lecture 2 (1)
lecture 2 (1)
lecture 2 (1)
Overview of Graphics
Systems
Overview of Graphics Systems
– Refresh CRT
• Beam of electrons hit phosphor-coated screen, light
emitted by phosphor
• Direct electron beam to the same screen repeatedly,
keeping phosphor activated
• The frequency at which a picture is redrawn on the
screen is referred to as the “refresh rate”
• The maximum number of points that can be displayed
on a CRT is referred to as the “resolution”
• Display principle
– Raster Scan Display Principle
– Random Scan Display Principle
CRT Display Principles
• Raster-Scan Displays
– Based on TV technology
• Electron beam swept
across screen one row
at a time from top to
bottom
• Each row is referred to
as a scan line
CRT Display Principles
• Raster-Scan Displays
– Picture elements: screen point referred as “Pixel”
– Picture information stored in refresh (frame) buffer
CRT Display Principles
• Raster-Scan Displays
– Picture information stored in refresh (frame) buffer
• The number of bits per pixel in the frame buffer is
called depth or bit planes
• Buffer with 1 bit per pixel – Bitmap
• Buffer with multiple bits per pixel – Pixmap
– Interlaced refresh procedure
• Beams sweeps across every other scan line
Frame Buffer
• A frame buffer is
characterized by size, x, y,
and pixel depth.
• the resolution of a frame
buffer is the number of
pixels in the display. e.g.
1024x1024 pixels. Bilevel or monochrome displays
• Bit Planes or Bit Depth is have 1 bit/pixel
the number of bits
8bits/pixel -> 256 simultaneous colors
corresponding to each
pixel. This determines the 24bits/pixel -> 16 million simultaneous
color resolution of the colors
buffer.
Specifying Color
• direct color : 8
• palette-based color :
Green
indirect specification Blue
– use palette (CLUT)
• e.g., 8 bits pixel
can represent 256 24 bits plane, 8 bits per
colors color gun.
224 = 16,777,216
Refresh Rates and Bandwidth
http://www.udayton.edu/~cps/cps460/notes/displays/
Color CRT Monitors
• Immersive
– Head-mounted displays (HMD)
– Stereo shutter glasses
– Virtual Retinal Display (VRD)
– CAVE
http://www.evl.uic.edu/research/template_res_project.php3?indi=27
Video Output Devices
• Desktop
– Vector display
– CRT
– LCD flatpanel
– Plasma
– workstation displays(Sun Lab)
– PC and Mac laptops
– Tablet computers
– Wacom’s display tablet
– Digital Micromirror Devices (projectors)
– Field Emission Devices (FEDs)
– Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) Arrays
Traditional Input Device (1/4)
• Commonly used
• Mouse-like devices
– mouse
– wheel mouse
– trackball
• Keyboards
Traditional Input Device (2/4)
• Pen-based devices
– pressure sensitive
– absolute positioning
– tablet computers
• IPAQ, WinCE machines
• Microsoft eTablet coming soon
– palm-top devices
• Handspring Visor, PalmOS
Traditional Input Device (3/4)
• Joysticks
– game pads
– flightsticks
– Touchscreens
• Microphones
– wireless vs. wired
– headset
Traditional Input Device (4/4)
• Electromagnetic trackers
– can be attached to any head, hands, joints, objects
– Polhemus FASTRAK (used in Brown’s Cave)
http://www.polhemus.com/ftrakds.htm
http://www.isense.com/products/prec/is900/index.htm
3D Input Device (2/2)
• Gloves
– attach electromagnetic tracker to the hand
• Pinch gloves
– contact between digits is a “pinch” gesture
– in CAVE, extended Fakespace PINCH gloves with extra
contacts
http://www.fakespacelabs.com/products/pinch.html
Raster-Scan systems
System Video
CPU Monitor
Memory Controller
System Bus
I/O Devices
Raster-Scan systems
• Video Controller
– Refresh operations
• X, Y register used to indicate pixel position
• Fix Y register and increment X register to generate
scan line
– Double buffering
• Pixel value can be loaded in buffer while
• Provide a fast mechanism for real-time animation
generation
Raster-Scan Systems
Display System
CPU
Processor Memory
System Bus
I/O Devices
Hard copy devices
A picture generated on a dot-matrix printer.
Note how the density of the dot patterns can be
varied to produce light and dark areas.
Graphics Software
• Classifications
– Special purpose package
• Designed for non-programmers
• No graphics procedures involved
• Communicate with a set of menus
– General programming package
• Designed for programmers
• Provide library of graphics functions used in
programming language