Chapter 1: Information Representation

Data Representation

 The basis of any number system consists of:

o A base: the number of digits that a number system can use to represent numbers

o Place value for each digit: digits in certain positions have a specific value

 Denary - Base 10 integer digits

 Binary Systems - Base 2

o Possible bits (binary digits): 0 and 1

o All data and characters are represented in binary

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

 E.g. 65 in binary is 0100001

 Denary vs. Binary prefixes:

Denary Prefix factor value Binary Prefix factor value

kilo- (k) ×10^3 kibi- (Ki) ×2^10

mega- (M) ×10^6 mebi- (Mi) ×2^20

giga- (G) ×10^9 gebi- (Gi) ×2^30

tera- (T) ×10^12 tebi- (Ti) ×2^40

 Binary Coded Decimal (BCD)

o Binary representation where each positive denary digit is represented by a sequence of

4 bits (nibble)

o Only certain digits are converted to BCD, because particular digits represent a digit
greater than 9.

o Ex. 429 in BCD:

 Convert each digit to their binary equivalents

 4 = 0100 | 2 = 0010 |9 = 1001

Concatenate the 3 nibbles (4-bit group) to produce BCD: 0100 0010 1001

 Practical applications

o A string of digits on any electronic device displaying numbers (eg. Calculators)

o Accurately measuring decimal fractions

o Electronically coding denary numbers

 Two’s Complement

o We can represent a negative number in binary by making the most significant bit (MSB)
a sign bit, which indicates whether the number is positive or negative.

o Converting negative denary into binary (ex. -42)

 Find the binary equivalent of the denary number (ignoring the -ve sign) | 42 = 101010

 Add extra 0 bits before the MSB, to format binary number to 8 bits | 00101010

 Convert binary number to one’s complement (flip the bits) | 11010101

 Convert binary number to two’s complement (add 1) |1010101 + 1 = 11010110

 Converting binary two’s complement into denary (ex. 11010110)

o Flip all the bits | 00101001

o Add 1 | 00101010

o Convert binary to denary and put a –ve sign) | -42

 Maximum positive number in 8 bits: 255

 Maximum negative number in 8 bits: -128

 Hexadecimal Systems - Base 16

o Possible digits: 0 to 9 and A to F, where A to F represent denary digits 10 to 15

o Practical applications:

 Defining colours in HTML

 Defining Media Access Control (MAC) addresses

 Assembly languages and machine code

 Debugging via memory dumps

o E.g. A5 in Denary = (16×10) + (1×5) = 165

o E.g. 65 in Hexadecimal = 65÷16=4 Remainder 1∴ = 41

 Character Sets
 o A character set generally includes upper & lower case letters, number digits,
punctuation marks and other characters.

o Character sets use different binary representations for each character via character
encoding

o Character Encoding Standards:

ASCII Extended ASCII Unicode

ASCII’s extension - Also Superset for ASCII & extended

Only English alphabets can be
includes most European ASCII - recognized by various
represented
languages’ alphabets global languages

Each character encoding takes ASCII extended to 8 bits, Greater range of characters, as
up 7 bits, hence 128 possible hence 256 possible it uses 2 or 4 bytes per
characters characters. character.

2 or 4 times more storage

Smaller storage space.
space per character.

Multimedia

 Bitmap Images

o Data for a bitmapped image is encoded by assigning a solid colour to each pixel, i.e.,
through bit patterns.

o Bit patterns are generated by considering each row of the grid as a series of binary
colour codes which correspond to each pixel’s colour.

o These bit patterns are ‘mapped’ onto main memory

o Pixels: smallest picture element whose colour can be accurately represented by binary

 Bitmap image also contains the File Header which has the metadata contents of
the bitmap file, including image size, number of colours, etc.

 Image Resolution

o Pixel density which is measured by no. of pixels/cm

o If image resolution increases, then image is sharper/more detailed

 Screen Resolution

o Number of pixels which can be viewed horizontally & vertically on the device’s screen

o Number of pixels = width × height

 o E.g. 1680 × 1080 pixels

 Colour depth: number of bits used to represent the colour of a single pixel

o An image with n bits has 2n colours per pixel

o E.g. 16-colour bitmap has 4 bits per pixel ∵ 24=1624=16

o Colour depth↑: colour quality↑ but file size↑

o File Size = Number of Pixels × colour depth

o Convert bits to bytes by dividing by 8 if necessary.

 Applications: scanned images and general computer usage ∵ small file size and can be easily
manipulated.

 Vector Graphics

o Made up of drawing objects

o Drawing objects: a mathematically defined construct (of shapes like rectangle, line,
circle, etc.)

o Drawing list: set of commands defining the vector

o Properties of each object are the basic geometric data which determine the shape and
appearance.

o Data is encoded using mathematical formulas to generate properties in order to draw

lines & curves to create the image

o If object is resized, properties are recalculated.

∴ Scalable without losing quality unlike bitmaps

 Applications: company logos

 Sound

o Analogue data is continuous electrical signals whereas digital data is discrete electrical
signals.

o Sound signals are vibrations through a medium. Hence are analogue in nature as there
can be an infinite amount of detail for sound.

o Analogue signals converted (encoded) to digital signals by sampling:

 Sound wave’s amplitude (height) sampled at set time intervals

 These samples (amplitudes) are encoded as a binary number sequence

 This sequence provides a digital representation of the sound wave

 Sampling Rate
 o Number of samples taken per unit time

o Increasing the sampling rate increases accuracy of digitized sound wave representation
but increases the file size

 Sampling Resolution

o Number of bits used to encode each sample

o Increasing sampling resolution increases accuracy of digitized sound wave but increases
the file size

 Bit Rate: no. of bits for storing 1 second of sound

Bit Rate=Sampling Rate × Sampling Resolution

File Size=Bit Rate * Length of Sound

Compression

 Compression is the process of reducing file size without a significant loss in quality which results
in

o Reducing the time needed to search for data.

o Faster transfer of compressed files, which uses less bandwidth than uncompressed files.

 Lossless Compression

o Type of compression that allows original data to perfectly reconstructed from

compressed file when the file is opened by utilizing some form of replacement.

o E.g. bitmap (.bmp), vector graphic (.svg) and .png images, text file compression,
database records

o Run-length Encoding (RLE)

 Form of lossless compression which is used for compressing text files and
bitmap images.

 Reduces file size of a sequence of elements which has adjacent, identical

elements (characters in text file and pixels in bitmap images).

 Repeating sequence of elements encoded in two values: run count and run
value.

o E.g. RLE of bitmap image:

 We can represent the first row as a sequence of pixels: “W B B W W B B W” | W:

white and B: black

 After applying RLE: “W 2B 2W 2B W”.

  In ‘2B’ 2 is the run count and B is the run value, which represents a run of two
adjacent black pixels

 Process is repeated for other rows.

 Lossy Compression

o Type of compression which irreversibly eliminates unnecessary data

o File accuracy/quality lower than that of lossless but file size is lower (~10% of lossless).

o E.g. Sound files (.mp3), .jpeg images

o Sound files compression (.mp3) utilizes Perceptual Coding to remove certain parts of
sound that are less audible/discernible to human hearing.