Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE)

Computer Graphics (CST-323)

Line Drawing Displays

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Outline
• Display Devices & Controllers
• CRT
• Inherent Memory Devices
• Storage Tube Display
• Refresh Line Drawing Displays

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Line Drawing Displays

• Computer generated pictures may be divided into two classes:

• Line drawing
• Continuous tone Images
• Line drawings are easy to create because the algorithms for their generation
are simpler, the amount of information required to represent them is less
and they can be displayed on equipment which has been more readily
available.
• Continuous tone images are not easy to create, they require frame buffer
display and the algorithms for their generation are not simpler. Frame
buffer display can also be used for displaying lines. Frame buffer require
large amounts of memory which make it expensive and the time taken to
fill this memory or change its contents makes interactive response sluggish
at times.

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Display devices and Controllers

• Display devices are used for the visual presentation of information.

• Earlier the display devices were capable of displaying the characters only
in a single font and in a single color. These characters were arranged in a
rectangular grid on the screen.
• The display screens, which are available today, support many fonts and
colors.
• Different types of display devices use different technology for displaying
the data.

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Display devices and Controllers

• The purpose of the display system may be to display character, text,

graphics and video. It has three parts:
• Display controller
• Monitor
• Cable

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Display devices and Controllers

• The purpose of the display device is to convert electrical signals into visible
images.
• The display controller sits between computer and display devices, receiving
information from computers and converting it into signals acceptable to
device. Task done by display controllers includes voltage level conversions
between computer and display devices, buffering to compensate for
differences in speed of operation and generation of lines segments and text
characters.
• Display controller thus has the overall task of compensating for any features
or limitations that the display device may possess so as to provide the
computer and its programmer with a reasonably straight forward interface to
the device.

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Display devices and Controllers

• Raster Scan Displays

• Random Scan Displays
• CRT Monitors
• Inherent Memory Devices
a)Flat panel Displays
b)Direct View Storage Tube(DVST)

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Raster Scan Displays

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Raster Display

• Raster display (since 1970s)

- Raster system consists of:
• Display processor (input, refreshing, scan converting)
• Video controller
• Buffer memory (frame buffer)
• CRT
• Raster scan displays, also known as bit-mapped or raster displays
 The buffer stores the primitive pixels, rather than display list or display program
 Video controller reads the pixel contents to produce the actual image on the screen
 The image is represented as a set of raster scan lines, and forms a matrix of pixels.
 Their whole display area is updated many times a second from image data held in
raster memory.
 Need refresh the raster display (e.g., 60Hz)

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Raster Scan Displays

• Raster: A rectangular array of points or dots
• Pixel: One dot or picture element of the raster
• Scan Line: A row of pixels
• The graphics screen is a two-dimensional array of picture elements (‘pixels’).
• These pixels are redrawn sequentially, left-to-right, by rows from top to bottom .
• Each pixel’s color is an individually programmable mix of red, green, and blue

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Common Raster Display System

Peripheral
CPU
Devices

System bus

System
Display Processor
Memory

Video Display
Display Frame
Controller Processor
Buffer
Memory

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Raster Scan Displays

• In addition to the central processing unit (CPU), a special processor, called the
video controller or display controller, is used to control the operation of the
display device.
• A fixed area of the system memory is reserved for the frame buffer, and the
video controller is given direct access to the frame buffer memory.
• Frame buffer location, and the corresponding screen positions, are referenced in Cartesian
coordinates. Scan lines are then labeled from ymax at the top of the screen to 0 at the bottom.
Along each scan line, screen pixel positions are labeled from 0 to xmax. Two registers are used to
store the coordinates of the screen pixels.
Raster Scan Generator

x Register y Register

Memory Address

Frame Buffer Intensity

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Frame Buffers

• The 2-D array of pixel values is called a frame buffer

– Frame, refresh, raster buffers are used interchangeably
• Each row of pixels is called a scan-line or a raster line
• Frame buffer can be peripheral to the host or resident as part of the host
computer's address space.
• The video hardware continuously scans the frame buffer.
• Types of display
– B&W displays: 1 bit/pixel (bitmap).
– Basic color displays: 8, 15, 16, or 24 bits.
– High-end displays: 96 or more bits.

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Video Controller

Some of operations can be performed by the Video Controller:

• Refreshing operation
• Video controller, constantly copies color intensity values from the frame
buffer onto screen, scan line by scan line. Such a process is called refresh.
Types of refresh
• Interlaced (mostly for TV for reducing flickering effect -- NTSC)
- two fields for one frame
- odd-field: odd-numbered scan lines
- even-field: even-numbered scan lines
- refresh rate: e.g., 60Hz (60 fields per second); 30 frame/s.
• Non-interlaced (mostly for monitor)
- refresh rate: e.g., 60Hz or more

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Display Processor

 Also called either a Graphics Controller or Display Co-Processor.

 It is a specialized hardware to assist in scan converting output primitives into
the frame buffer.
 Display processor is used to digitize a picture definition given in an application
program into a set of pixel intensity values for storage in the frame buffer. This
digitization process is called scan conversion.
 Graphics commands specifying straight lines and other geometric objects are
scan converted into a set of discrete intensity points.
 It is also used for generating various line styles, displaying color areas and
performing certain transformations and manipulations on displayed objects.

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Raster Scan Display Processor

• A raster system containing a separate display processor(graphics controller,

display coprocessor)
• The purpose of the DP is to free the CPU from the graphics chores.

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Raster Scan Displays

• 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.

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Raster Scan Displays

• Picture definition is stored in a memory area called the refresh buffer or

frame buffer.
• Refresh buffer or frame buffer: This memory area holds the set of
intensity values for all the screen points.

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Raster Scan Displays

• Stored intensity values then retrieved from refresh buffer and “painted”
on the screen one row (scan line) at a time.
• Intensity range for pixel positions depends on the capability of the raster
system.
• A black-and-white system: each screen point is either on or off, so only
one bit per pixel is needed to control the intensity of screen positions.

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Raster Scan Displays

• On a black-and-white system with one bit per pixel, the frame buffer is
called bitmap.
• For system with multiple bits per pixel, the frame buffer is called pixmap.
• Sometimes, refresh rates are described in unit of cycles per second, or Hertz
(HZ). Refreshing on raster scan displays is carried out at the rate 60 to 80
frame per second.
• Horizontal retrace: The return to the left of the screen, after refreshing each
scan line.
• Vertical retrace: At the end of each frame (displayed in 1/80th to 1/60th of a
second) the electron beam returns to the top left corner of the screen to begin
the next frame

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Interlacing

• On some raster systems (TV), each frame is displays in two passes using
an interlaced refresh procedure.
• On an older, 30 frame per-second, non interlaced display, some flicker is
noticeable.
• With interlacing, each of the two passes can be accomplished in 1/60th of a
second.

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Raster image

• The quality of a raster image is determined by the total number pixels

(resolution), and the amount of information in each pixel (color depth)
• Raster graphics cannot be scaled to a higher resolution without loss of
apparent quality.
• Brightness and color @ each x, y on screen

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Random Scan Systems

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Vector Display

• Vector display system consists of:

display processor (controller),
display buffer memory
CRT
 The buffer stores the computer-produced display list or display program
 Display program contains points and point-plotting commands with (x,y,z)
endpoint coordinates
 The commands for plotting are interpreted by the display processor
 The principle of vector system is random scan
 The beam is deflected from endpoint to endpoint, as dictated by the order of
the display command
 Display list needed to be refreshed (e.g., 30Hz)

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Random Scan System

• Line drawing and stroke drawing in a random order

• Graphic commands are translated by the graphics package into a display
file stored in the system memory.
• This file is then accessed by the display processor unit (DPU)(graphic
controller) to refresh the screen.

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Random Scan System Raster Scan System

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Random Scan Displays

• Random scan display is the use of geometrical primitives such as points,

lines, curves, and polygons, which are all based upon mathematical
equation.
• Raster Scan is the representation of images as a collection of pixels (dots)
• In a random scan display, a 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 (Vector display,
Stroke –writing or calligraphic displays).
• The component lines of a picture can be drawn and refreshed.

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Random Scan Displays

• The component lines of a picture can be drawn and refreshed.

• Refresh rate depends on the number of lines to be displayed.
• Picture definition is now stored as a line-drawing commands an area of
memory referred to as refresh display file (display list).
• To display a picture, the system cycle through the set of commands in the
display file, drawing each component line in turn.

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Random Scan Displays

• Random scan displays are designed to draw all the component lines of a
picture 30 to 60 times each second.
• Random scan displays are designed for line-drawing applications and
can not display realistic shaded scenes.

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Random Scan Displays

• Random scan displays have higher resolution than raster systems.

• Vector displays product smooth line drawing.
• A raster system produces jagged lines that are plotted as discrete points sets.

Raster

Outline Filled Ideal Vector

primitives primitives Drawing Drawing

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Random Scan Example

Data are describing a circle:

• the radius r
• The location of the center point of the circle
• Stroke line style and color
• Fill style and color
Advantages:
• This minimal amount of information translates to a much smaller file size.
(file size compared to large raster images)
• On zooming in, and it remains smooth
• The parameters of objects are stored and can be later modified
(transformation).

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Vector Display vs. Raster Display

 Vector display
• Accurate (high resolution) for line drawings
• Requires display processor (controller) to interpret display commands
• High-cost
• Flickering when the number of primitives in the buffer becomes too large
 Raster display
• Low-cost
• Requires frame buffer
• Fresh rate is independent of complexity of the display contents
• Easy to fill a region
• Line or polygon must be scan-converted into the component pixels in the
frame buffer, which is computationally expensive.
• Less accurate: lines are approximated with pixels on the raster grid.
This visual effect (I.e., jaggies or stair-casing) due to a sampling error is called “aliasing”

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Vector vs. Raster CRT

• Vector displays: a list of line endpoints was used to move the electron
beam along some random path, a so-called vector scan.
• Raster displays (TVs etc) drive the beam in a regular pattern called a
raster scan.
• Vector displays are almost extinct.
• Scan conversion: convert geometric primitives from vector scan
descriptions (endpoints etc.) to raster scan descriptions (sets of pixels to
turn on.)

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Display Devices

• Electronic display devices based on various principles were developed.

• Active display devices are based on luminescence.
• Luminescence is the general term used to describe the emission of electromagnetic
radiation from a substance due to a non-thermal process. Luminescence occurs from a
solid when it is supplied with some form of energy.
• Photoluminescence arises as a result of absorption of photons.
• In the case of cathodoluminescence material is excited by bombardment with a beam
of electrons.
• Electroluminescence is a result of excitation from the application of an electric field.
• Fluorescence persists for a short lifetime of the transition between the two energy
levels.
• Phosphorescence persists for much longer time (more than 10-8 s).
• Passive display devices reflect or modulate light.

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Display Devices
• Emissive display -- convert electrical energy into light
- Cathode ray tube (CRT)
- Flat panel CRT
- Plasma panels (gas-discharge display)
- Thin-film electroluminescent (EL) display
- Light-emitting diodes

• Non-Emissive display -- optical effect: convert sunlight or light from

other source into graphic patterns.
- Liquid-crystal device (LCD) – flat panel
- Passive-matrix LCD
- Active-matrix LCD

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Cathode Ray Tube

(CRT)

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CRT

• The cathode ray tube (CRT), invented by German physicist Karl

Ferdinand Braun in 1897, is an evacuated glass envelope containing an
electron gun(a source of electrons) and a fluorescent screen, usually with
internal or external means to accelerate and deflect the electrons. When
electrons strike the fluorescent screen, light is emitted.
• The electron beam is deflected and modulated in a way which causes it to
display an image on the screen. The image may represent electrical
waveforms (oscilloscope), pictures (television, computer monitor),
echoes of aircraft detected by radar, etc.

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1. Electron Guns
2. Electron Beams
3. Focusing Coils
4. Deflection Coils
5. Anode Connection
6. Shadow Mask
7. Phosphor layer
8. Close-up of the
phosphor coated inner
side of the screen

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Cathode Ray Tube (CRT)

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Refresh CRT

• Light emitted by the Phosphor fades very rapidly.

• Refresh CRT: One way to keep the phosphor glowing is to redraw the
picture repeatedly by quickly directing the electron beam back over the same
points.
• A cathode ray tube (CRT) contains four basic parts:
• Electron gun,
• Focusing and accelerating systems,
• Deflecting systems
• Evacuated glass envelope with a phosphorescent screen that glows visibly when
struck by the electron beam.

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Electron Gun

• Heat is supplied to the cathode by the filament.

• The free electrons are then accelerated toward the phosphor coating by a
high positive voltage.

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High Positive Voltage

• A positively charged metal coating on the inside of the CRT envelope

near the phosphor screen.

A positively charged metal

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High Positive Voltage

• An accelerating anode .

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Electron Gun

• Intensity of the electron beam is controlled by setting voltage level on the

control grid.
• A smaller negative voltage on the control grid simply decrease the
number of electrons passing through.

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Focusing System

• The focusing system is needed to force the electron beam to converge into a
small spot as it strikes the phosphor.
• Electrostatic focusing is commonly used in computer graphics monitor.
• With electrostatic focusing, the electron beam passes through a positively
charged metal cylinder that forms an electrostatic lens.

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Focusing System

• Similar lens focusing effects can be accomplished with a magnetic field set
up by a coil mounted around the outside of the CRT envelope.
• The distance that the electron beam must travel to different points on the
screen varies because the radius of curvature for most CRTs is greater than
the distance from the focusing system to the screen center.
• The electron beam will be focused properly only at the center of the screen.
• As the beam moves to the outer edges of the screen, displayed images
become blurred.
• Dynamically focusing lens work based on beam position.

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Cathode-ray tubes. Electrostatic focusing

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Cathode-ray tubes. Electromagnetic deflection

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Deflection Systems
• Deflection of the electron beam can be controlled either with electric
fields or with magnetic fields.
• The magnetic deflection coils mounted on the outside of the CRT
envelope.
• Two pairs of coils are used, with the coils in each pair mounted on
opposite sides of the neck of the CRT envelope.

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Deflection Systems

• One pair is mounted on the top and bottom of the neck, and the other pair is
mounted on opposite sides of the neck.
• Horizontal deflection is accomplished with one pair of coils, and vertical
deflection by the other pairs.The proper deflection amounts are attained by
adjusting the current through the coil.
• Electrostatic deflection: Two pairs of parallel plates are mounted inside the CRT
envelope.One pair of plates is mounted horizontally to control the vertical deflection,
and the other pair is mounted vertically to control horizontal deflection.

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Spots of Light

• Spots of lights are produced on the screen by the transfer of the CRT beam
energy to the phosphor.
• Part of the beam energy is converted into heat energy.
• The excited phosphor electrons begin dropping back to their stable ground
state, giving up their extra energy as small quantum of light energy.
• Persistence :The time it takes the emitted light from the screen to decay to
one-tenth of its original intensity.
• The intensity is greatest at the center of the spot, and decrease with Gaussian
distribution out to the edges of the spot.

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Resolution (Spots of Light)

• Resolution: The maximum number of points that can be displayed without

overlap on a CRT.

Resolution of a CRT is dependent on:

 The type of phosphor
 The intensity to be displayed
 The focusing and deflection systems.

Aspect Ratio: This numbers gives the ratio of vertical points to horizontal
points necessary to produce equal length lines in both directions on the
screen.

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Health hazards of CRT

• X-rays: largely absorbed by screen (but not at rear!)

• UV- and IR-radiation from phosphors: insignificant levels
• Radio frequency emissions, plus ultrasound (~16kHz)
• Electrostatic field - leaks out through tube to user. Intensity dependant on
distance and humidity. Can cause rashes.
• Electromagnetic fields (50Hz-0.5MHz). Create induction currents in conductive
materials, including the human body.
• Two types of effects attributed to this:
visual system - high incidence of cataracts in VDU operators, and concern over
reproductive disorders (miscarriages and birth defects).
• Do not sit too close to the screen
• Do not use very small fonts
• Do not look at the screen for long periods without a break
• Do not place the screen directly in front of a bright window

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Properties of the CRT

• Phosphor Persistence (PP)

- the light output decays exponentially with time.
- a phosphor’s persistence is defined as the time from the removal of
excitation to the moment of decaying the light to one-tenth of its
original intensity
- low persistence -> good for animation
- high persistence -> good for static picture with high complexity
- typical range: 10ms – 60ms
• Refresh rate (RR)
- number of times per second the image is redrawn (e.g., 60 or higher)
• Critical fusion frequency (CFF)
- the refresh rate above which a picture stops flickering and becomes
steady
 longer PP -> lower CFF required

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Properties of the CRT

• Resolution
The maximum number of points that can be displayed without overlap on a CRT
- high-definition system, e.g. 1280 * 1024 pixels
- resolution depends on the type of phosphor, the intensity to be
displayed, focusing and deflection systems, size of video memory
• Horizontal scan rate
- the number of scan lines per second that the CRT is able to display
- refresh rate * number of scan lines per frame
 Dot Pitch
The spacing between pixels on a CRT, measured in millimeters.
Generally, the lower the number, the more detailed the image.

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Color CRT Monitors

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Color Models

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RGB Color Model

• R, G, and B represent the colors produced by red, green and blue
phosphors, respectively.

Gray axis

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RGB Color Model

RGB color space

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CMY Color Model

CMY (short for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and key) is a subtractive color model.

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Color Depth &Bit Depth

• The number of discrete intensities that the video card is capable of

generating for each color determines the maximum number of colors that
can be displayed.
• The number of memory bits required to store color information (intensity
values for all three primary color components) about a pixel is called color
depth or bit depth.
• A minimum of one memory bit (color depth=1) is required to store
intensity value either 0 or 1 for every screen pixel.
• If there are n pixels in an image a total of n bits memory used for storing
intensity values (in a pure black & white image)

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Bit Plane

• The block of memory which stores (or is mapped with) intensity values for
each pixel (B& W image) is called a bit plane or bitmap.

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3Bit color display

• Color or gray levels can be achieved in the display using additional bit
planes.
• The result for n bits per pixel (color depth=n) is a collection of n bit planes
(2n colors or gray shades at every pixel)

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True Color

• For true Color three bytes of information are used, one for each of the
red, blue and green signals that make a pixel.
• A byte can hold 256 different values and so 256 intensities setting are
possible for each electron gun which mean each primary color can have
256 intensities (256*256* 256 color possible)

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High Color

• For high Color two bytes of information are used, to store the intensity
values for all three color. This is done by dividing 16 bits into 5 bits for
blue, 5 bits for red and 6 bits for green. This means 32(=25) intensities for
blue, 32 (=25) for red, and 64 (=26) for green.
• Loss of visible image quality.

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256 color mode

• The PC uses only 8 bits, 2 bits for blue and 3 each for green and red.

• Most of the colors of a given picture are not available.

• A palette or look-up table is used here.

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Color Palette

• A palette is a separate memory block (in addition to the 8 bit plane)

created 256 different colors.
• Each color is defined using the standard 3 byte color definition that is used
in true color. The intensity values for each of the three primary color
component can be anything between 0 and 255 in each of the table entries.
• The intensity values for each of the three primary color component can be
anything between 0 and 255 in each of the table entries.

Total number of colors available is called color palette.

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CRT Color Monitor

CRT

Shadow Mask
Electron Guns

Red Input

Green
Input

Blue Input

Deflection
Yoke Red, Blue,
and Green
Phosphor Dots

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Color CRT Monitors

• A CRT monitor displays color pictures by using a combination of

phosphors that emit different color lights.

• Methods

 Beam Penetration
 Shadow Mask

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Beam Penetration Method

• Two layers of phosphor (red and green) are coated onto the inside of the
CRT screen.
• The display color depends on haw far the electron beam penetrates into
the phosphor layers.
• The speed of the electrons, and the screen color at any point, is controlled
by the beam acceleration voltage.
• The beam penetration method:
• Used with random scan monitors

• Only four colors are possible (red, green, orange, and yellow).

• Quality of pictures is not as good as with other methods.

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Shadow Mask Method

The color CRT has:

• Three color phosphor dots (red, green and blue) at each point on the screen
• Three electron guns, each controlling the display of red, green and blue
light.

• In-line Method: Delta Method:

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Shadow Mask Method

The delta-delta method:

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Shadow Mask Method

The in-line method:

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Shadow Mask Method

• We obtain color variations by varying the intensity levels of the three

electron beam.
Shadow mask methods are:
• Used in raster scan system (including color TV)

• Designed as RGB monitors.

• High quality raster graphics system have 24 bits per pixel in the frame
buffer (a full color system or a true color system)

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FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS

CRTs are relatively fragile and bulky.

Other types of thinner displays were developed.
They are often called flat panel displays.
Most flat-panel displays form digits or characters with combination of segments
or dots. The arrangement of these elements is called the display font.
The most common format for numeric display is the seven-segment font.
Graphic displays are like very large dot matrices. Each dot in a graphic display
is called picture element, pixel or pel. The capabilities of a graphic display
depend on number of pixels horizontally and vertically.

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Flat Panel Displays

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Flat Panel Displays

• A class of video devices that have reduce volume and weight compared to
a CRT.
• A significant feature of flat panel displays is that they are thinner than
CRTs.
Current uses for flat panel displays:
• Small TV monitors
• Calculators
• Pocket video games
• Laptop computers
• Advertisement boars in elevators

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Flat Panel Displays

Flat panel displays:

• Emissive or Emitters Displays
• Non-emissive or Non-emitters Displays

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Emissive (or Emitters) Displays

• Emissive displays convert electrical energy into light.

• Examples: Plasma panel, thin-film electroluminescent displays,

Light-Emitting Diodes (LED) and flat CRT.

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Non-Emissive
(or Non-Emitters) Displays

• Use optical effects to convert sunlight or light from some other source
into graphics pattern.

• Example: Liquid-Crystal Device (LCD)

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Flat CRT

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Flat CRT

• Electron beams are accelerated parallel to the screen, then deflected 90º to
the screen.

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Plasma Panel

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Gas discharge displays and plasma display panels

• A neon bulb is the simplest gas discharge display. Two electrodes are scaled
in a glass bulb filled with a mixture of neon and argon gas. When high
enough voltage is applied (typically 100 to 200 V), an electrical discharge
begins in the gas. Free electrons acquire high kinetic energies from the
electric field. When they collide with gas atoms they transfer this energy to
the atoms, thereby exciting them into energy levels above the ground state.
The atoms may then lose energy radioactively and return to the ground state.
Then the gas emits orange-red light. The ionized gas is called plasma and gas
displays are therefore often called plasma displays.

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Plasma Panel

• A layer of gas (usually neon) is sandwiched between two glass plates.

• By applying high voltage to a pair of horizontal and vertical conductors, a
small section of the gas (tiny neon bulb) at the intersection of the
conductors break down into glowing plasma of electrons and ions.

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Gas discharge displays and plasma display panels

• A grid of tiny electrodes applies an electric current to the individual cells,

causing the gas (a mix of neon and xenon) in the cells to ionize. This ionized
gas (plasma) emits high-frequency UV rays, which stimulate the cells'
phosphors, causing them to glow the desired color.

Two HDTV-capable plasma panel designs

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Thin Film Electroluminescent

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Thin Film Electroluminescent

• The region between the glass plates is filled with a phosphor, such as zinc
sulfide doped with manganese. When sufficiently large ac voltage
(typically 150 to 200 V) is applied between the front and rear electrodes,
the material between them emits light.
• The advantages of electroluminescent displays include very thin and
rugged constructions, very high brightness, high resolution, wide operating
temperature range, and moderate power consumption.

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Light Emitting Diode (LED)

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Light Emitting Diode (LED)

• Light emitting diodes are used in LED displays.

• Operation of the LED displays is based on the injection luminescence.
• A matrix of diodes is arranged to form the pixel positions in the display, and
picture definition is stored in a refresh buffer.
• Information is read from the refreshed buffer and converted to voltage levels
that are applied to the diodes to produce the light patterns in the display.
• LED displays are available in many different sizes and shapes.
• Usually LED displays radiate red, orange, yellow or green light.
• They have a wide operating temperature range, are inexpensive,easily
interfaced to digital logic, easily multiplexed, do not require high voltages
and have fast response time.
• The viewing angle is good and display of arbitrary numbers of digits is
easily assembled.

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LED displays

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Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD)

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Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD)

• Used in small systems, such as calculators, laptop computers.
• Produce a picture by passing polarized light (from the surrounding or
from an internal light source) through a liquid-crystal material that can
be aligned to either block or transmit the light.
• Liquid crystal: These compounds have a crystalline arrangement of
molecules, yet they flow like a liquid.
• Two glass plates, each containing a light polarizer at right angles to the
other plate, sandwich the liquid crystal materials. Rows of horizontal
transparent conductor & columns of vertical conductors (put into glass
plates)
• Polarized light passing through the material is twisted so that it will
pass through the opposite polarizer.
• The light is then reflected back to the viewer. To turn off the pixel, we
apply a voltage to the two intersecting conductor to align the molecules
so that the light is not twisted. This type of flat panel device is referred
to as passive matrix LCD.

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Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD)

• In the most common type of LCD cell based on twisted nematic field effect,
two sheets of glass form the main structure. Between the sheets of glass there
is a very thin layer of liquid crystal material. The inner surface of each piece
of glass is coated with a transparent, conductive layer of metal oxide. The
sandwich is completed with a polarizer on the outside of each piece of glass
and a reflector on the back of the display.

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Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD)

On State

Off State

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Liquid Crystal Displays

• Smaller, lighter, and no radiation problems.

• Found on PDAs, portables and notebooks, and increasingly on desktop and
even for home TV
• Used in dedicated displays: digital watches, mobile phones, etc.
• An LCD cell consumes only microwatts of power over a thousand times less
than LED displays.
• LCDs can operate on voltages as low as 2 to 3 V and are easily driven by
MOS IC drivers.

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Liquid Crystal Displays

• LCDs also have their disadvantages. They cannot be seen in the sunlight,
have a limited viewing angle and a limited temperature range.

• TFT-LCD (Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display) is a variant of

Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) which uses Thin-Film Transistor(TFT)
technology to improve image quality. TFT LCD is one type of active matrix
These devices are called active matrix displays. LCD, though it is usually
synonymous with LCD. It is used in both flat panel displays and projectors.

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Direct view storage tube (DVST)

• Storage Tube – it is a CRT with a long persistence phosphor

• It is an alternative method for maintaining a screen image is to store the
picture information inside the CRT instead of refreshing the screen.

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Direct view storage tube (DVST)

• A direct-view storage tube (DVST) stores the picture information as a charge

distribution just behind the phosphor-coated screen.
• Two electron guns are used in a DVST. One, the primary gun, is used to store
the picture pattern; the second, the flood gun, maintains the picture display.
• A slow moving electron beam draws a line on the screen
• Screen has a storage mesh in which the phosphor is embedded
• Image is stored as a distribution of charges on the inside surface of the screen
• Just Behind the storage mesh is second grid, the collector, whose main purpose
is to smooth out the flow of flood electrons. These electrons pass through the
collector at a low velocity and are attracted to the positively charged portions
of the storage mesh but repelled by rest.
• Electrons not repelled by the storage mesh pass right through it and strike the
phosphor coating in CRT generating the output.

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Advantages
• A DVST monitor has both disadvantages and advantages compared to the
refresh CRT.
• Because no refreshing is needed, very complex pictures can be displayed at
very high resolutions without flicker.
• Provides flicker-free display
• No refreshing necessary

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Drawbacks
• Modifying any part of the image requires redrawing the entire modified image
• Change in the image requires to generate a new charge distribution in the DVST
• Slow process of drawing – typically a few seconds are necessary for a complex
picture
• To eliminate a picture section, the entire screen must be erased and the modified
picture redrawn. The erasing and redrawing process can take several seconds for
a complex picture.
• No animation possible with DVST
• For these reasons, storage displays have been largely replaced by raster systems.

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Storage Tube Display

• Storage tubes are a class of cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) that are designed to
hold an image for a long period of time, typically as long as power is
supplied to the tube. Storage tubes were used as a specialist display
mechanism during the 1950s and had a major rebirth during the 1960s and
70s for use in computer graphics. A specialized type, the Williams tube, was
also used as a main memory system on a number of early computers, from
the late 1940s into the early 1950s. Today they are obsolete, their functions
provided by low-cost memory devices and LC displays.
• Storage tubes could be divided into two categories. In the more common
category, they were only capable of storing "binary" images; any given point
on the screen was either illuminated or dark.
• The Tektronix Direct-View Bistable Storage Tube was perhaps the most
famous example in this category. Other storage tubes were able to store
greyscale images; the tradeoff was usually a much-reduced storage time.

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Tektronix Storage Tube Display

The Tektronix 401x series was a family of text and graphics computer terminals based on
the storage tube technology. The 4000 series were less expensive than earlier graphics
terminals, such as the IBM 2250 because no additional electronics were needed to maintain
the display on the screen (beyond providing proper voltages to it). They were widely used in
the CAD market in the 1970s and early 1980s. There were several members of the family
introduced through the 1970s, the best known being the 4010 and 4014. They remained
popular until the introduction of inexpensive graphics workstations in the 1980s. The new
graphics workstations used raster displays and dedicated screen buffers that became more
affordable as solid state memory chips became cheaper.

Tektronix 4014 Computer Terminal Tektronix 4006

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Refresh Line Drawing Display

Address Register

Memory Data
Instruction Register X Register
Path
Opcode DATA

Y Register
Control
CPU
Control
Path
∆X Register
Vector Deflection
Generator System
∆Y Register

Brightness
Register

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Refresh Line Drawing Display

• Refresh Line Drawing display was one of the earliest types of display to be
widely used in interactive graphics.
• It consists of CRT & Display processor i.e. a controller capable of maintaining
the refresh cycle more or less unaided by the computer.
• The display processor reads instructions from memory into an instruction
register where they are decoded. Instructions may represent line generation
commands or commands to reset the address of the next instruction. According
to the type of instruction, the data content of the instruction register is copied
into one of several other registers that directly control the CRT or the
instruction address.
• Display controller converts the computer’s output signals into deflection
voltages for the yoke of the CRT.

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Refresh Line Drawing Display

• Registers include x, y registers, ∆x, ∆y registers, Brightness register,

Instruction Address Register.
• X & Y Registers whose contents are converted into voltages to set the
position of the CRT Beam.
• ∆X & ∆Y Registers whose contents generate continuously increasing or
decreasing voltages that cause the beam to move in a straight line through
the specified displacements in X & Y.
• Brightness register which controls the energy of CRT beam thus setting the
brightness of the displayed image.
• Instruction address register which determines the address of the next
instruction fetched from memory.

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Refresh Line Drawing Display

• There is a control path from the computer to the display processor. This
enables the computer to maintain control over the operation of the display
processor.
• The computer must be able to reset the instruction address register and to start
and stop the processing of the instructions.
• The display instruction set must include an adequate range of positioning and
vector drawing instructions.
• Refresh Line drawing display usually accepts instructions for point plotting as
well as for vector drawing.

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