Computer Graphics

Comp565

Chapter – 1
Introduction to Computer Graphics
 Introduction…

Definition:
 Computer graphics is the use of computers
to create, store, manipulate and produce
pictorial outputs.
Uses of computer graphics
 It allows easy communication
 It stores large data
 It saves time

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Application areas of computer graphics

 CAD (Computer Aided Design)
 Presentation Graphics
 Entertainments and Animation
 Education and Training
 Visualization
 GUI(Graphical User Interface)
 Image Processing
 Computer art

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Graphics input devices

 Can transmit input to the graphic system
 Examples:
 Mouse
 Keyboard
 Tablet
 Joystick
 Trackball
 Space ball
 Data gloves, etc.

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Graphics display devices

 Some of the most common types of display system
are:
1. Raster scan display
2. Random scan display
3. Flat panel display
 The most widely used output device in graphics
system is a video monitor (Video Display Unit
(VDU)).
 The operation of most video monitor is based on
the Cathode Ray Tube (CRT).

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Raster scan display

 Uses CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) for display
 Most common type and based on TV- technologies
 CRT electron beams swept across the screen line by
line (one row at a time from top to bottom, from
left to right)
 It works with bit map
 Bit map is a rectangular array of bits(dots) used to
represent a picture
 Each dot on the line of a display is stored as a
series of zeros and ones in RAM
 It is responsible for reading the contents of the RAM
and writing it to the screen by using scans
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Random scan display

 CRT electron beam directed only towards to the
part of screen where picture to be displayed
 It is designed for line drawing application and
cannot display realistic shaded scenes
 Picture displayed as a set of primitives (lines,
vectors)
 It is also known as vector display

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Flat panel display

 Smaller, lighter and thinner than the conventional
CRT
 Mostly suitable for laptop computers
 Categories:
 Emissive display: - converts electrical energy
into light(e.g. Plasma)
 Non-emissive display: - converts light
energy into picture patterns(e.g. LCD)

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Characteristics of display devices

 Pixel(one dot of the raster)- is the smallest
picture elements of the raster
 Scan line- one horizontal line of pixels
 Resolution- the number of pixels used on the
screen. It is the number of pixels in the horizontal
by the number of pixels in the vertical
I.e. R = V x H
Example: 320 x 200, 1024 x 1024, 800 x 600
 The screen with higher resolution gives sharper
and clearer picture. Higher resolution means, large
number of pixels and large number of memory

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 Dot pitch-the distances between adjacent pixels

or the distance between adjacent sets of red,
green, blue dots.
Note: When the amount of dot pitch increases,
resolution decreases and the clarity of images also
decreases.
 Aspect Ratio-is the ratio of y-resolution to x-
resolution.(y/x). Most common CRT has a display
area with an aspect ratio of 4:3

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Frame buffer and its organization

 Frame buffer: is a large contiguous piece of
computer memory that stores the raster image
ready for display.

 Bit plane/Depth of frame buffer: is the number of bits

used for each pixel. I.e. each pixel in the raster is
represented at least one bit, this amount of memory of one
bit per pixel is called bit plane.
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 The frame buffer is a digital device while the raster CRT is

an analog device. We need a device to convert from a digital
representation to analog signal when information is read
from the frame buffer and displayed on the raster graphics
device. This conversion is done by Digital-to-Analog
Convertor (DAC)

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Example:

 For n bit plane on the frame buffer, there is 2n

different color for each pixel
 E.g. from the above picture, there is 2n =23=8
different colors for a pixel.
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 The formula to calculate how much video memory

is required at a given resolution and bit depth is
given by:

 Example: If a monitor computer has 480 scan

lines and aspect ratio 5:4 and each pixel contains
8 bits intensity information, how many bits per
second are required to show 30 MB frame each
second?
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THE END!

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