Computer Graphics

Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shahab Siddiqui

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Types of Graphics
• There are 2 types of Graphics:
• Raster Graphics – defined by pixel (picture
element)
• Vector Graphics – defined by lines
Raster Graphics
• Raster graphics or Bitmap image is a dot matrix data structure that
represents a generally rectangular grid of pixels (points of color),
viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium. Raster
images are stored in image files with varying formats.
• A bitmap is a rectangular grid of pixels, with each pixel's color being
specified by a number of bits. A bitmap might be created for storage
in the display's video memory or as a device-independent bitmap file.
• A raster is technically characterized by the width and height of the
image in pixels and by the number of bits per pixel (or color depth,
which determines the number of colors it can represent).
Raster Graphics (cont.)
• The printing and prepress industries know raster graphics as contones
(from "continuous tones"). The opposite to contones is "line work",
usually implemented as vector graphics in digital systems.
• Vector images can be rasterized (converted into pixels), and raster
images vectorized (raster images converted into vector graphics), by
software.
• In both cases some information is lost, although certain vectorization
operations can recreate salient information, as in the case of
optical character recognition.
Raster Graphics (Cont.)
• It originates from the raster scan of cathode ray tube (CRT)
video monitors, which paint the image line by line by magnetically
or electrostatically steering a focused electron beam. By
association, it can also refer to a rectangular grid of pixels.
• Computer displays
• Most modern computers have bitmapped displays, where each
on-screen pixel directly corresponds to a small number of bits in
memory. The screen is refreshed simply by scanning through pixels
and coloring them according to each set of bits. The refresh
procedure, being speed critical, is often implemented by dedicated
circuitry, often as a part of a graphics processing unit.
Raster Graphics (Cont.)
• Using this approach, the computer contains an area of memory that
holds all the data that are to be displayed. The central processor
writes data into this region of memory and the video controller
collects them from there. The bits of data stored in this block of
memory are related to the eventual pattern of pixels that will be used
to construct an image on the display.
• An early scanned display with raster computer graphics was invented
in the late 1960s by A. Michael Noll at Bell Labs, but its patent
application filed February 5, 1970 was abandoned at the Supreme
Court in 1977 over the issue of the patentability of computer
software.
Vector Graphics
• Vector graphics are computer graphics images that are defined in
terms of points on a Cartesian plane, which are connected by lines
and curves to form polygons and other shapes.
• Vector graphics have the unique advantage over raster graphics in
that the points, lines, and curves may be scaled up or down to any
resolution with no aliasing.
• The points determine the direction of the vector path; each path may
have various properties including values for stroke color, shape, curve,
thickness, and fill.
Vector Graphics (cont.)
• Instead of sectioning off a large region of computer memory and
mapping that to the display device, vector display devices use a
variable number of lines to create images—hence the term "vector
graphics." Since vector display devices can define a line by dealing
with just two points (that is, the coordinates of each end of the line),
the device can reduce the total amount of data it must deal with by
organizing the image in terms of pairs of points.
• Vector graphics are commonly found today in the SVG, EPS, PDF or AI
types of graphic file formats, and are intrinsically different from the
more common raster graphics file formats such as JPEG, PNG, APNG,
GIF, and MPEG4.
Vector Graphics (cont.)
• Vector graphic displays were first used in 1958 by the
US SAGE air defense system. Vector graphics systems were retired from the
U.S. en route air traffic control in 1999. Vector graphics were also used on
the TX-2 at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory by computer graphics pioneer
Ivan Sutherland to run his program Sketchpad in 1963.
• Subsequent vector graphics systems, most of which iterated through
dynamically modifiable stored lists of drawing instructions, include the
IBM 2250, Imlac PDS-1, and DEC GT40. There was a video game console
that used vector graphics called Vectrex as well as various arcade games like
Asteroids, Space Wars and many cinematronics titles such as Rip-Off, and
Tail Gunner using vector monitors.
• Storage scope displays, such as the Tektronix 4014, could display vector
images but not modify them without first erasing the display.
Vector Graphics (cont.)
• Standards
• The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard for vector graphics is
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). The standard is complex and has been
relatively slow to be established at least in part owing to commercial
interests. Many web browsers now have some support for rendering SVG
data but full implementations of the standard are still comparatively
rare.
• Modern displays and printers are raster devices; vector formats have to
be converted to raster format (bitmaps – pixel arrays) before they can be
rendered (displayed or printed). The size of the bitmap/raster-format file
generated by the conversion will depend on the resolution required, but
the size of the vector file generating the bitmap/raster file will always
remain the same.
Vector Graphics (cont.)
• Vector art is ideal for printing since the art is made from a series of
mathematical curves, it will print very crisply even when resized. For instance,
one can print a vector logo on a small sheet of copy paper, and then enlarge the
same vector logo to billboard size and keep the same crisp quality. A low-
resolution raster graphic would blur or pixelate excessively if it were enlarged
from business card size to billboard size.
• If we regard typographic characters as images, then the same considerations
that we have made for graphics apply even to the composition of written text
for printing (typesetting). Older character sets were stored as bitmaps.
Therefore, to achieve maximum print quality they had to be used at a given
resolution only; these font formats are said to be non-scalable. High-quality
typography is nowadays based on character drawings (fonts) which are typically
stored as vector graphics, and as such are scalable to any size. Examples of
these vector formats for characters are Postscript fonts and TrueType fonts.
Advantages of Vector Graphics over
Raster
• Advantages to this style of drawing over raster graphics:
• Because vector graphics consist of coordinates with lines/curves between them, the size of
representation does not depend on the dimensions of the object. This minimal amount of information
translates to a much smaller file size compared to large raster images which are defined pixel by pixel. This
said, a vector graphic with a small file size is often said to lack detail compared with a real world photo.
• Correspondingly, one can infinitely zoom in on e.g., a circle arc, and it remains smooth. On the other
hand, a polygon representing a curve will reveal being not really curved.
• On zooming in, lines and curves need not get wider proportionally. Often the width is either not
increased or less than proportional. On the other hand, irregular curves represented by simple geometric
shapes may be made proportionally wider when zooming in, to keep them looking smooth and not like
these geometric shapes.
• The parameters of objects are stored and can be later modified. This means that moving, scaling,
rotating, filling etc. doesn't degrade the quality of a drawing. Moreover, it is usual to specify the
dimensions in device-independent units, which results in the best possible rasterization on raster devices.
• From a 3-D perspective, rendering shadows is also much more realistic with vector graphics, as shadows
can be abstracted into the rays of light from which they are formed. This allows for photorealistic images
and renderings.
Vector Graphics (cont.)
• For example, consider a circle of radius r.
• The main pieces of information a program needs in order to draw
this circle are:
• an indication that what is to be drawn is a circle
• the radius r
• the location of the center point of the circle
• stroke line style and color (possibly transparent)
• fill style and color (possibly transparent)
Disadvantages of Vector Graphics
over Raster
• Vector formats are not always appropriate in graphics work and also have numerous
disadvantages. For example, devices such as cameras and scanners produce
essentially continuous-tone raster graphics that are impractical to convert into
vectors, and so for this type of work, an image editor will operate on the pixels
rather than on drawing objects defined by mathematical expressions.
• Comprehensive graphics tools will combine images from vector and raster sources,
and may provide editing tools for both, since some parts of an image could come
from a camera source, and others could have been drawn using vector tools.
• Some authors have criticized the term vector graphics as being confusing. In
particular, vector graphics does not simply refer to graphics described by
Euclidean vectors. Some authors have proposed to use object-oriented graphics
instead. However this term can also be confusing as it can be read as any kind of
graphics implemented using object-oriented programming.
Vector Graphics (cont.)
• Typical primitive objects
• Any particular vector file format supports only some kinds of primitive objects. Nearly all
vector file formats support simple and fast-rendering primitive objects - Lines, polylines and
polygons, Bézier curves and bezigons, Circles and ellipses
• Most vector file formats support:
• Text (in computer font formats such as TrueType where each letter is created from Bézier
curves) or quadratics, Color gradients, often, a bitmap image is considered as a primitive
object. From the conceptual view, it behaves as a rectangle.
• A few vector file formats support more complex objects as primitives:
• Many computer-aided design applications support splines and other curves, such as:
• Catmull–Rom splines and NURBS
• iterated function systems, superellipses and superellipsoids, metaballs
• If an image stored in one vector file format is converted to another file format that supports
all the primitive objects used in that particular image, then the conversion can be lossless.
Vector Graphics (cont.)
• Vector operations
• Vector graphics editors typically allow translation, rotation,
mirroring, stretching, skewing, affine transformations, changing of
z-order (loosely, what's in front of what) and combination of
primitives into more complex objects. More sophisticated
transformations include set operations on closed shapes (union,
difference, intersection, etc.).
• Vector graphics are ideal for simple or composite drawings that need
to be device-independent, or do not need to achieve photo-realism.
For example, the PostScript and PDF page description languages use a
vector graphics model.
Summery
• This is the introductory lecture of Computer Graphics.
• This lecture illustrates two popular Graphics Displays available in
Computer Graphics including standards, operations, advantages and
disadvantages.
References
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