GRAPHICS DISPLAY DEVICES

➢ The graphics display is most important component of a graphics system. The quality
of image influences the perception of the designer.
➢ A designer communicates his ideas by adding, moving and deleting the 2D & 3D
graphics entities on the displays; thus, making it interactive.
➢ In passive display devices such as television, the user cannot modify the displayed
object.
➢ There are Two types of graphics output devices
▪ Soft devices
▪ Hard devices
➢ Graphics display devices come under the category of soft devices. The graphics
information displayed on the computer screen is of temporary nature.
➢ Printers/plotters, which provide the hard copies of graphics images are referred as
graphics output devices.
GRAPHICS DISPLAY DEVICES
➢ In interactive computer graphics (soft devices), the image presented on a CRT
display can be dynamically modified, erased or regenerated.
➢ On hardcopy device, images are created on the paper; therefore, dynamic
modification is not possible. However, hardcopy is used for the further activities.
There are various types of display technologies available to the user. The purpose of
these devices is to generate the desired digital visible image on the screen at high
speeds. Broadly, the graphics displays are classified into Two categories based on the
technology
used:
1. Cathode Ray Tube (CRT)
2. Solid State Monitors or Flat Panel Display (FPD)
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Principle of CRT
➢ The principle of CRT is based on the generation of high-speed electron beam that
strikes on the phosphor-coated glass screen.
➢ The impact of electron beam causes it to illuminate and produce a bright spot (or
glow) on the screen at the desired location until next time the beam is focused.

The CRT consists of

▪ An electron gun forming cathode rays

▪ Optical focusing device

▪ Deflection system, and

▪ Phosphor-coated glass screen.

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➢ The electrons are generated by an electron gun (i.e., cathode) in the form of showers.
➢ The electrons are boiled off from the cathode surface when a direct current, through
a filament, heats metal cathode.
➢ A high vacuum in the cathode tube is maintained wherein, a high positive voltage,
using anode accelerator, accelerates free negatively charged particles.
➢ The electrons are focused in the form of a beam by a focusing system.
➢ Suitable deflection voltages, applied to horizontal and vertical deflection plates,
causing electron beam to impinge on the phosphor-coated glass screen at the
desired location.
➢ The illumination of phosphor dot
takes place where the electron
beam strikes, referredto as display.
IMAGE GENERATION TECHNIQUES
Based on the way of controlling the electron beam in CRT displays, there are two types of
image generation techniques: Random scan and Raster scan.
Random scan Display
(or stroke writing, vector display, line drawing, directed beam or calligraphic (refresh)
display)
➢ The electron beam works like a pencil to create a line image connecting two given
points on the CRT screen.
➢ Images generated using line drawing technique is sharper as compared to the raster
scan.
➢ The word random indicates that screen is not scanned in a
particular order.
➢ Each line segment is generated by directing the electron
beam from one point to the other. Each point is defined by x
and y coordinates values.
➢ The images consisting of curves are generated by
approximating the small line segments of very short length.
IMAGE GENERATION TECHNIQUES
Raster Scan Display
➢ Raster scan display, based on Television technology, is the most common type of
graphics display.
➢ In this technique, a matrix of closely spaced dots is used to form the images.
➢ Compared to the random display or line drawing device, it is referred to as a point
plotting device or digital scan. The computer screen is divided into many discrete
phosphor dots, called pixel (pictureelement). These pixels form the display screen.
 IMAGE GENERATION TECHNIQUES
Raster Scan Display…

➢ The entire scanning of screen

repeats at a rate of 30-60
scans per sec.

Line (AB), special lines (AB, AC & AD) and circle, respectively, visible
on the screen during rasterization.
IMAGE GENERATION TECHNIQUES
Based on these two image generation techniques, the Three types of graphics displaydevices
are:

➢ Refresh or Calligraphic display (Random scan technique)

➢ Direct View Storage Tube (DVST) (Random scan technique)
➢ Raster display (Digital TV) (Raster scan technique)
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Refresh or Calligraphic Display
➢ The refresh graphics display processor is often called a Display Processing
Unit (DPU)or a Graphics Controller.
➢ The refresh buffer/display file stores the image information consisting of 2D &
3D primitives, text, characters and other attributes of the image to be drawn on
thecomputer screen.
➢ For the display of image, the DPU
processes through the set of
commands (program) and draw
each line in sequence.
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Refresh or Calligraphic Display
➢ The commands are interpreted and processed by the display processor and passed to the
deflection system that controls the movement of electron beam.
➢ Any changes made to the display file (refresh buffer) by the commands must synchronize with the
display refresh cycle, which in turn, prevents the display of an incomplete image.
➢ After processing all the commands, the display system cycles back to the first line command.
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Refresh or calligraphic display…
Advantages…
a) Refresh (vector) display is characterized by its high resolution (4096x4096 pixels) leading to high-
quality image.

b) Vector display generates smooth line drawings compared to the raster scan jagged line system because
the electron beam follows the line path.

c) Selective erasure of a portion of image is possible due to the continuous refreshing (redrawing) of
display screen.
d) Refresh display results into the image with high brightness.
e) The animation (viz., simulation of movements) of object is possible due to the fast refreshing of
display screen.
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Limitations
The refresh displays are designed for the line drawing applications. The devices based on
random or refresh scan principles are not preferred for CAD systems due to following:
a) It is a binary display device; hence, able to generate only two levels of color intensity.
b) Refresh display cannot produce shaded colored images.
c) It could display only the limited number of line segments on the screen without flicker.
d) The images involving curves may require large number of short line segments
(alternatively, substantial amount of data); therefore, the need of refreshing the
image at 30-60 Hz rate places a limit on the number of lines that can be displayed
without flicker.
The refresh display devices are expensive due to the need of refresh
buffermemory and fast display processor.
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Direct View Storage Tube

➢ Once the picture is generated, it is to be retained on the CRT phosphor coating.

➢ The duration of time that a phosphor continues to glow, after the electron beam excites it, is termed persistence.

➢ As the persistence of CRT display is very short, it is necessary to retain the images formore time.

➢ A storage tube physically retains the image generated until it is erased, whereas a refreshed tube continuously
regenerates the image at some frequency.

➢ Because of the elimination of refresh buffer, DVST was less expensive as compared tothe refresh/calligraphic type
devices.

➢ Similar to refresh display, DVST also

employs the vector display technique
for theimage generation.
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➢ The storage tube refers to the ability of retaining the image on CRT screen by thespecial type
of phosphor coating; thus, avoid the need of continuous refreshing.
➢ DVST stores the picture information by activating the phosphor dots by the primaryelectron gun
and keeps illuminating the dots by the secondary electron gun.
➢ Therefore, flicker-free images, consisting of large number of short line segments, canbe obtained
at high resolution on the CRT screen.
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Limitations
(i) Selective eraser of images is not possible (due to the absence of display file).

(ii) During the process of image generation, if a portion of image is required to be erased (selective erasure)
the entire screen must be cleared before redrawing the modified image.
(iii)DVST cannot provide the vector images of different colors and simulation of movements (animation).

(iv)Due to the absence of continuous refreshing, the DVST is not suitable for display devices with light pen
as an input device.

Despite these limitations, the advantages of inexpensive price and high-resolution

capability have motivated the early CAD/CAM systems to adopt DVST display.
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Raster Display

➢ There is continuous demand of colors, shaded images and animation of designs in CAD/CAM
applications.
➢ This has motivated the hardware engineers to develop the graphics display devices based on the
Television Technology (TV). A TV uses analog signal generated by a video camera.
➢ Raster display became very popular due to its capability of presenting realistic display of colored,
shaded and flicker-free graphics images on the CRT screen.
➢ The viewing surface of a raster display unit has a matrix of tiny picture elements, calledpixels.
➢ The size of these picture elements is the size of smallest dot that can be displayed onthe monitor.
➢ Every pixel on viewing surface has a unique address by referring to its position in the matrix by specifying
the row and the column.
➢ It is possible to control the brightness or color of each of these pixels by a hardware known as display
controller.
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Raster Display
Monochrome display

➢ The picture definition is stored in the frame buffer called bitmap refresh buffer.
➢ One-to-one mapping between bitmap memory and corresponding pixel location.

➢ The refreshing of entire screen takes place at a rate of 30-60 Hz, which is independent of the complexity of
image and number of graphics items displayed on the CRT screen.
➢ There is no possibility of flickering with
increased complexity of the image, as in the
case of refresh display.
➢ In black/white raster display, 1 bit per pixel
memory is required corresponding to either on
(bright) or off (dark) position of pixel.
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Raster Display
Monochrome display
➢ A digital to analog conversion between the frame
buffer (digital device) and CRT screen (analog
device) must take place before a pixel is visible
on the screen.

➢ For gray levels (gradation between the perfect

black and perfect white color), additional bit-
plane is employed by the frame buffer.
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Raster Display
Monochrome display
➢ In N-bit-plane gray level frame buffer, the binary value
gives an intensity level between 0 (dark) and 2N-1 (full
intensity) on the raster screen after the digital to analog
conversion.
➢ Therefore, a total of 2N intensity levels are possible
with N-bit-plane.
➢ For N = 3, 23 or 8 intensity levels will be visible
for each pixel location, and frame buffer requires 3
x 1024 x 1024 = 3.14 MB memory for each
monochrome image.
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3. Raster Display…
Color Display

➢ The two levels of image (black/white) are not satisfactory for various ICG applications. For color and intensity
variations, additional bits are required.

➢ Practically, continuous gray shades for the monochrome display require a memory of 8 bits/pixel and it increases
up to 24 bits/pixel (8-bits for each Red, Blue and Green primary colors) for colored images.

➢ Thus, 24 bits/pixel, i.e., 224 (viz., 16,777,216) different colors would be available on a pixel location. For
multiple bits/pixel, the frame buffer is termed pixmap.

➢ For colored images, a display system with 24 bits/pixel and a screen resolution of 1024x1024 =1x106 pixels
requires approximately 1x106x24, i.e., 24 MB memory of storage in the frame buffer.