Graphics Hardware: Display Technology

Display Technology
A display is a computer output surface and projecting mechanism that shows text
and often graphics image to the computer user, using a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT),
Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), Light Emitting Diode (LED), Gas Plasma or other image
projection technology.
Display can be characterized as:
- Color capability
- Sharpness and viewability
- Size of the screen
- Projection technology
Cathode Ray Tube(CRT)
A CRT is a specialized vacuum tube in which images are produced when an electron
beam strikes a phosphorescent surface. It modulates, accelerates and deflects
electron beam onto the screen to create the images.
Most desktop computer displays make use of CRTs.
The CRT in a computer display is similar to the picture tube in a television receiver.
Cathode Ray Tube(CRT)
Basic component of CRT:
- Tube pin (connectors): A CRT typically has a set of connector pins at the back of the tube,
to control the tube. Types of tube pin are:
- Heater pins: There are two heater pins, for power connections. They power the
filament which generates the CRT’s electrons.
Cathode Ray Tube(CRT)
- Deflection pin: It is not mounted at the back of the tube. In tubes which donot include
these pins as part of the regular pinout, you should find the pins upon the neck of the
tube, mounted upon the actual yoke. There are four yoke control pins total, 2 for
horizontal positions and two for vertical position. Changing the voltage across these
pins changes the vertical or horizontal position of the electron beam on the screen.
Cathode Ray Tube(CRT)
Basic component of CRT:
- Grid pins: Control the level of voltage in CRT’s grids.
- Cathode pin: In monochrome CRT there is only one cathode pin but in colour CRT there
are three, one for each of the light’s primary color). These pins are basically used as
digital inputs rather than analog. They are turned on when that particular cathode is
meant to shine and turned off when it is not meant to. They are used in conjunction
with the deflection control pins to control what colors are placed on the screen and
where.
Cathode Ray Tube(CRT)
Basic component of CRT:
- Cathode: It is negatively charged electrode that attracts +ve charge. It produce
electron i.e. cathode is the source of electron.
- Electron: Electron is a subatomic particle whose electric charge is –ve.

Heating filament

Cathode
Cathode Ray Tube(CRT)
- Electron beam: Stream of electrons generated by heat. The electron in vacuum
can be accelerated and their orbits controlled by electric or magnetic fields. A
electron beam carry high kinetic energy.
- Anode: It is positively charged electrode that attracts –ve charge.

Heating filament

Cathode
Cathode Ray Tube(CRT)
Basic component of CRT:
- Grid: There important anodes between the heater and the rest of the CRT assembly.
These anodes are commonly called the grids.
- The first grid is the control grid, second grid is the screen grid and the third grid is
the focus grid.

Heating filament

Cathode
Cathode Ray Tube(CRT)
- Control grid control the brightness of the CRT. It is placed directly on the top of
the cathode. If there is no voltage on control grid, the electrons can flow freely
from the cathode. If there is some negative voltage, the electrons from the
cathode are repelled and the screen appears darker. The more the voltage on
control Grid, the darker the screen becomes.

Heating filament

Cathode Control Grid

Cathode Ray Tube(CRT)
- Focusing grid also called focusing anode controls the focus of the electron beam.
This required to make the beam create a small sharp point on the screen.
- The screen grid known as accelerating anodes or cutoff serves to push the
electrons so that electrons travel more quickly toward the screen. This anode may
be referred to as the accelerating anodes. The screen anode actually uses a
positive voltage to pull the electrons.

Focusing anode
Heating filament

Cathode Control Grid

Accelerating
anode
Cathode Ray Tube(CRT)
Basic component of CRT:
- Deflection system: Deflection system consists of two sets of electromagnets, one for
vertical positioning, one for horizontal. Sometimes coils are used and sometimes
plates are used. These serves to control where the electron beam is targeted. The
electrons in the beam are sensitive to magnetism and can be moved. The vertical
plates control the vertical position of the electron beam and the horizontal plates
control the horizontal position of the electron beam.
Focusing anode Horizontal deflection
Heating filament plates

Cathode Control Grid

Accelerating Vertical deflection
anode plates
Cathode Ray Tube(CRT)
Basic component of CRT:
- Screen: It is a plate of glass, coated by phosphor. When a part of this coating is struck
with the electron beam, the phosphor become excited and they produce light. The
chemical composition of the phosphor determines what color of light it will produce.
The electron beam must strike each phosphor individually. The strength of the
electron beam determines how brightly the phosphor will glow.

Focusing anode Horizontal

Heating filament deflection plates

Cathode Control Grid

Accelerating Vertical deflection
anode plates
Cathode Ray Tube(CRT)
Basic component of CRT:
- So what is electron gun?
- The assembly of cathode and control grid is called the electron gun.
Cathode Ray Tube(CRT)
Persistence:
▪ Time it takes the emitted light from the screen to decay to one tenth of its original
intensity.
▪ Lower the persistence phosphors requires higher refresh rates to maintain a picture on a
screen without flicker.
▪ A phosphor with low persistence is useful for animation whereas high persistence
phosphor is useful for displaying highly complex, static pictures.
▪ Graphics monitors are usually constructed with a persistence in the range from 10 to 60
microseconds.
Raster Scan Display
- In this technology, electron beam is swept across the screen, one row at a time from top to
bottom, during this beam intensity is turned on or off to create a pattern of illuminated
spots.
- Framebuffer is a memory area which holds the set of intensity values for all screen points.
- Intensity values are then retrieved from refresh buffer and painted on the screen one row
(scan line) at a time.
- Each screen point is referred to as pixel or pel (picture element).
- The capability of raster scan system to store intensity information for each screen point
makes it well suited for realistic display of scenes containing dedicated shading and color
patterns.
- Intensity range for pixel position depends on the capability of the raster system. For
example: in black and white system, each screen point is either on or off. Therefore only
one bit per pixel is needed to control the intensity of screen positions.
- A bit value of 1 indicate that electron beam is turned on at that position and 0 indicates
beam intensity is to be off.
- Additional bits are needed when color and variations can be displayed.
Raster Scan Display
- A system with 24 bits per pixel, and screen resolution of 1024×1024 requires 3 MB of
storage for the frame buffer.
- Bitmap: Frame buffer on a black and white system with one bit per pixel
- Pixmap: The frame buffer of a system with multiple bits per pixel.
- Refreshing on a raster scan displays is carried out at the rate of 60 to 80 frames per
second.
- A refresh rate of 60 frames per second is termed as 60 Hz.
- Horizonatal retrace: At the end of each scan line, the electron beam returns to the left
side of the screen to begin displaying the next scan line. The return to the left of the
screen after refreshing each scan line is horizontal retrace.
- Vertical retrace: At the end of each frame the electron beam returns to the top left corner
of the screen to begin the next frame.
Raster Scan Display
- Interlaced refresh procedure: On some raster scan systems each frame is displayed in two
passes using an interlaced refresh procedure. At higher resolutions, the frame is
sometimes scanned in interlaced fashion: first the odd numbered lines and then the even
numbered lines. This allows for a lower refresh rate without producing flicker. Although it
is best suited for text and fixed graphics display but not suitable for animated graphics.
- Interlacing is primarly used with slower refreshing rates. For example: with a raster scan
display with 30 frames per second, noninterlaced display, some flicker is noticed.
- But with interlacing each of the two passes can be accomplished in 1/60th of a second
which brings the refresh rate nearer to 60 frames per second and can avoid flicker.
Random Scan Display
- In random scan display unit, a CRT has the electron beam directed only to the
parts of the screen where a picture to be drawn.
- Random scan monitors draw a picture one line at a time and for this reason are
also referred to as vector or stroke writing or calligraphic displays).
- Refresh rate on a random-scan system depends on the number of lines to be
displayed.
- In this picture definition stored as a set of line drawing commands in an area of
memory referred to as the refresh display file or display list, display program or
refresh buffer.
- To display a specified picture, the system cycles through the set of commands in
the display file drawing each component line in turn.
- After all line drawing commands are processed the system cycles back to the first
line command in the list.
Random Scan Display
- Random scan displays are designed to draw all the component lines of a picture
30 to 60 times each second.
- Random scan display are designed for line drawing applications and cannot
display realistic shaded scenes.
- Picture definition is stored as a set of vector displays generally have higher
resolution than raster systems.
- It help to produce the smooth line drawings because the CRT beam directly
follows the line path.
Color CRT montiros
- A CRT monitor displays color pictures by using a combination of phosphors that
emit different colored light.
- By combining the emitted light from the different phosphors, a range of colors
can be generated.
- Technique for producing color displays with CRT:
- Beam Penetration
- Shadow masking
Color CRT montiros
- Beam Penetration:
- It used random scan monitors for displaying color pictures.
- It has two layer of phosphor, usually red and green, coated onto the inside of the CRT
screen and the displayed color depends on how far the electron beam penetrates into
the phosphor layers.
- A slow electron excites only the outer red layer.
- A beam of very fast electrons penetrates through red layer and excites the inner green
layer.
- Beam speeds and combination of red and green light are emitted to show two
additional colors, orange and yellow. The speed of electron and screen color at any
point is controlled by the beam acceleration voltage.
Color CRT montiros
- Shadow mask method:
- Shadow mask method normally used in raster scan system as it can produce a
wide range of colors than beam penetration method.
- It has 3 phosphor color dots at each pixel position.
- One phosphor dot emits a red light, another emits a green light and the third
emits a blue light.
Color CRT montiros
- Shadow mask method:
- It has three electron gun one for each color dot.
- Shadow mask grid just behind phosphor coated screen is placed which consist
of a holes where a single hole is equal to pixel.
- The three electron beams are deflected and focused as a group into the
shadow mask which contains a series of holes aligned with the phosphor dot
patterned. When three beam passes through a hole in the shadow mask they
activate a triad (a dot triangle).
- The phosphor dots in the triangles are arranged so that each electron beam
can activate only its corresponding color dot when it passes through the
shadow mask.
Color CRT montiros
- Shadow mask method:

Triangular (Delta) Inline (High resolution

color CRT)
Color CRT montiros
- Shadow mask method:
- The inline arrangement in three electron guns help the three electron guns
and the corresponding RGB color dots on the screen.
- The inline arrangement of electron gun is easier to keep alignment and
normally used for high resolution color CRTs.
- We obtain color variations in a shadow mask CRT by varying the intensity
levels of the three electron beam.
- The color we see depends on the amount of excitation of the red, green and
blue phosphors.
- High quality raster graphics systems have 24 bits per pixel in the frame buffer
which allow 256 voltage settings for each electron gun with nearly 17 million
color choices for each pixel.
- An RGB color systems with 24 bits of storage per pixel is generally referred to
as full color or true color system.
Direct View Storage tube
- It stores the picture information inside the CRT instead of refreshing the screen.
- DVST stores the picture information as a charge distribution just behind the phosphor
coated screen.
- Two electron guns are used in DVST: Primary gun and flood gun.
- Primary gun or writing gun used to store picture pattern as a +ve charge on storage
grid whereas flood fun maintains the picture display.
- It doesnot required refreshing so complex pictures can be displayed at very high
resolution without flicker. However it donot display color and selected parts of a
picture cannot be erased. To erase certain part of the picture entire screen must be
erased and modified picture must be redrawn which is time consuming for complex
picture.
Direct View Storage tube
- It stores the picture information inside the CRT instead of refreshing the screen.
- DVST stores the picture information as a charge distribution just behind the phosphor
coated screen.
- Two electron guns are used in DVST: Primary gun and flood gun.
- Primary gun or writing gun used to store picture pattern as a +ve charge on storage
grid whereas flood fun (collector)maintains the picture display which has lesser energy.
- Electrons passes through collector at low speed and are attracted by +vely charged
picture pattern on storage grid and are repelled by the rest. The attracted electrons by
positive picture pattern pass right through it and strike on phosphor making it visible
screen.
Flat panel display
- It is a class of video devices that have reduced volume, weight and power
requirements compared to a CRT.
- Example: Small TV monitors, calculators, pocket video games, laptop computer,
etc.
- Types of flat panel display:
- Emissive displays
- Non emissive displays
Flat panel display
- Emissive display:
- It is a device which convert electrical energy into light
- Example: Plasma panels, thin film electroluminescent display, LED,etc.
- Non emissive display:
- It is a device which convert sunlight or light from other source into graphics
patterns. Example: LCD.
Plasma Panel
- It is called as gas discharge display are constructed by filling the region between
two glass plates with a mixture of gases that usually includes neon.
- It consists of two ribbon, Horizontal and vertical ribbons on two glass panel.
- Firing voltages applied to a pair of horizontal and vertical conductors cause the
gat the intersection of the two conductors to break down into a glowing plasma
of electron and ions.
- Picture definition is stored in refresh buffer and the firing voltages are applied to
refresh the pixel positions (intersecting the conductors) 60 times per second.
- For brighter display it use alternating current method.
- Separation between pixels is provided by the electric field of the conductors.
- Mostly it is used in monochromatic system but system have been developed for
displaying color and grayscale using plasma panel.
Thin film electroluminescent displays:
- It is similar to plasma panel expect that the region between the glass plates is
filled with a phosphor such as zinc sulfide doped with manganese rather than
gas.
- When sufficiently high voltage is applied to a pair of crossing electrodes the
phosphor becomes a conductor in an area of the intersection of the two
electrodes.
- Electrical energy is then absorbed by the manganese atoms which then release
energy as a spot of light similar to the flowing plasma effect in a plasma panel.
LED (Light Emitting Diode)
- It is a emissive device where a matrix of diodes is arranged to form the pixel
positions in the display and picture definition is stored in refresh buffer.
- As in scan line refreshing of a CRT, information is read from refresh buffer and
converted to voltage levels that are applied to the diodes to produce the light
patterns in the display.
LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)
- It is non-emissive devices which produce a picture by passing polarized light
from the surroundings or from an internal light source through a liquid crystal
materials that are aligned to either block or transmit the light fully or partially.
- It has a crystalline arrangement of molecules, which flow like a liquid.
LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)
- A flat panel display commonly use nematic liquid crystal compound that tend to keep
the long axes of the rod shaped molecules aligned.
- Two glass plates each containing a light polarizer at right angles to the other plate,
sandwich the liquid crystal material.
- Rows of horizontal transparent conductors are built into one glass plate and columns
of vertical conductors are put into the other plate.
- The intersection of two conductors defines a pixel position.
LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)
- Passive matrix LCD:
- 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 conductors to align the molecules
so that the light is not twisted. This type of flat-panel device is referred to as a
passive-matrix LCD.
- Picture definitions are stored in a refresh buffer, and the screen is refreshed at the
rate of 60 frames per second, as in the emissive devices. Back lighting is also
commonly applied using solid-state electronic devices, so that the system is not
completely dependent on outside light sources. Colors can be displayed by using
different materials or dyes and by placing triad of color pixels at each screen
location.
LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)
- Active matrix LCD:
- Transistor is palced at each pixel location using thin flim transistor technology. The
transistors are used to control the voltage at pixel locations and to prevent charge
from gradually leaking out of the liquid crystal cells. These devices are called active
matrix displays.
Software Standards
- With standard graphics functions software can be moved easily from one hardware
system to another and used in different implementations and applications.
- If we do not have standard programs for graphics, designed for one hardware system
often cannot be transferred to another system without extensive rewriting of the
programs.
- Types of software standards for graphics:
- GKS (Graphical Kernel System)
- PHIGS (Programmer’s Hierarchical
Software Standards
- GKS (Graphical Kernel System):
- This was the first graphics software standard developed by ISO, ANSI and various
national standards organizations.
- GKS was originally designed for 2D graphics package and later on 3D GKS extension
was subsequently developed.
- PHIGS (Programmer’s Hierarchical Interactive Graphics Standard):
- It is an extension of GKS with increased capabilities for object modeling, color
specifications, surface rendering and picture manipulation.
- The extension of PHIGS called PHIGS+ was developed to provide 3D surface shading
capabilities which was not available in PHIGS.
- Standard graphics functions are defined as a set of specifications that is
independent of any programming language.
Software Standards
- PHIGS (Programmer’s Hierarchical Interactive Graphics Standard):
- A language binding is then defined for a particular high level programming
language which allow for accessing various standard graphics functions from this
language.
- For example: the general form of the PHIGS and GKS function for specifying a
sequence of n-1 connected 2D straight line segment is : polyline(n,x,y). In FORTRAN
this procedure is implemented as a subroutine with the name GPL.
- In C the procedure would be invoked with ppolyline(n,pts) where pts is the list of
coordinate endpoint positions.

- PHIGS only provide a specification for basic graphics functions, it doesnot provide a
standard methology for a graphics interface to output devices.
- Computer Graphics Interface (CGI) is a standardization for device interface
methods.
- Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) system specifies standards for archiving and
transporting pictures.
Software Standards
- PHIGS Workstations:
- The term workstation refers to a computer system with a combination of input and
output devices that is designated for a single user.
- PHIGS and GKS workstation is used to identify various combinations of graphics
hardware and software.
- A PHIGS workstation can be a single output device, a single input device, a
combination of input and output devices, a file or even a window displayed on a
video monitor.
Raster Scan Systems
- Video Controller
- A special purpose processor called video controller or display controller is used to
control the operation of the display device.
- In addition to the video controller most sophisticated raster system employ other
processors as coprocessors and accelerators to implement various graphics
operations.
Raster Scan Systems
- Video Controller
- In a raster system, 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 locations and screen positions are referenced in Cartesian
coordinates.
- In most of the graphics monitors the coordinates origin from lower left screen
corner. The screen surface is then represented at the first quadrant of 2D system
with +ve x values increasing to the right and positive y values increasing from
bottom to top.
- Scan line are labelled from ymax at the top to 0 at the bottom, each scan line screen
pixel positions are labelled from 0 to xmax.
Raster Scan Systems
- Video Controller
- In video controller, two registers (x register and y register) are used to store the
coordinates of the screen pixels where initially, x register is set to 0 and y register is
set to ymax.
- The value stored in the frame buffer for this pixel position is then retrieved and
used to set the intensity of the CRT beam. Then the x-register is incremented by 1
and the process repeated for the next pixel position on the top of the scan line.
Raster Scan Systems
- Video Controller
- After the last pixel on the top of the scan line has been processed, the x-register is
reset to 0 and the register y is decremented by 1. After cycling through all pixels
along last scan line (y=0) the video controller resets the registers to the first pixel
position on the top scan line and the refresh process start over.
- To speed up the pixel processing, video controller can retrieve multiple pixel values
from the refresh buffer on each pass and multiple intensities values are stored in
separate register and used to control the CRT beam intensity for a group of
adjacent pixels. When that group of pixels has been processed the next block of
pixel values is retrieved from the frame buffer.
Raster Scan Systems
- Video Controller
- In high quality systems, two buffers are often used, one for refreshing and other to
fill the intensity values where the two buffers can switch the roles.
- This is used to provide fast mechanism for generating real-time animations, since
different views of moving objects can be successively loaded into the refresh buffer
and also some transformations can be accomplished by the video controller.
Raster Scan Systems
- Raster Scan Display Processor:
- It is also referred to as graphics controller or display coprocessor. It’s main task is to
free the CPU from the graphics routine rasks.
- It’s major task is to digitizing a picture definition given in an application program
into a set of pixel intensity values for storage in the frame buffer. The digitization
process is called scan conversion.
- It can also be used for generating various lines sytles (dashed, dotted, solid),
displaying color areas and performing certain transformations and manipulations
on displayed objects. As well as to interface with interactive input devices such as
a mouse.
Raster Scan Systems
- Raster Scan Display Processor:
- There are three common methods for storing raster data:
- Cell encoding
- Run-length encoding
- Quad tree
Raster Scan Systems
- Raster Scan Display Processor:
- To reduce the memory requirements in raster system, frame buffer has been
organized in linked list and encoding the intensity information. For this, one way is
to store each scan line as a set of integer pairs, where one number repesents the
intensity value and the second number represents the number of adjacent pixels
on the scan line that are to have that intensity. This method is called run length
encoding. This method help to save the storage space if a picture is to be
constructed with long runs of a single color each.
- Another method is cell encoding which encode the raster as a set of rectangular
areas i.e. raster is stored as a matrix and its cell values are written into a file by row
and column.
- The disadvantages of encoding runs are :
- Intensity changes are difficult to make and storage requirements actually
increase as the length of the runs decreases.
- It is difficult for display controller to process the raster when many short runs
are involved.
Random Scan Systems
- In this system, an application program is input and stored in the system memory along
with a graphics package. Graphics commands in the application program are translated
by the graphics package into a display file stored in the system memory.
- This display file is then accessed by the display processor to refresh the screen.
- The display processor cycles through each command in the display file program once
during every refresh cycle.
- Graphics patterns drawn on this system by directing electron bema along the
component lines of the pictures.
- Lines are defined by the values of their coordinate endpoints and these input
coordinate values are converted to x and y deflection voltage.
- A scene is then drawn one line at a time by positioning the beam to fill in the line
between specified endpoints.