Unit 2-Computer Hardware

Graphics Hardware
Raster display systems - Introduction to the 3D graphics pipeline - The Z Buffer for hidden
surface removal.

The expected output of the graphics is done with the help of Graphics hardware and
software. Graphics hardware has two classification - input devices, and output devices.

Output Devices:
The output devices can be classified as display devices and hardcopy devices.
Let us see some of the devices.
Video Display System
Video display devices are the most important output device in the graphics
systems. Three type of display devices available. These devices are working based
on the CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) design. Types are:
 Direct View Storage Tube (DVST)
 Calligraphic or Random Scan Display system
 Refresh and Raster Scan Display system

Cathode Ray Tube

Operation of electron gun with an accelerating anode:

 The below figure illustrate the basic operation of a CRT.

 A beam of electrons (cathode rays), emitted by an electron gun, passes
through focusing and deflection systems that direct the beam toward the
specified positions on the phosphor screen. Then the phosphor emits a small
spot of light at each position contacted by the electron beam. Because the
light emitted by the phosphor fades very rapidly.

Electron gun:

 The primary components of an electron gun in a CRT are the heated metal
cathode and a control grid.
 Heat is supplied to the cathode by directing a current through a coil of wire,
called the filament, inside the cylindrical cathode structure. This causes
electrons to be 'killed off" the hot cathode surface.
 In the vacuum inside the CRT envelope, the free, negatively charged electrons
are then accelerated towards the phosphor coating by a high positive voltage.

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Control Grid:

 Intensity of the electron beam is controlled by setting the voltage level in the
control grid which one fit over the cathode.
 Applying high negative voltage to the control grid will shut off the beam
from cathode by repelling concept. So by adjusting the voltage level in the
control grid can change the brightness of the display.
Accelerating Anode:
Accelerating anode is used in CRT to accelerate the electron to strike the
screen by high speed.

Focusing Anode:

 Focusing anode is used in CRT to focus the electron beam in particular place
in the screen.
 Focusing done by two ways in CRT: either using electric or magnetic field.
Electrostatic focusing is commonly used in Television and computer
monitors. This is a positive voltage so it‟s captured the electrons and point
tuned the electron beam to hit the particular place in the screen.
 From the above figure: electron beams are hitting screen in the center point
only. But the screen size is square so electron beam must to hit the all places
in screen then only can see the picture in the screen.
 Defection made in electron beam by two methods by
 Electrostatic deflection
 Magnetic deflection

Electrostatic deflection:

 Electrostatic deflection is done by the capacitive plates are fixed by

horizontally and vertically to the screen.
 Vertical plates are used to move the beam vertically in the screen and
horizontal plates are used to move the beam horizontally in the screen.
 Magnetic deflection:
Magnetic deflection coils helps to focus the electron beam all over the
screen.

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Calligraphic or Random Scan Display:
In this display system: CRT has the electron beam directed only to the parts of
the screen where a picture is to be drawn. Random scan monitors draw a picture one
line at a time and for this reason are also referred to as vector displays (or stroke-
writing or calligraphic displays).
 Characters also made of sequence of strokes or short lines
 Beam is deflected from end point to end point
 Order of the deflection is dictated by arbitrary order of the display commands
 Phosphor has short persistence decays in 10-100us
 The display must refresh with regular intervals minimum of 30Hz(fps) for
flicker free display
 Refresh buffer is available in this display system. It is used to store the display
list or display program to draw the picture
 The display processor interprets the commands in the refresh buffer for
plotting
 The display program has commands for point, line, and character plotting

Conceptual Block diagram

 Application programs are running in the host CPU.
 Host CPU keeps the Display programs and display commands in the display
buffer. Based on the program and command display controller will work and
the picture processor sends the point coordinate values to the vector
generator.
 Vector generator converts the digital coordinate value to analog voltage
for beam deflection circuit.
 Beam deflection circuit displaces the electron beam for drawing on the CRT
screen.

The above figure illustrates the operation of the electron beam deflection in
the random scan display. In this display system: image is drawn in the CRT screen
by line. In the first fig: its starting the image from one end point to another end
point. Finally using 3 lines, it is finished the image of triangle.

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One more example for drawing the image in CRT using random scan display:

Raster Scan Display System

 The most common type of graphics monitor employing a CRT is the raster-
scan display, based on television technology.
 In a raster-scan system, the electron beam is swept across the screen, one row
at a time from top to bottom. As the electron beam moves across each row,
the beam intensity is turned on and off to create a pattern of illuminated
spots.
 Picture definition is stored in a memory area called the refresh buffer or frame
buffer. This memory area holds the set of intensity values for all the screen
points. Stored intensity values are then retrieved from the refresh buffer and
"painted" on the screen one row (scan line) at a time.
 Each screen point is referred to as a pixel or pel (shortened forms of picture
element).
Drawing Image:

 In this system, display screen is matrix of pixels. So each pixel properties

(coordination and intensity) are controlled by video controller.
 Each pixel is addressable in frame buffer ex: (5, 5) (here X and Y coordination
values are 5 and 5).

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 In this system can‟t draw the line directly. It‟s possible by point by point only
so it is called point plotting. See the figure. It‟s drawing the line by point to
point by scanning the screen from top to bottom row.

Architecture of simple raster-scan system:

Interactive raster graphics systems typically employ several processing units.
In addition to the central processing unit or CPU, a special-purpose processor called
the video controller or display controller is used to control the operation of the
display device. Organization of a simple raster system is shown in below figure.

Architecture of simple raster-scan system

In the above figure: frame buffer is available in system memory and the video
controller access the frame buffer to refresh the screen.

Architecture with fixed portion of system memory

In the above figure: only one difference is: here frame buffer area is fixed size
in the system memory so this architecture is called fixed portion of system memory.
The below figure is two dimensional system. Here the coordinates are X and Y. these
are used to fix the electron beam in the exact place in the screen. In the frame buffer
two registers available, that is: register X and Y. these registers are used to keep the X
and Y coordination: using these values video controller is drawing the image in the
screen.

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Hardcopy Devices

 Hardcopy output can get for the image in several formats using printer or
plotter. Ex:printer and plotter(hardcopy devices).
 The quality of the picture obtained from the hardcopy device depends on dot
size and number of dots per inch or per lines that can be printed.
 Some hardcopy devices are:
Printer
 Line printer
 Drum Printer
 Chain Printer
 Dot Matrix printer
 Ink jet Printer
 Laser Printer
Plotter
 Pen plotter
 Drum plotter
 Electrostatic plotter

Input Devices:
Various devices are available for data input on graphics systems. Most
systems have a keyboard,a mouse, trackball, space ball, joystick, digitizers, dials, and
button boxes. Some other input devices used in particular applications are data
gloves, touch panels, image scanners, and voice systems.
Here we will discuss some of the important devices.

Keyboard:

 An alphanumeric keyboard on a graphics system is used primarily as a device

for entering text strings.
 The keyboard is an efficient device for inputting such nongraphic data as
picture labels associated with a graphics display. Keyboards can also be
provided with features to facilitate entry of screen coordinates, menu
selections, or graphics functions.
 Cursor-control keys and function keys are common features on general
purpose keyboards.
 Function keys allow users to enter frequently used operations in a single
keystroke, and cursor-control keys can be used to select displayed objects or
coordinate positions by positioning the screen cursor.

Mouse:

 A mouse is small hand-held box used to position the screen cursor. Wheels or
rollers on the bottom of the mouse can be used to record the amount and
direction of movement.

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 Another method for detecting mouse motion is with an optical sensor. For
these systems: the mouse is moved over a special mouse pad that has a grid of
horizontal and vertical lines.
 The optical sensor detects movement across the lines in the grid. Since a
mouse can be picked up and put down at another position without change in
cursor movement, it is used for making relative change in the position of the
screen cursor. One, two, or three buttons are usually included on the top of
the mouse for signaling the execution of some operation.

Trackball and Space ball:

 Track ball is a ball that can be rotated with the fingers or palm of the hand, to
produce screen-cursor movement. Potentiometers, attached to the ball, it
measures the amount and direction of rotation.
 Trackballs are often mounted on keyboards.
 Space ball does not actually move. Strain gauges measure the amount of
pressure applied to the space ball to provide input for spatial positioning and
orientation as the ball is pushed or pulled in various directions.
 Space balls are used for three-dimensional positioning and selection
operations in virtual reality systems, modeling, animation, CAD, and other
applications.

Joysticks:

 A joystick consists of a small, vertical lever (called the stick) mounted on a

base that is used to steer the screen cursor around. Most joysticks select
screen positions with actual stick movement; others respond to the pressure
on the stick.
 Some joysticks are mounted on a keyboard.
 The distance that the stick is moved in any direction from its center position
corresponds to screen-cursor movement in that direction.
 Potentiometers mounted at the base of the joystick measure the amount
of movement, and springs return the stick to the center position when it is
released.

Data Glove:

 Data glove is used to grasp a virtual object. The glove is constructed with a
series of sensors that detect hand and finger motions.
 Electromagnetic coupling between transmitting antennas and receiving
antennas is used to provide information about the position and orientation of
the hand.
 Input from the glove can be used to position or manipulate objects in a
virtual scene.

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Image Scanners:

 Drawings, graphs, color and black-and-white photos, or text can be stored for
computer processing with an image scanner by passing an optical scanning
mechanism over the information to be stored.
 The gradations of gray scale or color are then recorded and stored in an
array.
 Once we have the internal representation of a picture, we can apply
transformations to rotate, scale, or crop the picture to a particular screen
area.We can also apply various image processing methods to modify the
array representation of the picture.
 For scanned text input, various editing operations can be performed on the
stored documents.

Some more Input devices are digital camera, motion capture and digital video
recorder etc

3D Graphics Rendering pipelining

 In 3D computer graphics, the graphics pipeline or rendering pipeline refers to

the sequence of steps used to create a 2D raster representation of a 3D scene in
display.
 Rendering is a process of producing image on the display from model
description.
 3D Graphics Rendering Pipeline accepts description of 3D objects in terms of
vertices of primitives (such as triangle, point, line and quad), and produces
the color-value for the pixels on the display

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1. Modeling Transformation - Orientation and arrangement of objects in 3D

world
2. Viewing Transformation - It Create 3D scene from “camera” point of view.
To render an image of a scene we need to define a virtual camera to take the
picture. Virtual cameras must have a position in space, a direction (which way
is it pointing?) and an orientation (which direction is „up‟?). These parameters
are typically represented by a camera position, a „look‟ vector and an „up‟
vector. Viewing transformation represents the positioning, direction and
orientation of the virtual camera
3. Projection Transformation - Transform 3D scene to 2D
4. Lighting - Objects and scene is lit based on light source locations
5. Clipping - Discard unnecessary objects that fall outside the camera's view
6. Rasterization - Convert image into pixels
7. Blending – Assign different colors to each pixel
8. Display - Display images or scene onto a computer display

Hidden Surface removal

 For the realistic graphics display that needed to identify those parts of a scene
that are visible from a chosen viewing position.
 In the set of 3D objects and viewing specification, display processor will
determine which line or surfaces of the object are visible. So that display
processor can display the only visible lines or surfaces. This process is known
as hidden surface removal.
 The hidden line or surface algorithm determines the line edges, surface or
volumes that are visible or invisible to an observer located.
 Simply can tell these algorithms are helping to determine which parts of the
shapes are to be rendered in 3D coordinates.
 Algorithms are classified according to whether it deal with object definition
directly or with projected images. These two approaches are called object-
space methods and image space methods respectively

Object –Space method

This method is implemented in the physical coordinate system in
which objects are described. It compares objects and parts of object to each other
within the scene definition to determine which surface is visible. This method is
used in line-display algorithms

Image-Space Method
This method is implemented in the screen coordinate system in which objects
are viewed. Here visibility is decided point by point at each pixel position on the
view plane. Most of the hidden surface/line algorithms use image -space method.

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Different algorithms are:

 Hidden Line removal algorithm
o Robert‟s Algorithm
o Appel‟s Algorithm
o Haloed Algorithm
 Hidden Surface Removal Algorithm
o Z-buffer algorithm
o Scan Line algorithm
o Painter‟s algorithm
o Back-Face removal algorithm
Here I have listed some algorithm for line and surface removal. As per your course
content that you can learn only Z-buffer surface removal algorithm

Z-buffer Algorithm

 Z-buffer or depth buffer algorithm is the simplest and commonly used image
space approach to eliminate hidden surface. It is developed by Catmull.
 This algorithm compares surface depth at each pixel position in the projection
plane. Surface depth is measured by the z axis of a viewing system
 . When object description is converted to projection coordinates (x, y, z). Each
pixel position in view plan is specified by x and y coordinates and z value
gives the depth information. Thus the object depth can be compared by
comparing the z-values.
 Z-buffer algorithm is usually implemented in the normalized coordinates. So
that the z value range from 0 at back clipping plane to 1 at front clipping
plane. This implementation needed another buffer memory called Z-buffer
along with the frame buffer for raster display devices.
 Z-buffer is used to store depth values for each pixel place in (x, y) position as
surfaces are processed. Frame buffer stores the intensity value of each pixel.

The above figure will help to understand more about the Z-buffer algorithm. Here
three polygons (s1, s2, s3) are available. If viewing from the origin point by human
eye that s1 is visible fully and s2 and s3 are visible partially.

 Z-buffer determining that which polygon‟s pixel is visible in particular point

(x, y). For example 0.3, 0.5 and 0.8 are respective depth value of polygons s1,
s2 and s3. S1 has the least depth value so it will be visible in the plane.

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 At the beginning Z–buffer is initialized to infinite and frame buffer is

initialized to the back ground color. Calculating the depth value (z) at each (x,
y) pixel position at the scan time and calculated depth value is compared to
previously stored in the z-buffer at that position.
 If the calculated depth value is lesser than the value stored in the z-buffer
then the calculated z-value is stored to the z-buffer to determine the visible
surface.

Algorithm

1. Initialize the depth buffer (z-buffer) and frame buffer

a. depth(x, y) = ∞
b. f-buffer(x,y) = Ibackground
2. For each polygon
3. For each pixel in view plane
a. Find the z value for each pixel of polygon
b. If z < depth(x, y) then
c. Depth(x,y) = z
4. Go to step 3 till one polygon complete
5. Go to step 2 till all polygon complete
6. stop

Advantages
 It is easy to implement
 It can implemented in hardware to overcome the speed problem
Disadvantages
 It requires additional buffer and hence the large memory
 It is a time consuming process as it compares the each pixel for the entire
polygon

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