,
because green is more sensitive to the human eye.
Truecolor (24 bit RGB)
 24 bit of color per pixel (16,777,216 colors)
 8 bits for red, 8 bits for green, 8 bits for blue
 256 shades for each primary
 Assuming a perfect algorithm an uncompressed picture’s size is
24 (bits of color) * length * width
32 bit RGB
 Widely used today.
 24 bit of color per pixel + 8 bits for extra data like transparency and
texture.
 Assuming a perfect algorithm an uncompressed picture’s size is
32 (bits of color) * length * width
Truecolor Representation
 To represent such a large number of colors using bits is not practical. Instead
we represent truecolor in two ways:
 RGB Color – a triplet representing red green and blue, each number can
go from 0 to 255
 rgb(255,0,0) – red
 rgb(255,127,0) – orange
 rgb(0,0,0) – black
 HEX triplet – 6 digits (2 red, 2 blue, 2 green), but each digit is represented
using base 16.
Possible Digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F
 Hex triplets start with a pound sign and are always 6 digits.
 #FF0000 – red
 #FF7F00 – green
 #000000 – black
The most common formats used on internet are the
GIF, JPG, and PNG
GIF
 Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) initially for transmitting
graphical images over phone lines via modems.
 Uses the Lempel-Ziv Welch algorithm (a form of Huffman Coding),
modified slightly for image scan line packets (line grouping of pixels).
 LZW compression was patented technology by the UNISYS Corp.
 Limited to only 8-bit (256) color images, suitable for images with few
distinctive colors (e.g., graphics drawing)
 Supports one-dimensional interlacing (downloading
gradually in web browsers.
 Interlaced images appear gradually while they are
downloading. They display at a low dim resolution first and
then transition to full resolution by the time the download
is complete.)
 Supports animation. multiple pictures per file (animated
GIF)
 GIF format has long been the most popular on the Internet,
mainly because of its small size
 GIFs allow single-bit transparency, which means when you
are creating your image,
PNG
 stands for Portable Network Graphics
 It is intended as a replacement for GIF in the
WWW and image editing tools.
 GIF uses LZW ( Lempel–Ziv–Welch
)compression which is patented by Unisys. All user
of GIF may have to pay fees to Unisys due to the
patent.
 PNG uses unpatented zip technology for
compression
JPEG/JPG

 A standard for photographic image compression

 created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group
 Intended for encoding and compression of photographs and
similar images
 Takes advantage of limitations in the human vision system
to achieve high rates of compression
 Uses complex lossy compression which allows user to set
the desired level of quality (compression). A compression
setting of about 60% will result in the optimum balance of
quality and filesize.
 Quiz (10. pts)
What is color models and image format
What is multimedia
What is sound

proposal on Ethiopian Currency Recognition and

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