Chapter 4

Variation in Characteristics of Computer Graphics:

3 categories-

1. User control over image

a. Passive
 No control
b. Interactive
 User may interact with graphics and programs generating them
2. The way of Image Generation
a. Vector Graphics
 Image consists of a number of lines
b. Raster Graphics
 Involves manipulation of color and picture element/pixels in a matrix
making up the image

3. Manipulation of image
a. Image-space Graphics
 Image directly manipulated to create a picture
 Example: Microsoft Paintbrush
b. Object-space Graphics
 Image representation of a separate model
 Separate model is manipulated
CAD :

 Application of interactive object-space graphics

 Involves both vector and raster graphics
 Vector graphics used in-
o Line drawing and diagrams
o Used in production of wire-frame images for 3-d models
 Raster hardware used in-
o Display of line images
o Extensively for surface and solid model display
o High realistic display with rendering

Computer Graphics Hardware:

1. Display Devices
 Display image to the user
2. Plotting Device
 Generates hard copy

Raster-Scan CRT:

 Historically , display devices were calligraphic or vector displays

 Now all display devices are visual display units of raster-scan type
 Cheap semi-conductors made raster devices popular

Principle:

Intensity of each pixel in a rectangular matrix that covers the screen is controlled

 Matrix is displayed on screen surface as a raster

o As a succession of equidistant linear arrays of pixels known as scan lines like
television
o CRT display is most popular kind of it
 Display receives information about the status of pixels from some sort of display memory
o Common method is to store a matrix of pixel intensity values in digital frame
buffer

Monochrome Images:

 Each pixel represented by a single bit (Black or white)

Greyscale Images:
  Additional bits per pixel allocated
 4 bits per pixel allow 2^4=16 colors or shades of grey
 16 colors satisfactory to distinguish different elements on the screen
 For smoothly shaded image, 256 colors are deployed or 8 bits per pixel
 High performance graphics devices use 24 bits per pixel
o To represent intensity of separate red, green and blue guns of CRT
 Modern displays have resolution grom 640 x 480 to 1800 x 1600 pixels or higher
o Typically 8 or 24 bit devices

Saturation:

Indicates the proportion of white in color

 Royal blue-higly saturated

 Sky blue- unsaturated

Hue:

Distinguishes between primary and mixed colors

 Differentiates yellow, blue and green

Lightness/Intensity:

Describes the overall level of brightness of the color

 Zero intensity corresponds to black

Brightness:

Refers to the intensity of a light emitting object

 Saturation, hue and intensity can help specify the level of additive primary colors

Other Raster-type Displays:

LCD:

Structure:

 Use crossed polarizers sandwiching a very thin liquid crystal layer between layers onto
which thin grid wires are aligned- one horizontally and another vertically
 Liquid crystal rotates polarized light through 90 degrees
o So that it can pass through polarizers
  When horizontal and vertical grids have electric potential applied, resultant field
energizes the crystal at the position of the crossed wires
o It no longer rotates the polarized lights
 Light is absorbed
 A dark spot is shown on the display
 Complete display is formed in raster-scan fashion, row by row
 Effect of energizing crystal gives display persistence

Advantage:

 Good for portable personal computers

o Thin and flat
 Low power consumption

Disadvantage:

 Display persistence relatively long

o View of any dynamic change might be difficult
 Contrast provision is limited
 Ability to display color is limited

Active Matrix Display:

 Offer substantial improvement

 LCD panels with transistors at each grid point on the display
 Allow crystals to change state quickly
 Provide a memory of the state of grid point so that it may be held on continually to
increase its brightness
 Crystals can be died to provide color

Plasma Panel:

Pixel is formed by a neon-tube type action on an inert gas sandwiched between two glass panels

 High contrast
 Poor color capability

Electroluminescent Display:

 Matrix grid of wires used to address a layer of electroluminescent material with a high
electric field
 Works as alternative to LCD

Projection CRT:
  Allow large screen images
 Project light from 3 very bright monochrome displays with red, green and blue filters

Disadvantage of Raster Devices:

 Poor resolution
 Discrete nature of display
o Slanting lines and curves are not enough smooth
o Show staircasing effect
o Can be solved by antialiasing

Antialiasing:

The technique that smooths sharp edges by modifying the intensity of pixels at steps, is known as
antialiasing.

Example: If a line is considered to be 1 pixel wide, then pixel intensity might be set to be
proportional to the area of the pixel covered by the line.

Hard Copy Devices:

1. Vector Plotters
2. Raster Plotters

Hard Copy:

 For copy of image on permenant or semi-permanent media such as paper, photographic

emulsion or draughting film
Vector Plotter:

 Similar to vector displays

o Produce image by plotting a sequence of straight lines by moving pen relative to
paper/drawing and vice versa
 Pen plotters allow for multiple pen types
o To give different line thickness or colors

Advantage:

 High quality output

 Address as many as 40 points per mm

Disadvantage:

 Slow
 Does not easily allow for polygon areas to be filled with solid color or grey scale

Raster Plotter:

 Several forms available

 Main variation in the method of printing the points onto the media

Variations of Raster Plotter:

1. Dot Matrix Device:

 Uses impact of needles on inked ribbons to achieve resolution of a few hundred
points per line
2. Electrostatic & Laser based Xerogprahic Device:
 Capable of producing 16-60 points per millimtere
 Capable of plotting upto A0 size and larger
 Electrostatic plotters for full-color plot
 Laser printers for large drawings

Ink-jet Printer:

 Ink of different color is sprayed from tiny jets in a print head traversing across the paper

Thermal Devices:

 Transfer wax,ink or dye

o Done by selective heating of fine printing pins
 Resolution 75-150 points per mm
2-D Computer Graphics:

 Model of design represented using real valued numbers in two or three dimensions
 Representation is drawn on VDU screen
 Display is defined by integer numerical coordinates
 Aim of CAD is to perform the transformation from design model to display efficiently

Steps of Image Generation for 2-dimensional Model:

 Converting the geometric representation of the model to a form that may be manipulated
easily by graphics routines
o Converting curves and text to a series of lines
 Mapping or transforming the lines from the model coordinate system to the screen
coordinate system
 Selecting the lines that would be visible in the screen display area and discarding the rest
o Known as clipping step
 Instructing display device to draw the visible lines

Vector Generation:

 Graphics image displayed as a large collection of lines on the screen regardless what the
image involves
 Allows display of any geometric entity
o Involves spline, surface, text, graphical symbols
 Graphical routines of the program only have to deal with one type of geometric element-
line
o Greatly simplifies image manipulation
 Aim-
o Use sufficient display lines for the curve to appear smooth
o Number needed is controlled by display tolerance
 Usually lines are drawn between points on the nominal curve shape
 No of vectors used is trade-off between appearance of entities and display performance

Display tolerance:

The maximum deviation of the vector representation from the true curve shape is known as
display tolerance
  Coarse display tolerance implies very polygonal curves
 Fine display tolerance needs calculation of a large number of curve points
o Computationally expensive

Windowing Transformation:

 Zoom and Pan is used to display only the part of the model
o Display Control Commands
Window:
An imaginary rectangular frame or boundary through which the user looks onto the model, is
known as window.

Viewport:

The area on the screen in which the contents of the window are to be displayed as an image is
known as viewport
  Aspect ratio of window and viewport are same

Viewing Transformation:

The process of mapping from model coordinate system to screen coordinate system is known as
viewing transformation.

 Allows application of any desired scaling, rotation and translation

Windowing Transformation:

 No rotation applied
 Less general case
𝒙𝒗 − 𝒗𝒙𝒍 𝒙𝒘 − 𝒘𝒙𝒍
=
𝒗𝒙𝒓 − 𝒗𝒙𝒍 𝒘𝒙𝒓 − 𝒘𝒙𝒍
𝒚𝒗 − 𝒗𝒚𝒃 𝒚𝒘 − 𝒘𝒚𝒃
=
𝒗𝒚𝒕 − 𝒗𝒚𝒃 𝒘𝒚𝒕 − 𝒘𝒚𝒃

Clipping:

The operation of efficiently identifying which part of vectors are within the window and
discarding the rest is known as clipping.

 Otherwise vectors outside the window may lead to undesirable effect if mapped on screen
o Write over a text area of screen
o Have their coordinates set to screen boundary values

Line Drawing:

 Drawing line on a raster display by setting appropriate bits in the frame buffer
o Cases where video controller is closely connected to the main CAD processor
 Instructing a remote process to draw a vector

Drawing Lines on Raster Display:

 Representation of continuous graphical element by a series of discrete points

 Problem-
o Deciding which pixels are near the line segment
o Which should be illuminated
o Maintaining an apparently uniform line thickness
 Different algorithms used-
o DDA
 o Symmetrical DDA
o Bresenham
 Most widely used
 Uses integer arithmetic
 May be performed incrementally

Transmitting Vector Information Across a network:

 Before transmission of any graphical instruction between devices, it must be encoded

using a protocol
 Positions usually expressed as integer coordinate pairs
 At least 10bytes required to draw a line
o 8 byte for coordinate data
o Info about function and drawing style
 Display manipulation for numerous vectors will involve significant network traffic
 Network transmission will not match line drawing rate of modern workstation

Protocol:

A set of rules that control the exchange of data between communicating devices

 Governs-
o Communication between computer and display terminals
o Two devices on a network

Client-Server Approach:

 Client process encodes the graphic instruction in appropriate protocol

 Send the instruction across the network to the server process
 Server process decodes the message
 Then sets appropriate bits in display memory

Stages of Pipeline in Two-Dimensional Computer Graphics:

Transform
Vectorize Clip to Draw
viewport
  Clipping can occur after transformation
o Appropriate if hardware is available

3-Dimensional Computer Graphics:

 Elements same as 2-d graphics

 Process also simialr
 Windowing transformation is replaced by viewing transformation
 Clipping gets complex in case of pictorial perspective projection

Viewing Transformation:

Rotation:

1. About z axis-
𝒙′ 𝒄𝒐𝒔𝜽 𝒔𝒊𝒏𝜽 𝟎 𝒙′
𝒑′ = [𝒚′ ] = [−𝒔𝒊𝒏𝜽 𝒄𝒐𝒔𝜽 𝟎] [𝒚′ ]
𝒛′ 𝟎 𝟎 𝟏 𝒛′
2. About x axis-
𝒙′ 𝟏 𝟎 𝟎 𝒙
′ ′
𝒑 = [𝒚 ] = [𝟎 𝒄𝒐𝒔𝜽 𝒔𝒊𝒏𝜽] [𝒚]
𝒛′ 𝟎 −𝒔𝒊𝒏𝜽 𝒄𝒐𝒔𝜽 𝒛
3. About y axis-

𝒙′ 𝒄𝒐𝒔𝜽 𝟎 −𝒔𝒊𝒏𝜽 𝒙
′ ′
𝒑 = [𝒚 ] = [ 𝟎 𝟏 𝟎 ] [ 𝒚]
𝒛′ 𝒔𝒊𝒏𝜽 𝟎 𝒄𝒐𝒔𝜽 𝒛

Scaling:

X’=x/S

Y’=y/S

Z’= z/S
S=Scaling factor

Translation:

X’=x-dx

Y’= y-dy

Z’= z-dz

Homogeneous Coordiantes:
 Involves representing 3-element position vecotrs by four element vectors of form
[ wx wy wz w]r
 Here w is scale factor usually counted as 1

Visual Realism:

 Internal detail and back faces obscured from view

 Shadows cast
 Surfaces with different intensities
 Hues according to local lighting conditions

Techniques for Visual Realism:

1. Removal of Hidden Surfaces from Image

2. Shading/Coloring Visible Surfaces in a manner appropriate to the modelled
Lighting Condition

 These two based on use of color raster display techniques

o Each pixel is given different color and intensity
o Gives impression of continuous areas of color and shade
3. Hidden Line Removal
 More limited realism
 Removes obscure edge and surface curves

Hidden Line/Edge Removal:

 Edges or vectors of the model obscured by visible surfaces are omitted from display of
image
  Sometimes displayed as dashed lines
 Also known as visible line identification
 Process similar to clipping
 Involves segmentation and partial display of partly obscured edges
 Difference with Clipping:
o Tests edges in the model against multiple boundaries
 Lenghty process
 Computationally expensive
 Easy to test against flat face
 Difficult with general surfaces
 Boxing test and spatial subdivisions employed to improve performance
 Involves object-space techniques

Tessellation :
Technique that subdivides surfaces into planar polygons for hidden-line removal is known as
tessellation.

Hidden-surface Removal:

 Also known as visible surface determination

 More generally an image-space process
 Performance less sensitive to model complexity than hidden-line algorithms
o Limited resolution of raster display
o Large computing effort not needed for generation of fine scene details for
complex models
 Relies heavily on polygonal,tessellated representation of surfaces and faces

Depth-buffer/Z-buffer Algorithm:
  Simplest hidden surface removal algorithm
 Uses frame buffer for display to store color values for the pixels
 Z-buffer used to store current z-value for each pixel
 Z value is the distance or depth from viewing point of the nearest object to the pixel
processed by the algorithm
 Equivalent pixel in the frame buffer stores the shade of that object

Working Principle:

 Sets the highest possible value for depth of each pixel

 Sets the color to a background color
 Each object in the model is then processed
 For each pixel in projection of the object-
o If depth of object from viewpoint is less than current depth-
 Depth and color values for pixel are replaced by those of new object
 After all processing, frame buffer contains the hidden-surface image

Advantage:

 Amenable to hardware implementation

 Popular due to low cost of semiconductor memory

Disadvantage:

 Brute-force approach
 Larfe memory required for buffer

Coherence:

Describes-

 Generally slow change in moving images with time

 Often gradual change in color and shade within an image

Temporal Coherence:

 Concerns change in time

 Similarity between frames

Scanline Coherence:

 Similarity between adjacent lines of the image

Spatial Coherence:
  Similarity in color between adjacent parts of picture

Light & Shade:

Types of Illumination:

 Diffuse Illumniation
o Light of equal intensity strikes the object from all directions
o Akin to ambient light reflected from walls and ceilings or transmitted through
cloud
o Represented by ambient intensity Ia

 Point-source Illumination
o From sun,light bulbs,candles etc with intensity Ip
o Location represented by p, from the point of interest on the face to the point
source

 Sometimes directed sources with intensity,location and direction may be modelled

Shading Method:

1. Flat Shading
2. Gouraud Shading
3. Phong Shading
Gouraud Shading:

 Developed by Henry Gouraud

 Computes surface normals at polygon vertex points through
o From underlying surface representation
o Averaging normals of the polygons that meet at the point
 Uses these to determine vertex intensities
 These intensiteies are linearly interpolated across the polygon

Phong Shading:

 Interpolates the surface normal vectors across polygons

 Uses these interpolated vectors in shading models at each pixel in the image
 More computationally intensive
 More faithful reproduction of highlights in reflection
 Reduces Mach Banding
o Intensity varies at adjacent facets

Techniques for Highest Image Quality:

 Ray Tracing/Ray Casting

 Radiosity

Ray Tracing:

 Consists of a series of algorithms

o Generate images by considering the path of a ray of light arriving at each pixel on
the screen
o Path is traced to the points where it meets surfaces in the scene
 Can be used simply for identifying visible surfaces
 It may allow shades,reflection and refraction to be considered by calculating the surface
intensity at the intersection points from three contributions-
o Local color due to surface illumanition by direct and ambient light
o Transmitted ray coming from refraction direction of translucent surface
 o Reflection of a ray from reflection direction
 Usually operates on a precise representation
 Efficiency of line to surface intersection calculation is key
o Many numbers of intesection need to be calculated
 Rays continue from intersection to intersection as infinitely thin beams
o Result in sharp shadows and reflection and refraction
 Realistic effect may be achieved by using bundles of rays per pixel

 Usually handles specular reflection and refraction

 Can go some way towards modelling diffuse illumination
 More appropriate for modelling-
o Motor vehicles
o Consumer durables with glossy surface

Radiosity:

 Opposity characteristics to ray tracing

 Developed to account for interaction of diffuse light between elements in a scene
 Can not cope with sharp specular reflection
 Object-space algorithm
o Solves intensity at discrete surface patches within an environment
o After computations, images are rendered at different viewpoints
 Computationally intensive
 Can achieve very high standards of realism
 Suitable for
o Building design
o Interior and furnishing design