Computer graphics & multimedia

Chapter Four
Graphics hardware

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 INTRODUCTION TO THE 3D GRAPHICS PIPELINE

traditional pipeline

modeling animation rendering

 new pipeline

motion image-based
3D scanning
capture rendering
DISPLAY DEVICES

 Display devices also known as output devices.

 The most commonly used output devices in a graphics

system is a video monitor.
DISPLAY DEVICES

 Types of display devices:

 CRT
 Radom Scan
 Raster Scan
 Colour CRT
 DVST (Direct view storage)
 Flat Panel Display
 Plasma Panel Display
 LCD
CRT

 CRT
 A CRT is an evacuated glass tube.

 An electron gun at the rear of the tube produces a beam of

electron which is directed towards the front of the tube (screen)
by a high voltage.

 The inner side of the screen is coated with phosphor substance

which gives off light when it is stroked by electron.

 The control grid voltage determines the velocity achieved by

the electrons before they hit the phosphor.
CRT

Cathode Ray Tube

CRT
 CRT
 The control grid voltage determines how many electrons are
actually in the electron beam.

 Thus, control grid controls the intensity of spot where the

electron beam is strike the screen.

 The focusing system concentrates the electron beam so that

the beam converges to a small point when it hits the phosphor
coating.
CRT
 CRT
 The deflection system of the CRT consists of two pairs of
parallel plates, referred to as the vertical and horizontal
deflection plates.

 The voltage applied to vertical deflection of the electron beam

and voltage applied to the horizontal deflection plates controls
the horizontal deflection of the electron beam.

 There are two techniques used for producing images on the

CRT screen : Random Scan (Vector scan) and Raster Scan.
COLOUR CRT
 Colour CRT
 A CRT monitors displays colour pictures by using a
combination of phosphors that emit different-coloured light. It
generates a range of colours by combining the emitted light
from different phosphors.

 There are two basic techniques used for producing colour

displays:

Bean-Penetration technique

Shadow mask technique
COLOUR CRT
 Beam-penetration technique:
 This technique is used with random-scan monitors.

 In this technique, the inside of CRT screen is coated with two

layers of phosphor, usually red and green.

 The displayed colour depends on how far the electron beam

penetrates into the phosphor layers.

 The outer layer is of red phosphor and inner layer is of green

phosphor.
COLOUR CRT
 Beam-penetration technique:
 A beam of slow electrons excites only the outer red layer.

 A beam of very fast electrons penetrates through the red layer and
excites the inner green layer.

 At intermediate beam speeds, combination of red and green light are

emitted and two additional colours, orange and yellow displayed.

 The beam acceleration voltage controls the speed of the electrons and
hence the screen colour at any point on the screen.
COLOUR CRT
 Beam-penetration technique:
 Merits:

It is inexpensive technique to produce colour in random scan
monitors.

 Demerits:

It can display only four colours

The quality of picture produced by this technique is not good
as compared to other techniques.
COLOUR CRT
 Shadow Mask Technique:
 The shadow mask technique produces a much wider range of
colours then the beam penetration technique.

 Hence this technique is commonly used in raster-scan displays

including colour TV.

 In a shadow mask technique, CRT has three phosphor colour

dots at each pixel position.

 One phosphor dots emits a red light, another emits green light
and third emits green light.
COLOUR CRT

Shadow mask techniques

COLOUR CRT
 Shadow Mask Technique:
 It has three electron guns, one for each colour dot, and a
shadow mask grid just behind the phosphor coated screen.

 The shadow mask grid consists of series of holes aligned with

the phosphor dot pattern.

 Three electron beams are deflected and focused as a group on

to the shadow mask and when they pass through a hole in the
shadow mask, they excite a dot triangle.
COLOUR CRT
 Shadow Mask Technique:
 A dot triangle consists of three small phosphor dots of red,
green and blue colour.

 A dot triangle when activated appears as a small dot on the

screen which has colour of combination of three small dot on
the screen which has colour of combination of three small dots
in the dot triangle.

 By varying the intensity of the three electron beams we can

obtain different colours in the shadow mask CRT.
DVST(DIRECT VIEW STORAGE)
 DVST:
 DVST stands for direct view storage tube.

 In raster scan display we do refreshing of the screen to

maintain a screen image.

 The DVST give alternate method of maintaining the screen

image.

 A DVST uses the storage grid which stores the picture

information.
DVST

DVST
DVST
 DVST:
 DVST consists of two guns: Primary gun and Flood gun.

 A primary gun stores the picture pattern and the flood gun
maintains the picture display.

 A primary gun produces high speed electrons which strike on

the storage grid to draw the picture pattern.

 Continuous low speed electrons from flood gun pass through

the control grid and attracted to the positive charged areas of
the storage grid.
DVST
 DVST:
 The low speed electrons then penetrate the storage grid and
strike the phosphor coating.

 During this process collector behind the storage grid smooth

out the flows of flood electrons.
DVST
 DVST:
 Advantages :

Refreshing of CRT is not required.

Complex picture can be displayed on high resolution.

It has flat screen.
 Disadvantages:

Erasing requires removal of charge on the storage grid.

Selective or part erasing of screen is not possible.

The performance of DSTV is poor in compare to CRT.

Erasing of screen produces flash over the entire screen.
FLAT PANEL DISPLAY
 Flat Panel Display:
 The term flat panel display refers to a class of video devices
that have reduced volume, weight and power requirement in
compared to a CRT.

 The important feature of FPD is that they are thinner than

CRTs.

 There are two types of Flat panel display: Emissive display

and Non-emissive display.
FLAT PANEL DISPLAY
 Emissive Display:
 They convert electrical energy into light energy. Plasma panels,
thin-film displays, and light emitting diodes are example of
emissive displays.

 Non-emissive Display:
 They use optical effect to convert sunlight or light from some
other source into graphics patterns. Liquid crystal display is an
example of non-emissive display.
PLASMA PANEL DISPLAY
 Plasma Panel Display:
 Plasma panel display writes images on the display surface point
by point, each point remains bright.

 This makes the plasma panel functionally very similar to the

DVST.

 It consist of two plates of glass with thin, closely spaced gold

electrodes.

 The electrodes are attached to the inner faces and covered with
a dielectric material.
PLASMA PANEL DISPLAY

Plasma Panel Display

PLASMA PANEL DISPLAY
 Plasma Panel Display:
 These are attached to as a vertical ribbons on one glass plate,
and a set of horizontal ribbons to the other glass plate.

 The space between two glass plates is filled with neon-based

gas and sealed. By applying voltage between the electrodes the
gas within the panel is made to behave as if it were divided into
tiny cells.

 Refreshing is not required in this display.

PLASMA PANEL DISPLAY
 Advantages:
 Refreshing is not required.
 Produce very steady image.
 Light weight than CRT
 Allow selective writing and selective erasing.
 Flat screen and is transparent.
 Disadvantages:
 Poor resolution.
 Complex addressing and wiring
 Costly than CRTs.
LCD
 Liquid Crystal Display:
 The term liquid crystal refers to the fact that these compounds
have a crystalline arrangement of molecules, yet they flow like
a liquid.

 Two glass plates, each containing a light polarizer at right

angles to the other plate sandwich the liquid-crystal material.

 Rows of horizontal transparent conductors are built into one

glass plate, and columns of vertical conductors are put into the
other plate.
LCD

Liquid Crystal Display

LCD
 Liquid Crystal Display:
 The intersection of two conductors defines a pixel position.

 In the ON state, polarized light passing through material is

twisted so that it will pass through the opposite polarizer.

 It is then reflected back to the viewer.

 To turn OFF the pixel, we apply a voltage to the two

intersecting conductors to align the molecules so that light is
not twisted.
LCD
 Advantages

 Low cost
 Low weight
 Small size
 Low power consumption
RASTER SCAN SYSTEM
Raster Scan System
 Hardware architecture of raster scan system is shown in figure.

 In addition to the general purpose CPU, a special-purpose

processor, called the video controller or display controller, is
used to control the operation of display device.
RASTER SCAN SYSTEM
Raster Scan System
 In this architecture , frame buffer not allocated dedicated

memory, System memory and frame buffer share the

common memory area.

 Frame buffer can be anywhere in the system memory.

 Video controller reads the command from frame buffer

and draw pixel accordingly.
RASTER SCAN SYSTEM
Raster Scan System
Video Controller:
 Figure shows another variation of raster scan system. Dedicated memory
area is allocated to frame buffer.

 Video controller is given direct access to frame buffer.

RASTER SCAN SYSTEM
Raster Scan System
Video Controller:
 This organization can render scene quickly because video

controller do not have to put request on system bus to read

intensity value from frame buffer.
 In high quality system use two frame buffers, so that one buffer

can be used for refreshing while other is being filled.

 Then both buffer switch the role.

 This mechanism is useful in real time animation because it does

not waste time in reloading the buffer.
RANDOM SCAN SYSTEM
Random Scan System
 Hardware architecture of random scan system is shown in figure.
 Application program resides in system memory.
RANDOM SCAN SYSTEM
Random Scan System
 Application program resides in system memory.

 Graphics packages translates the graphics commands in the

application program into a display file.

 Display file also stored in system memory.

 Display processor accesses the content of display file and display

on monitor screen.

 Display processor retrieves one by one command from display file

and draws it on screen.
RANDOM SCAN SYSTEM
Random Scan System
 Display processor in a random scan system is also called graphics
controller.

 In random scan devices renders the scene using short line.

 Electron beam track the line position directly, rather than going
through each and every pixel on screen.

 Entire scene is defined using segment of line in application program.

RANDOM SCAN SYSTEM
Random Scan System
 Line segments are defined by pair of end points.

 A scene is then drawn one line at a time by positioning the beam

to fill in the line between specified endpoints.
DIFFERENTIATE RANDOM SCAN & RASTER SCAN
SYSTEM
No. Raster Scan System Random scan System
Electron beam scans entire Electron beam scans only the part of
1 screen to draw a picture screen where picture information is
present.
2 It has low resolution. It has high resolution in compare to
raster scan.
Picture definition is stored Picture definition is stored as line
3 as set of discrete intensity drawing commands in display list.
values in frame buffer.
4 Intensity value is sorted for System is designed to display lines,
each pixel, it displayed it can’t displayed realistic scene.
realistic scene.
5 Pixel location of screen is Mathematical function are used to
used to draw an image. draw an image.
DIFFERENTIATE RANDOM SCAN & RASTER SCAN
SYSTEM
No. Raster Scan System Random scan System
6 Cheaper than random More costly.
scan.
7 Scan conversion is Scan conversion is not required.
required.
8 Video controller is Video controller is not required.
required.
9 Used to display dynamic Used to display static scene
scene.
10 Scan conversion hardware Scan conversion hardware is not
is required. required.
Refresh rate is When number of primitives are too
11 independent of number of large, random scan device flickers.
objects in scene.
GRAPHICS INPUT DEVICES
 Keyboards

 Mouse

 Trackball and Spaceball

 Joystick

 Data Glove
 Digitizer

 Image Scanners

 Touch Panels

 Light Pens

 Voice System
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION

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