Multimedia and Animation

UNIT I:

Multimedia Overview: Introduction, Multimedia presentation and production,

characteristics of a multimedia presentation, Multiple media, Utilities of multisensory
perception, Hardware and software requirements, Uses of multimedia, Promotion of
multimedia based contents, steps for creating multimedia presentation.

UNIT II:

Text: Introduction, Types of Text, Unicode Standard, Font, Insertion of Text, Text
compression, File Formats.

Image: Introduction, Image Types, Seeing colors, color models, Basic steps for
Image processing, Scanner, Digital camera, Interface Standards, Image processing software,
File formats, Image output on monitor, Image output on printer.

UNIT III:

Audio: Introduction, Fundamentals Characteristics of sound, Elements of Audio

systems, Microphone, Amplifier, Loudspeaker, Audio mixer, Musical Instrument Digital
Interface(MIDI), MIDI messages, MIDI connections, Sound card, Audio File format and
CODECs, Software Audio Players, Audio Recording Systems, Audio and multimedia,
Audio Processing software.

UNIT IV:

Video: Introduction, Analog video camera, Transmission of video signals, Video

signal format, Digital video, Digital Video Standards, PC Video, Video File Format and
CODECs, Video editing, Video editing software.

UNIT V:

Animation: Introduction, uses of animation, key frames and Tweening, Types of

animation, Computer Assisted Animation, Creating movements, Principle of animation,
some Techniques of Animation, Animation on the web, 3D Animation, Special Effects,
Creating Animation, Rendering algorithms, Animation software.
 MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY

UNIT – I

Multimedia an overview: Introduction

The word “multimedia” comes from the Latin words multus which means ‘numerous‘ and
media which means ‘middle‘ or center. Multimedia therefore means “multiple
intermediaries” or ‘multiple means‘.
Multimedia is a combination of following elements. They are

 Text (e.g. books,letters,newspapers)

 Images and graphics (e.g. photographs,charts,maps,logos,sketches)
 Sound (e.g. radio, gramophone records and audio cassettes)
 Video and animation (e.g. TV, video cassettes and motion pictures)
Multimedia Presentation and Production:

The multimedia presentation is basically a digital show in which the contents are
expressed through various media types like text, images, audio, video etc., The end users
who execute and watch the presentation are called viewers or target audience. The
multimedia presentation is basically playback on a personal computer either from hard disk
or the CD-ROM. Sometimes when the audience consists of the large number of people, the
presentation may be projected on a big screen using a projection system.
Before a presentation can be viewed, however it has to be created. This process is known as
multimedia production.

The production work is carried out by a team of professionals equipped with the
required skills and knowledge. These professionals are called the developers or the authors
and the development work is called the authoring.

Characteristics of Multimedia presentation:

Multimedia is any combination of text, graphics, art, sound and video elements.
The following are the important characteristics of Multimedia presentation. They are

 Multiple media
 Non-linearity
 Interactivity
 Digital representation
 Integrity

MULTIPLE MEDIA:

In addition to text, pictures are also started being used to communicate ideas.
Pictures were sub- divided into two types.
 I. A real-world picture captured by a camera is called images.
II. A hand-drawn picture like sketches, diagrams and portraits called graphics.

Text, images and graphics are together referred to as static elements, because they do
not change overtime. With further improve in technology, time varying elements like
sound and movies were used. Movies are again divided into two classes. They are

 Motion pictures
 Animation

Legitimate multimedia presentation should contain at least one static media

like text, images or graphics and at least one time varying media like audio,
video or animation.

NON-LINEARITY:
Non-Linearity is the capability of jumping or navigating from within a
presentation with one point without appreciable delay.TV shows and motion pictures
are considered linear presentation because the user or viewer has to watch the
information being prescribed. The user cannot modify the content.

In a multimedia presentation the user can instantly navigate to different parts

of the presentation and display the frames in any way, without appreciable delay, due
to which it is called a non-linear presentation.

INTERACTIVITY:
In a non-linear presentation user will have to specify the desire to watch the
presentation. The presentation should be capable of user inputs and capable of
change the content of the presentation.
Interactivity is considered to be one of salient features on which next generation e-
learning tools are expected to reply for greater effectively.

DIGITAL REPRESENTATION:
Magnetic tapes are called the sequential access storage devices (i.e.) data is
recorded sequentially along the length of the tape. When a specific potion of the data is
required to be played back, the portion before that needs to be skipped.

Multimedia requires instant access to different portion of the presentation. This

is done by random access storage devices like hardware, floppy disks, and compact
disks. Digital representations has other advantages, software based programs can be
used to edit the digitized media in various ways to appearances and compress the file
sizes to increase the performance efficiency.

INTEGRITY:
 An important characteristic of a multimedia presentation is integrity. This means
that although there may be several media types present and playing simultaneously,
they need to be integrated or be part of a single entity which is the presentation. It
should not be able to separate out the various media and control them independently;
rather they should be controlled from within the frame work of the presentation.
Moreover, the presentation should decide how the individual elements can be
controlled.
UTILITIES OF MULTISENSORY PRECEPTION:
The benefits of multisensory systems are manifold.
(i) The interaction with the computer system may appear more natural and friendly.
(ii) Useful redundancy of information may be possible.
(iii) Complementary information presented together may improve memorization of
knowledge. Also the fact, that the user interacts with the presentation leads to
greater retentivity of information.
(iv) Emotional information is easier to convey. Multi-sensory systems may be
invaluable benefits to users with special needs.
(v) The enrich, the set of media which stimulate the given sense. Rich text, graphics
and video are the example of visual media
(vi) They introduce media which stimulate new senses like audio in the form of
human speech and music

HARDWARE & SOFTWARE REQUIRMENTS:

Hardware and software requirements of a multimedia personal computer can
be classified into tow classes. They are:

a. Multimedia playback
b. Multimedia production

Multimedia playback:
 Processor – At least Pentium class and minimum of 8MB RAM-to-32MB RAM.
 Hard disk drive(HDD) – Atleast 540MB having 15M/s. access time and
should be able to provide 1.5MB per second sustained throughput.
 The monitor and video display adapter should confirm through SVGA
standards and support 800x600 display modes with true color.
 CD-ROM drives having a speed of at least 4X but highest speed like 36X are
recommended.
 PC should have a sound card with attached speakers standard 101 keys keyboard and
mouse.
 Multimedia PC system software should be compatible with windows 95 or
higher, with standard software with playback of media files in standard
formats.(e.g.) Windows Media Player.
Multimedia production:
 Processor - Pentium II or higher, memory should be at least 128MB with 256MB
recommended.
 Hard disk drive (HDD) – Typical requirements would be around
10GB with 40GB recommended.
 The monitor and video display adapter should confirm through SVGA
standards and should be able to support 800x600 display mode with true color,
RAM should be 4MB to 8MB.
 CD-ROM drive having a speed of at least 4X to 36X, PC should have a CD writer.
 PC should have a sound card with attached speakers standard 101 keys keyboard and
mouse.
 Multimedia PC system software should be compatible with windows or
higher, with standard software with playback of media files in standard
formats. (e.g.) Windows Media Player.
 Editing software is used to manipulate media components to suit the
developers, requirements. (e.g.) Adobe Photoshop, Flash, Cool Edit, and
sound Forge.
 Authoring softwares are used to integrate all the edited media into single
presentations and build navigational pathways for accessing the media.
 To display the web content web browsers will be required. (e.g.) MS Internet
Explorer, to create web content HTML, and java Script editors might be
required (e.g.) Macromedia, dream viewer.

USES OF MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY:

Multimedia has found extensive applications in various and varied fields. The
following are some of the main areas where this technology is applied.

 Home entertainment
 Educational purposes
 Industrial training
 Information kioks
 Corporate presentations
 Business
 Tourism and Travel industry
 E – Shopping
 Communication and networks
 Medicine
 Engineering Application
 Content based storage and retrieval (CBSR) systems.
Home Entertainment:
Application of Multimedia technology related to home entertainment includes
 computer based games for kids, interactive encyclopedia‘s, storytelling, cartoons
etc., Computer games are one of the best application of Multimedia because of the
high amount of interactivity involved.

Educational purposes:
These applications include learning packages and simulation of lab experiments
(especially those which cannot be easily performed). The multisensory perceptions of
such study material are expected to provide a good grasp of the subject matter and
interactivity elements to provide for better retention.

Industrial Training:
These applications involve computer based training (CBT) for employee both
technical and marketing. Successful organizations are required t maintain a high level of
staff training and development. Some of the advantages of industrial training courses
are:

(i) Many people can use each of these courses.

(ii) They do not need to spend time away from office.
(iii) People can learn at their own pace.
(iv) Full time instructions are not required.
(v) Because the best instructors could be used to make these CBT‘s they could be of a
high quality.

Information kios:
These are devices where information is accessed through a touch screen and viewed
on a monitor.
Examples can be include multi-lingual product, catalog‘s for placing orders or for
dispensing important information Bio‘s can also be used to capture statistical data for
an in-depth marketing research to be carried out on customer trends.

Corporate presentations:
Corporate presentations are emphasizing the salient features and activities of a
company, its products, business partners like suppliers and retailers can be built by
incorporate multimedia elements along with textual descriptions.

Business:
Items like glass utensils are difficult to stock; industrial equipment can be
displayed through perspectives buyers by company sales people through
multimedia presentations.

Tourism and Travel industries:

Travel companies can market packaged tools by showing prospective
customers, glimpses of the places they would like to visit, details on lodging, fooding,
special attractions. A multimedia system implementing intelligent travel agent
software will enable the user to their travel need and budget.

E-shopping:
Like the travel industry, customized presentations for consumer and industrial
products can be created and distributed to prospective customers. Customers can
compare different products in relation to their quality, price, and appearances without
leaving their homes and offices.

PROMOTION OF MULTIMEDIA BASED CONTENT:

For promotion of multimedia based application and presentations, so as to
capture an appreciable sector of the IT marketplace, the following at least should
be present:

(i) Demand from Customer

(ii) Compression Techniques
(iii) Processing power
(iv) Standards
(v) Bandwidth
(vi) Distribution mechanism

Demand from customers:

If the customer is to invest additional amount is acquiring multimedia based
content, then the customer will see how much they can fulfill their requirements.
There should be appreciable value addition factor provided by the multimedia
application, something that the normal print media cannot fulfill.

Compression Techniques:
Non-Textual digital media, usually occupy a lot of disk space. While several
text pages of a document occupy few kilobytes (kb), full screen images have sizes in
the range of few megabytes, audio content occupy Ten‘s of megabytes while video
content can span Gigabytes. It is difficult to manipulate these large files in their
original form, so they need to be compressed to reduce their sizes. Efficient
compression techniques should be present to make this possible.

Processing power:
Dynamic media like audio, video, and animation require the central processor
and screen display system to process a large quantity of data, every second. 3D
animation requires a large number of floating point calculation to be performed every
second.

Standards:
The need for standard cannot be overemphasized standard guarantee the
interoperability. These include both hardware and software standards like buses,
cables, connectors, signals, file formats, data transmission protocols, compression and
de-compression techniques.

Bandwidth:
A powerful processing machine and large files sizes also means that a large
amount of data need to transferred at high speed between devices or components. This
requires high bandwidth and data rates between internal and external components of a
system. For example, in 1 second 44100 elementary samples of digital audio are to be
playback from an audio CD for a faithful representation of the original sound.

Distribution mechanism:
After creation of multimedia content need to distribute effortlessly to the
customer. Portable storage media supporting high storage volumes are essential for this
distributed mechanism. A majority of the multimedia content are distributed via CD-
ROM, which additionally provide high durability of the content.
STEPS FOR CREATING A MULTIMEDIA PRESENTATION:

Here are the basic steps for creating a multimedia presentation.

(i) Choosing a Topic

(ii) Writing a Story

(iii) Writing a Script

(iv) Preparing a Storyboard

(v) Preparing a flow line

(vi) Implementation

(vii) Testing and Feedback

(viii) Final Delivery

Choosing a Topic:

The first topic/task is to choose a topic on which to create the presentation. In

principle, one can select any topic; topics which can be explained or demonstrated
using various media types are more conductive to multimedia presentation. Use of text
is not prohibited, but should be kept at a minimum.
For example, not more than a few lines per page of the presentation when choosing a
topic one should make a metal note, of how the subject matter should be divided and
what entry points should give access to which module. The author should also decide
who should be the target audience. The author should also decide the objectives of the
presentation (i.e.) what the audience is expected to learn after going through
presentation.

Writing a script:

Once the overall subject matter has been finalized, the next step is to create a
script. A script emphasizes how the subject matter unfolds. While writing a script, the
author visualizes the content in terms of frames. For example, what is to be displayed on
the first screen? This requires the subject matter of the story be divided into small
modules one for each screen. The script could also includes other accessory information
like how the elements are displayed on the screen.
Preparing a Storyboard:
Once the script has been prepared, the author needs to prepare the storyboard.
The storyboard depicts what should be the layer of each screen within the presentation.
The screen should have an aesthetic feel about them and should be pleasant to look.

Preparing a flow line:

Along-side a storyboard, the author should also prepare a flow line. A flow
line at a glance tells us how the user can access different pages of the presentation.

Implementation:
Implementation needs actually creating the physical presentation using
required hardware and software. Implementation has a number of sub steps. The first
step is the collection of media items. The author can use software to create their own
items. There are two types of implementation software.

(i) The first type is the editing software, which are used to edit the digitized items.
(ii) The second type of softwares is the authoring software; which are used to
integrate all the editor media into a single presentation. The output of the
authoring software is usually an executable file (exe) which contains its own
runtime engine and therefore can be played without the help of any other
software.

Testing and feedback:

After the implementation phase is completed, an important step of testing and
feedback should be done for improving the quality of the presentation. This step
involves distributing whole (or) part of the presentation to sections of the target
audience and heading the feedback from them about the possible areas which need
improvement. Developers always work under various constraints and do not have
indefinite time on their hands.
Final delivery:
The final phase in the production schedule is the delivery of the application to be
intended client.
Usually the runtime version of the application files are copied into a CD-ROM and
physically handed over to the customer. It is also important for the author to state
clearly the hardware and software requirements which should be present on the
client machine to run the application smoothly.
 UNIT – II

Text: Introduction

In multimedia presentations, text can be combined with other media in a

powerful way to present information and express moods. Text can be of various types:

Plaintext, consisting of fixed sized characters having essentially the

same type of appearance.
Formatted text, where appearance can be changed using font parameters
Hypertext, which can serve to link different electronic documents and enable
the user to jump from one to the other in a non-linear way.

Internally text is represented via binary codes as per the ASCII table. The ASCII
table is however quite limited in its scope and a new standard has been developed to
eventually replace the ASCII standard. This standard is called the Unicode standard
and is capable of representing international characters from various languages
throughout the world.

We also generate text automatically from a scanned version of a paper document

or image using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.

TYPES OF TEXT:

There are three types of text that can be used to produce pages of a document:
Unformatted text
Formatted text
Hypertext
I. Unformatted Text:

Also known as plaintext, this comprise of fixed sized characters from a limited character
set. The character set is called ASCII table which is short for American Standard Code
for Information Interchange and is one of the most widely used character sets. It
basically consists of a table where each character is represented by a unique 7-bit binary
code. The characters include a to z, A to Z, 0 to 9, and other punctuation characters like
 parenthesis, ampersand, single and double quotes, mathematical operators, etc. All the
characters are of the same height. In addition, the ASCII character set also includes a
number of control characters. These include BS(backspace), LF (linefeed), CR (carriage
return), SP (space), DEL (delete), ESC (escape), FF (form feed) and others.
II. Formatted Text:
Formatted text are those where apart from the actual alphanumeric characters, other
control characters are used to change the appearance of the characters, e.g. bold, underline,
italics, varying shapes, sizes, and colors etc., Most text processing software use such
formatting options to change text appearance. It is also extensively used in the publishing
sector for the preparation of papers, books, magazines, journals, and so on.

III. Hypertext:
The term Hypertext is used to mean certain extra capabilities imparted to normal
or standard text. Like normal text, a hypertext document can be used to reconstruct
knowledge through sequential reading but additionally it can be used to link multiple
documents in such a way that the user can navigate non-sequentially from one document
to the other for cross- references. These links are called hyperlinks.

Microsoft Home Page

The underlined text string on which the user clicks the mouse is called an anchor
and the document which opens as a result of clicking is called the target document. On
the web target documents are specified by a specific nomenclature called Web site
address technically known as Uniform Resource Locators or URL.
Node or Anchor:
The anchor is the actual visual element (text) which provides an entry point to
another document. In most cases the appearance of the text is changed from the
surrounding text to designate a hypertext, e.g. by default it is colored blue with an
underline. Moreover the mouse pointer changes to a finger icon when placed over a
hypertext. The user usually clicks over the hypertext in order to activate it and open a
new document in the document viewer. In some cases instead of text an anchor can be
an image, a video or some other non-textual element (hypermedia).
Pointer or Link

These provide connection to other information units known as target

documents. A link has to be defined at the time of creating the hyperlink, so that when
the user clicks on an anchor the appropriate target document can be fetched and
displayed. Usually some information about the target document should be available to
the user before clicking on the anchor. If the destination is a text document, a short
description of the content can be represented.
UNICODE STANDARD:
 The Unicode standard is a new universal character coding scheme
for written characters and text. It defines a consistent way of encoding multilingual
text which enables
textual data to be exchanged universally. The Unicode standard goes far beyond
ASCII‘s limited capability by providing the capacity of encoding more than 1 million
characters. The Unicode standard draws a distinction between characters, which are the
smallest component of written language, and glyphs, which represent the shapes, the
characters can have when displayed.

Some of the languages and their corresponding codes are: Latin (00),
Greek (03), Arabic (06), Devanagari/Bengali (09), Oriya/Tamil (0B), etc. Several
methods have been suggested to implement Unicode based on variations in storage
space and compatibility. The mapping methods are called Unicode Transformation
Formats (UTF) and Universal Character Set (UCS). Some of the major mapping
methods are:

a) UCS-4,UTF-32
Uses 32-bit for each character. The simplest scheme as it consists of fixed
length encoding, how it is not efficient with regard to storage space and memory
usage, and therefore rarely used. Initially the UCS-4 was proposed with a possible
address range of 0 to FFFFFFFFFF, but Unicode requires only upto 10FFFF.

b) UTF-16
A 16-bit encoding format. In its native format it can encode numbers upto FFFF, i.e,
as xxxxxxx xxxxxxx. For codings beyond this, the original number is expressed as a
combination of two 16-bit numbers.

c) UTF-8
The bits of a Unicode character is divided into a series of 8-bit numbers. The output
code against various ranges of input codes are given in Table 4.1
Code range Input code Output code

000000-00007F Xxxxxxx 0xxxxxxx

000080-0007FF xxx xxxxxxxxx 110xxxx 10xxxxxxx
FONT: Insertion of Text

Text can be inserted in a document using a variety of methods. These are:

1) Using a keyboard
The most common process of inserting text into a digital document is by typing the
text using an input device like the keyboard. Usually a text editing software, like
Microsoft Word, is used to control the appearance of text which allows the user to
manipulate variables like the font, size, style, color, etc.,
2) Copying and Pasting
 Another way of inserting text into a document is by copying text from a pre- existing
digital document. The existing document is opened using the corresponding text
processing program and portions of the text may be selected by using the keyboard or
mouse. Using the Copy command the selected text is copied to the clipboard. By
choosing the Paste command, whereupon the text is copied from the clipboard into the
target document.

3) Using an OCR Software

A third way of inserting text into a digital document is by scanning it from a paper
document. Text in a paper document including books, newspapers, magazines,
letterheads, etc. can be converted into the electronic form using a device called the
scanner. The electronic representation of the paper document can then be saved as a
file on the hard disk of the computer. To be able to edit the text, it needs to be
converted from the image format into the editable text format using software called an
Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The OCR software traditionally works by a
method called pattern matching. Recent research on OCR is based on another
technology called feature extraction.

TEXT COMPRESSION:
Large text documents covering a number of pages may take a lot of disk space.
We can apply compression algorithms to reduce the size of the text file during
storage. A reverse algorithm must be applied to decompress the file before its
contents can be displayed on screen. There are two types of compression methods that
are applied to text as explained:

a. Huffman Coding:
This type of coding is intended for applications in which the text to be compressed
has known characteristics in terms of the characters used and their relative
frequencies of occurrences. An optimum set of variable-length code words is derived
such that the shortest code word is used to represent the most frequently occurring
characters. This approach is called the Huffman coding method.

b. Lempel-Ziv (LZ) Coding

In the second approach followed by the Lempel-Zir (LZ) method, instead of using a
single character as a basis of the coding operation, a string of characters is used. For
example, a table containing all the possible words that occur in a text document, is
held by both the encoder and decoder.

c. Lempel-Ziv-Welsh (LZW) Coding

Most word processing packages have a dictionary associated with them which is used
for both spell checking and compression of text. The variation of the above algorithm
called Lempel-Ziv-Welsh (LZW) method allows the dictionary to be built up
dynamically by the encoder and decoder for the document under processing.

FILE FORMATS:
The following text formats are usually used for textual documents.

TXT (Text)

Unformatted text document created by an editor like Notepad on Windows

platform. This documents can be used to transfer textual information between
different platforms like Windows, DOS, and UNIX,
DOC (Document)

Developed by Microsoft as a native format for storing documents created by the MS

Word package. Contains a rich set of formatting capabilities.

RTF (Rich Text Format)

Developed by Microsoft in 1987 for cross platform document exchanges. It is the

default format for Mac OS X‘s default editor TextEdit. RTF control codes are human
readable, similar to HTML code.
PDF (Portable Document Format)

Developed by Adobe Systems for cross platform exchange of documents. In

addition to text the format also supports images and graphics. PDF is an open
standard and anyone may write programs that can read and write PDFs without any
associated royalty charges.

(PS) PostScript
Postscript is a page description language used mainly for desktop publishing. A page
description language is a high-level language that can describe the contents of a page
such that it can be accurately displayed on output devices usually a printer. A PostScript
interpreter inside the printer converted the vercors backi into the raster dots to be
printed. This allows arbitrary scaling, rotating and other transformations.

IMAGES: INTRODUCTION
The pictures that we see in our everyday life can be broadly classified into two
groups:

Images
Graphic
s
Images can either be pure black and white, or grayscale having a number of grey
shades, or color containing a number of color shades. Color is a sensation that light of
different frequencies generates on our eyes, the higher frequencies producing the blue
end and the lower frequencies producing the red end of the visible spectrum. White
light is a combination of all the colors of the spectrum. To recognize and communicate
color information we need to have color models.
To recognize and communicate color information we need to have color models. The two
most
well known color models are the RGB model used for colored lights like images on a
monitor screen, and the CMYK model used for colored inks like images printed on
paper. One of the most well known device independent color model is the HSB Model
where the primaries are hue, saturation and brightness. The total range of colors in a
color model is known is its gamut. The input stage deals with the issues of converting
hardcopy paper images into electronic versions. This is usually done via a device called
the scanner. While scanners are used to digital documents, another device called the
digital camera can convert a real world scene into a digital image. Digital camera can
also contain a number of these electronic sensors which are known as Charge-Couple
Devices (CCD) and essentially operate on the same principle as the scanner.
This is the editing stage and involves operations like selecting, copying, scaling,
rotating, trimming, changing the brightness, contrast color tones, etc. of an image to
transform it as per the requirements of the application.The output stage involves saving
the transformed image in a file format which can be displayed on the monitor screen or
printed on a printer. To save the image, it is frequently compressed by a compression
algorithm is ued the final image can be saved into a variety of file formats.

IMAGE TYPES:

Images that we see in our everyday lives can be categorized into various types.

1. Hard Copy vs. Soft Copy

The typical images that we usually come across are the pictures that have
been printed on paper or some other kinds of surfaces like plastic, cloth, wood, etc.
These are also called hard copy images because they have been printed on solid
surfaces. Such images have been transformed from hard copy images or real objects
into the electronic form using specialized procedures and are referred to as soft
copy images.

2. Continuous Tone, Half-tone and Bitone

 Photographs are also known as continuous tone images because they are
usually composed of a large number of varying tones or shades of colors.
Sometimes due to limitations of the display or printed devices, all the colors of the
photograph cannot be represented adequately. In those cases a subset of the total
number of colors of displayed. Such images are called partial tone or half-tone
images. A third category of images is called bitonal images which uses only two
colors, typically black and white, and do not use any shades of grey.
SEEING COLOR:

The Phenomenon of seeing color is dependent on a triad of factors: the nature of

light, the interaction of light and matter, and the physiology of human version. Light is a
form of energy known as electromagnetic radiation. It consists of a large number of
waves with varying frequencies and wavelengths. Out of the total electromagnetic
spectrum a small range of waves cause sensations of light in our eyes. This is called the
visible spectrum of waves.

The second part of the color triad is human vision. The retina is the light-
sensitive part of the eye and its surface is composed of photoreceptors or nerve endings.

The third factor is the interaction of light with matter. Whenever light waves
strike an object, part of the light energy gets absorbed and /or transmitted, while the
remaining part gets reflected back to our eyes.

Refraction Index(RI) is the ratio of the speed of light in a vaccum. A beam

of transmitted light changes direction according to the difference in refractive index
and also the angle at which it strikes the transparent object. This is called refraction.
If light is only partly transmitted by the object, the object is translucent.

COLOR MODELS:

Researchers have found out that most of the colors that we see around us
can be derived from mixing a few elementary colors. These elementary colors are
known as primary colors. Primary colors mixed in varying proportions produce other
colors called composite colors. Two primary colors mixed in equal proportions
produce a secondary color. The primary colors along with the total range of composite
colors they can produce constitute a color model.

a) RGB Model

The RGB color model is used to describe behavior of colored lights like those emitted
from a TV screen or a computer monitor. This model has three primary colors: red,
green, blue, in short RGB.
Proportions of colors are determined by the beam strength. An electron beam having
the maximum intensity falling on a phosphor dot creates 100% of the corresponding
color.50% of the color results from a beam having the half the peak strength. All
three primary colors at full intensities combine together to produce white,
i.e. their brightness values are added up. Because of this the RGB model is called an
additive model. Lower intensity values produce shades of grey. A color present at
100% of its intensity is called saturated, otherwise the color is said to be
unsaturated.
b) CMYK Model

The RGB model is only valid for describing behavior of colored lights. This new model
is named CMYK model and is used to specify printed colors. The primary colors of
this model are cyan, magenta and yellow. These colors when mixed together in equal
proportions produce black, due to which the model is known as a subtractive model.

Mixing cyan and magenta in equal proportions produce blue, magenta and yellow
produce red, and yellow and cyan produce green. Thus, the secondary colors of the
CMYK model are the same as the primary colors of the RGB model and vice versa.
These two models are thus, known as complimentary models.
c) Device Dependency and Gamut

It is to be noted that both the RGB and the CMYK models do not have universal or
absolute color values. But different devices will give rise to slightly different sets of
colors. For this reason both the RGB and the CMYK models are known as device
dependent color models.

Another issue of concern here is the total range of colors supported by each color model.
This is known as the gamut of the model.

BASIC STEPS FOR IMAGE PROCESSING:

Image processing is the name given to the entire process involved with the input, editing
and output of images from a system. There are three basic steps:
a. Input
Image input is the first stage of image processing. It is concerned with getting
natural images into a computer system for subsequent work. Essentially it deals with
the conversion of analog images into digital forms using two devices. The first is the
scanner which can convert a printed image or document into the digital form. The
second is the digital camera which digitizes real-world images, similar to how a
conventional camera works.
b. Editing
After the images have been digitized and stored as files on the hard disk of a
computer, they are changed or manipulated to make them more suitable for specific
requirements. This step is called editing. Before the actual editing process can begin,
and important step called color calibration needs to be performed to ensure that the
image looks consistent when viewed on multiple monitors.

c. Output

Image output is the last stage in image processing concerned with displaying the
edited image to the user. The image can either be displayed in a stand-alone manner or
as part of some application like a presentation or web-page.
SCANNER

For images, digitization involves physical devices like the scanner or digital
camera. The scanner is a device used to convert analog images into the digital form.
The most common type of scanner for the office environment is called the flatbed
scanner. The traditional way of attaching a scanner to the computer is through an
interface cable connected to the parallel port of the PC.

Construction and Working principle:

To start a scanning operation, the paper document ot be scanned is

placed face down on the glass panel of the scanner, and the scanner is activated
using a software from the host computer. The light on getting reflected by the paper
image is made to fall on a grid of electronic sensors, by an arrangement of mirrors
and lenses. The electronic sensors are called Charge Coupled Devices (CCD) and
are basically converters of the light energy into voltage pulses. After a complete
scan, the image is converted from a continuous entity into a discrete form
represented by a series of voltage pulses. This process is called sampling.

The voltage signals are temporarily stored in a buffer inside the scanner. The
next step called quantization involves representing the voltage pulses as binary
numbers and carried out by an ADC inside the scanner in conjuction with a software
bundled with the scanner called the scanning software.

Since each number has been derived from the intensity of the incident light,
these essentially represent brightness values at different points of the image and are
known as pixels.

Scanner Types:
Scanners can be of various types each designed for specific purposes.
a. Flatbed scanners:

The flatbed scanner is the most common type in office environments and has been
described above. It looks like a photocopying machine with a glass panel on which the
document to be scanned is placed face down. Below the glass panel is a moving head
with a source of white light usually xenon lamps.

b. Drum Scanners:

Drum Scanner is used to obtain good quality scans for professional purposes and
generally provides a better performance than flatbed scanners. It consists of a
cylindrical drum made out of a highly translucent plastic like material. The fluid can
either be oil- based or alcohol-based. For the sensing element, drum scanners use a
Photo-Multiplier Tube (PMT) instead of a CCD. An amplifier gain of the order of
108 can be achieved in multipliers containing about 14 dynode, which can provide
measurable pulses from even single photons.

c. Bar-code Scanners:

A barcode scanner is designed specifically to read barcodes printed on various surfaces.

A barcode is a machine-readable representation of information in a visual format.
Nowadays they come in other forms like dots and concentric circles. Barcodes
relieve the operator of typing strings in a computer, the encoded information is
directly read by the scanner. A LASER barcode scanner is more expensive that a
LED one but is capable of scanning barcodes at a distance of about 25cm. Most
barcode scanners use the PS/2 port for getting connected to the computer.

d. Color Scanning

Since the CCD elements are sensitive to the brightness of the light, the pixels essentially
store only the brightness information of the original image. This is also known as
luminance (or luma) information. To include the color or chrominance (or chroma)
information, there are three CCD elements for each pixel of image formed. White
light reflected off the paper document is split into the primary color components by a
glass prism and made to fall on the corresponding CCD sub-components.
e. Pixel Information:
To describe a color digital image, the pixels need to contain both the luma and the
chroma values, i.e. the complete RGB information of each color. To represent the
orange color we write: R=245 (96% of 255), G=102 (40% of 255), B=36 (14% of
255). This is called a RGB triplet and notation for making it more compact, e.g.
given below. These values are also called RGB attributes of a pixel.

f. Scan quality:
The quality of a scanned image is determined mostly by its resolution and color depth.
The scanner resolution pertains to the resolution of the CCD elements inside a
scanner measured in dots per inch (dpi). Scanner resolution can be classified into two
categories; the optical resolution refers to the actual number of sensor elements per
inch on the scan head. Scanners however are often rated with resolution values higher
than that of the optical resolution e.g. 5400, 7200 or 9600dpi. These resolutions are
called interpolated resolutions and basically involve an interpolation process for
generating new pixel values.

g. Scanning Software:

To scan an image, the user needs a scanning software to be installed on the computer.
The software lets the user interact with the scanner and set parameters like bit depth
and resolution. A typical scanning software should allow the user to do the following:

i. Set the bit depth of the image file, which in turn determines the total number of
colors.
ii. Set the output path of the scanned image.
iii. Set the file type of the scanned image. Most scanners nowadays support the
standard file types like DMP(dump), JPG(Joint Photographic Experts Group),
TIFF(Tagged Image File Format), etc.
iv. Adjust the brightness and contrast parameters usually by dragging sliders.
v. Change the size of the image by specifying a scale factor.
vi. Adjust the color of the scanned image by manipulating the amounts of red, green and
blue primaries.
vii. Adjust the resolution value.

The final‘ button instructs the scanner to save the updated pixel values in a file whose
type and location have been previously specified.
DIGITAL CAMERA:

Construction and working principle:

Apart from the scanner used to digitize paper documents and film,
another device used to digitize real world images is the digital camera. Unlike a
scanner a digital camera is usually not attached to the computer via a cable. The camera
has its own storage facility inside it usually in the form of a floppy drive, which can
save the image created into a floppy disc. So instead they are compressed to reduce
their file sizes and stored usually in the JPEG format.
This is a lossy compression technique and results in slight loss in image quality.
 Most of the digital cameras have an LCD screen at the back, which serve
now important purposes: first it can be used as a view finder for composition and
adjustment; secondly it can be used for viewing the images stored inside the camera.
The recent innovation of built-in microphones provides for sound annotation, in
standard WAV(Waveform Audio File Format) format. After recording, this sound can
be sent to an external device for playback on headphones using an ear socket.

Storage and Software utility

Digital cameras also have a software utility resident in a ROM chip inside it
which allow the user to toggle between the CAMERA mode and PLAY mode. In
the PLAY mode the user is presented with a menu structure having some form the
functionalities like: displaying all the images on the floppy , selecting a particular
image, deleting selected images, write- protecting the important image for deletion,
setting the date and time, displaying how much of the floppy disk space is free and
even allowing a floppy to be formatted in the drive.

INTERFACE STANDARDS:

Interface standards determine how data from acquisition devices like

scanners and digital cameras flow to the computer in an efficient way. Two main
interface standards exists: TWAIN and ISIS.

i. TWAIN: Technology Without An Interesting Name (a standard protocol for

communication between software and imaging devices like scanners and digital
cameras)

TWAIN is a very important standard in image acquisition, developed by

Hewlett- Packard, Kodak, Aldus, Logitech and Caere which specifies how image
acquisition devices such as scanners, digital cameras and other devices transfer data
to software applications. It is basically an image capture API for Microsoft
Windows and Apple Macintosh platforms. The standard was first released in 1992.
TWAIN is a software protocol which regulates the flow of information
between software applications and imaging devices like scanners. The standard is
managed by the TWAIN Working Group which is a non-profit organization with
representative from leading imaging vendors. The goals of the working group
included: multiple platform support, support for different types of devices like
flatbed scanners, handheld scanners, image capture boards, digital cameras, etc.,
provide a well-defined standard that gains support and acceptance from leading
 hardware and software developers.

ii. Image and Scanner Interface Specification (ISIS)

a high-performance standard for scanning and image management, typically

used in professional environments

The second important standard for document scanner is the Image and
Scanner Interface Specification (ISIS). It was developed by Pixel Translations and
they retain control over its development and licensing. ISIS has a wider set of
features than TWAIN and typically uses the SCSI-2 interface while TWAIN
mostly uses the USB interface. Currently ISIS compatible drivers are available for
more than 250 scanner models most of them certified by Pixel Translations.

Interface Standards refer to the protocols and hardware used to connect devices for data
transmission, especially in image processing. Here are some common examples:

1. USB (Universal Serial Bus): A standard used to connect peripherals such as scanners,
cameras, and storage devices to computers. It's widely used for image transfer.
2. HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface): Primarily used to transfer high-
definition video and audio from devices like cameras and computers to monitors or
projectors.
3. Ethernet: Used for high-speed network connections to transfer image data over local
networks, often used in large-scale image processing systems.
4. Wi-Fi: Wireless transfer of image files from devices like digital cameras to computers or
storage systems.
5. Thunderbolt: High-speed interface for data transfer and video output, often used for
professional image editing setups.

These standards ensure smooth communication between devices involved in capturing,

processing, and outputting images.

IMAGE PROCESSING SOFTWARE

Image Processing Software is crucial for editing, enhancing, and manipulating digital images.
Here are some popular examples:

1. Adobe Photoshop: One of the most widely used professional image editing tools,
offering a vast range of features for retouching, layering, and compositing images.
2. GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program): A free and open-source image editor that
provides powerful tools for tasks like photo retouching, image composition, and image
authoring.
3. Corel PaintShop Pro: A versatile photo editing software offering tools for photo
correction, graphic design, and image manipulation.
 4. Adobe Lightroom: Designed specifically for photo editing and organization, it's used by
photographers for managing large libraries of photos and making quick edits.
5. Affinity Photo: A professional image editing software, known for being a cheaper
alternative to Photoshop, offering features like retouching, image composition, and
advanced photo editing.
6. Dark table: An open-source photography workflow application, often used for RAW
photo processing.
7. Microsoft Paint: A simple, basic graphics editing program for quick edits and sketches,
suitable for light image processing tasks.

Each of these software options has specialized tools for different stages of image processing,
such as enhancing, filtering, transforming, and outputting images.

Image processing software offers a wide variety of ways to manipulate and enhance
images. We discuss below some of the salient features of a typical image
processing software.

i) Selection Tools:

Selection Tools enables us to select a specific potion out of an image and

manipulate it or copy it to another image. The selection border may be geomentrical
in shape like rectangular, circular, polygonal and may be irregular in shape.
Selection may also be done based on color instead of shapes.

ii) Painting and Drawing Tools

These tools are used to paint lines, shapes, etc. or fill regions with specified colors.
The colors are chosen from a color palette or specified by their RGB values.

iii) Color Selection Tools

These tools are used to select foreground and background colors from a color
palette.
They also usually allow specifying colors by their RGB values.

iv) Gradient Tools

Gradient Tools are used to create smooth blends of multiple colors.

Gradients may be of various shapes like linear, radial, diamond-shaped, etc.
v) Clone Tools

Clone Tools are used to create multiple copies of specific features in an image.
 They are also used to select specific patterns and apply them
repeatedly over an image.

vi) Transformation Tools

These tools are used to transform specific portions of an image in
various ways like moving, rotating, scaling, skewing, distorting, etc.

vii) Retouching Tools

These tools are used to change brightness/contrast of the image as well as color
hues.
Specific portions of the image may be de saturated, i.e. converted to
grayscale. Parts of the image may also be blurred or sharpened.

viii) Text Tools

These tools allow the user to include text in various styles and sizes. The
text may have different colors and orientations.

ix) Changing Image Characteristics

Image processing software allows images to be opened and saved in
various file formats. Operations like changing image dimensions, color depth and
resolution are also allowed. When the resolution of an image is modified using
image processing software the total number of pixels is changed. In cases where
the resolution is increased, e.g. converting from 72dpi to 300dpi, extra pixels
needs to be generated by the software.

x) Indexed color

The term refers to a type of images usually with a limited number of color values
e.g.
256. A color lookup table (CLUT) is used to store and index the color values
of the image. Within the image file, instead of storing the actual RGB values,
the index number of the row containing the specific color value is stored.

FILE FORMATS:

Images may be stored in a variety of file formats. Each file format is

characterized by a specific compression type and color depth. The choice of file formats
would depend on the final image quality required and the import capabilities of the
authoring system. The most popular file formats are:
1) BMP (Bitmap)

BMP is a standard Windows compatible computer. BMP formats

supports RGB, Indexed Color, Grey scale and Bitmap color modes, and does
not support alpha channels.

2) JPEG (Joint Photographers Expert Group)

Joint Photographers Expert Group (JPEG) format is commonly used

to display photographs and other continuous-tone images in hypertext
markup language (HTML) documents over the World Wide Web and other
online services.

3) GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)

Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is the file format commonly used

to display indexed color graphics and images in hypertext markup language
(HTML) document over the World Wide Web and other online services.

4) TIFF (Tagged Image File Format)

Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) designed by Aldus Corporation and
Microsoft in 1987, is used to exchange files between applications and computer
platforms. TIFF is a flexible bitmap image format supported by virtually all
paint, image-editing and page layout applications.

5) PNG (Portable Network Graphics)

Developed as a patent-free alternative to GIF, Portable Network Graphics

(PNG) format is used for lossless compression and for display of images on the
World Wide Web.

6) PICT (Picture)

PICT format is widely used among Mac OS graphics and page-layout

applications as an intermediatary file format for transferring images between
applications. PICT format is especially effective at compression images with large
areas of solid color.

7) TGA (Targa)

Targa (TGA) format is designed for systems using the True vision video
board and is commonly supported by MS-DOS color applications. This format
supports 24-bit RGB images.
 8) PSD (Photoshop Document)

Photoshop (PSD) format is a default file format used in the Adobe

Photoshop package and the only format supporting all available image
modes.

IMAGE OUTPUT ON MONITOR

The image pixels are actually strings of binary numbers and therefore
may be referred to as logical pixels. When the images are displayed on the monitor
however, the logical pixels are directly mapped on to the phosphor dots of the monitor,
which may be referred to as physical pixels.

Dependence on Monitor Resolution

Let us consider an image having dimensions 1 inch by 1 inch and a resolution of

72ppi. Thus, the image is made up of 72 logical pixels horizontally and 72 logical
pixels vertically. The monitor resolution in this case is equal to the image resolution.
Let us consider an image be rescanned at a high resolution of 144ppi. Thus, the
image is made up of 144 logical pixels. The monitor resolution is however unchanged at
72dpi. The monitor resolution in this case is less to the image resolution.

On the other hand if the image resolution decreases to 30ppi, internally 1 inch of
the image will consist of 30 logical pixels. The monitor resolution in this case is more
than the image resolution and makes the image look smaller.

Dependence on Monitor Size

Let us consider a 15‖ monitor which displays 640 pixels horizontally and 480
pixels vertically. An image with pixel dimensions of 640X480 would fill up the entire
screen. If the viewing mode of the 20‖ Monitor is increased to 800 by 600 then the
image will occupy only a portion of the screen as the available number of pixels is more
than that required for displaying the image.

Image Output on Monitor refers to how processed images are displayed on screens, which is
crucial for reviewing, editing, and finalizing digital images. Key aspects include:

1. Resolution: The clarity of the image on the monitor depends on the resolution (measured
in pixels). Common resolutions include Full HD (1920x1080), 4K (3840x2160), and 8K
(7680x4320).
2. Color Accuracy: For image processing tasks, monitors need to display colors accurately.
Professionals often use monitors with high color accuracy and support for wide color
gamuts, such as Adobe RGB or sRGB.
 3. Refresh Rate: Though not as critical for static images, higher refresh rates (like 60Hz or
120Hz) can improve the smoothness of image transitions when editing or previewing
animations.
4. Calibration: Monitors used for professional image processing are often color-calibrated
to ensure that the colors displayed on-screen match the final output (whether for printing
or web use).
5. Aspect Ratio: The aspect ratio, such as 16:9 or 21:9, affects how much of an image can
be displayed at once. Wider ratios can be useful for multitasking during image
processing.

High-quality monitors are essential tools in image processing workflows, ensuring that the final
visual output is true to the original design and ready for either print or digital distribution.

IMAGE OUTPUT ON PRINTER

Image Output on Printer refers to how digital images are transferred to physical media (such as
paper). It involves several factors to ensure that the printed image closely matches what is
displayed on the screen. Here are key aspects:

1. Resolution: Printer resolution is measured in DPI (dots per inch), which indicates how
many dots of ink the printer applies per inch of paper. Common DPI settings are:
o 300 DPI: Standard for high-quality prints, such as photos.
o 600 DPI or higher: Used for professional-quality prints where fine details are
crucial.
2. Color Models:
o Printers use the CMYK color model (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key/Black) for
color printing. It differs from the RGB model used in monitors. This conversion
between color models can cause color shifts, so careful color management is
important.
3. Paper Types:
o Different types of paper (e.g., glossy, matte, photo paper, or canvas) affect the
final image quality. Glossy paper enhances color vibrancy, while matte offers a
more subdued finish.
4. Color Management:
o To achieve accurate colors, printers need to be properly calibrated with the
monitor. Color profiles (like ICC profiles) help ensure that colors are reproduced
consistently across devices.
5. Print Size:
o The size of the image output affects its quality. Enlarging an image too much can
lead to pixelation if the image’s resolution is too low. The printer must process
the image’s pixel dimensions appropriately for larger prints.
6. Printer Types:
 o Inkjet Printers: Typically used for high-quality photo printing due to their ability
to produce detailed and colorful prints.
o Laser Printers: More commonly used for text documents and less for high-
quality photo printing, though they are faster and more efficient for bulk printing.
7. Print Speed: How fast an image is printed can vary based on printer capabilities and
image complexity.

Though there are a large variety of printers in the industry, two types are mostly
used for printing multimedia content: the LASER printer and the Inkjet printer. The
number of dots printed per inch of the printed page is called the printer resolution
and expressed as dots per inch. Thus based on the final purpose the image needs to be
created or scanned at the appropriate resolution.

 LASER Printer

The LASER printer was introduced by Hewlett-Packard in 1984, based on technology

developed by Canon. It worked in a similar way to a photocopier, the difference being
the light source. LASER printers quickly became popular due the high quality of their
print and low running costs.

 Inkjet Printer

Inkjet printers, like LASER printers, employ a non-impact method meaning that there is no
head or hammer striking the paper to produce the print, like typewriters or the dot-
matrix printer. Ink is emitted from nozzles as they pass over a variety of possible media.

i) Thermal technology

Most inkjets use thermal technology, whereby heat is used to fire ink onto the
paper. There are three main stages with this method. The ink emission is initiated by
heating the ink to create a bubble until the pressure forces it to burst and hit the paper.
This is the method favored by Canon and Hewlett-Packard. This imposes certain
limitations on the printing process in that whatever type of ink is used, it must be
resistant to heat because the firing process is heat-based.

ii) Piezo-electric Technology

Epson‘s proprietary piezo-electric technology uses a piezo crystal at the back of

the ink reservoir. It uses the property of certain crystals that causes them to oscillate
when subjected to electrical pressure (voltage). There are several advantages to eh piezo
method. This allows more freedom for developing new chemical properties on ink.
iii)Inks

The ink is used in inkjet technology is water-based and this poses a few problems.
Oil based ink is not really a solution to the problem because it would impose a far
higher maintenance cost on the hardware. Printer manufacturers are making continual
progress in the development of water-resistant inks, but the print quality from inkjet
printers are still weak compared to LASER printers.