UNIT 2 HARDWARE IN CAD - GRAPHIC

DISPLAY DEVICES

Structure

1.1 Introduction
Objectives
1.1.1 Design Work Station.
1.2 Display Devices
1.2.1 Cathode Ray Tube Technology(CRT)
1.2.2 Random Scan Display
1.2.3 Raster ScanDisplay
1.2.4 Colour and Animation
1.2.5 Shadow Mask
1.3 Flat Panel Display
1.3.1 Liquid Crystal Display
1.4 Summary

1.1 Introduction

Hardware components for computer – aided design are available in a variety of sizes,
configurations and Capabilities. Hence it is possible to select a CAD System that
meets the particular computational and graphics requirements of the user firm. The
hardware restricted to CAD systems that utilize the interactive computer graphics. A
stand-alone CAD system would include the following hardware components such as

One or more Design Work Stations

A graphic Terminal and Graphic Display Device

Operator Input Devices

Plotter and other Output Devices

Central Processing Unit

Secondary Storage

The objective of this unit this unit is mainly to provide description of CAD/CAM
hardware and its related terminology. The types of architectures of CAD/CAM systems,
input devices, output devices, and Graphical Display Devises. Mainly this unit covers
the working of Cathode Ray Tube Graphic Display Devise and other graphic display
systems and Techniques.
Objectives
After Studying this Unit, You should able to understand
• Understand the various display devices used for computer graphics
applications
• Study the working of CRT Graphic Display Device
• Know the application of various graphic display techniques.

1.1.2 Design Workstation

The CAD work station is the system interface with outside world. It represents a
significant factor in determining how convenient and efficient it is for a designer to use
the CAD System. The Design work station shown in fig.1.The workstation must
accomplish the following functions,

Figure: 1 Design Work Station

1. It must interface with the central processing unit.

2. It must generate a steady graphic image for the user.
3. It must provide digital descriptions of the graphic image.
4. It must translate computer commands in to operating functions.
5. It must facilitate communication between user and the system.

The use of interactive computer graphics has been found to be the best approach to
accomplish these functions. A typical interactive graphics workstation would consist of
the following hardware components.

1. A graphics Terminal
2. Operator Output Devises.
1.2 DISPLAY DEVICES

Cathode Ray tube Graphic Display Systems (CRT’s)

• Raster-scan displays(refresh)
• Random-scan displays (vector refresh)
• Colour CRT monitors
• Colour & Animation.
• Flat-panel displays
• Plasma panels
• LCD’s (Liquid Crystal Display)
• Electroluminescent displays
• Flat-panel characteristics
• 3 D Viewing Devices
• VR-Systems (Virtual Reality)

1.2.1 Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) Working Principle

All the computer graphics terminal available today use the cathode ray tube (CRT) as
a display device. The Fig. 2 below illustrates the basic operation of a CRT. A beam of
electrons (cathode rays), emitted by an electron gun, passes through focusing and
deflection systems that direct the beam towards specified position on the phosphor-
coated screen. The phosphor then emits a small spot of light at each position
contacted by the electron beam. Because the light emitted by the phosphor fades
very rapidly, some method is needed for maintaining the screen picture. One way to
keep the phosphor glowing is to redraw the picture repeatedly by quickly directing the
electron beam back over the same points. By focusing electron beam, changing the
intensity, and controlling its point of contact against the phosphor coating through the
use of deflection system, the beam can made to generate a picture in the screen.
The primary components of an electron gun in a CRT are the heated metal cathode
and a control grid. Heat is supplied to the cathode by directing a current through a coil
of wire, called the filament, inside the cylindrical cathode structure. This causes
electrons to be “boiledoff” the hot cathode surface. In the vacuum inside the
CRTenvelope, negatively charged electrons are then accelerated toward the
phosphor coating by a high positive voltage. The accelerating voltage can be
generated with a positively charged metal coating on the inside of the CRT envelope
near the phosphor screen, or an accelerating anode can be used, a in fig below .
Sometimes the electron gun is built to contain the accelerating anode and focusing
system within the same unit.
The Spots of light are produced on the screen by the transfer of the CRT beam
energy to the phosphor. When the electrons in the beam collide with the phosphor
coating, they are stopped and there are stopped and their kinetic energy is absorbed
by the phosphor. Part ofthe beam energy s converted by friction into heat energy,
and the remainder causes electron in the phosphor atoms to move up to higher
quantum-energy levels. After a short time, the “excited” phosphor electrons begin
dropping back to their stable ground state, giving up their extra energy as small
quantum of light energy. What we see on the screen is the combined effect of all the
electrons light emissions: a glowing spot that quickly fades after all the excited
phosphor electrons have returned to their ground energy level. The frequency (or
color ) of the light emitted by the phosphor is proportional to the energy difference
between the excited quantum state and the groundstate.
Different kinds of phosphor are available for use in a CRT. Besides color, a major
difference between phosphors is their persistence: how long they continue to emit
light (that is, have excited electrons returning to the ground state) after the CRT
beam is removed. Persistence is defined as the time it takes the emitted light from
the screen to decay to one-tenth of its original intensity. Lower-persistence
phosphors require higher refresh rates to maintain a picture on the screen without
flicker. A phosphor with low persistence is useful for animation; a high-persistence
phosphor is useful for displaying highly complex, static pictures. Although some
phosphor have a persistence greater than 1 second, graphics monitor are usually
constructed with a persistence in the range from 10 to 60 microseconds

Figure 2 CRT

1.2.2 Raster-scan technique

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. Picture
definition is stored in memory area called the refresh buffer or frame buffer. This
memory area holds the set of intensity values for all the screen points. Stored
intensity values are then retrieved from the refresh buffer and “painted” on the screen
one row (scan line) at a time (Fig.3).Each screen point is referred to as a pixel
(shortened forms of picture element).
Refreshing on raster-scan displays is carried out at the rate of 60 to 80 frames per
second, although some systems are designed for higher refresh rates. Sometimes,
refresh rates are described in units of cycles per second, or Hertz (Hz), where a
cycle corresponds to one frame. 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 called the horizontal
retrace of the electron beam. And at the end of each frame (displayed in 1/80th to
1/60th of a second), the electron beam returns (vertical retrace) to the top left
corner of the screen to begin the next frame.
On some raster-scan systems (and in TV sets), each frame is displayed in two
passes using an interlaced refresh procedure. In the first pass, the beam sweeps
across every other scan line from top to bottom. Then after the vertical retrace, the
beam sweeps out the remaining scan lines (fig.below). Interlacing of the scan lines in
this way allows us to see the entire screen displayed in one-half the time it would
have taken to sweep across all the lines at once from top tobottom

Figure 3 Raster Scan Technique

1.2.3 Random-scan technique

Random scan monitors draw a picture one line at a time and for this reason are also
referred to as vector displays (or stroke-writing or calligraphic displays). The
component lines of a picture can be drawn (Figure 4) and refreshed by a random-
scan system in any specified order.
Refresh rate on a random-scan system depends on the number of lines to be
displayed. Picture definition is now stored as a set of line-drawing commands in an
area of memory referred to as the refresh display file. Sometimes the refresh
display file is called the display list, display program, or simply the 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 have been processed, the system cycles back to
the first line command in the list. Random-scan displays are designed to draw al the
component lines of a picture 30 to 60times each second.

Figure 4 Random Scan

Technique

1.2.4 Colour CRT Monitor, Colourand Animation in Graphics

The capabilities for multicolored objects, images and animated pictures in computer
graphics are largely dependent on hardware considerations. The beam penetration
method for displaying color pictures has been used with random- scan monitors. Two
layers of phosphor, usually red and green, are coated on to theinside of the CRT
screen, and the displayed color depends on how far the electron beam penetrates
into the phosphorlayers. The typical CRT uses three electron beams and a triad of
colour dots on the phosphor coated screen to provide each of the three colours, red,
green and blue. By combining three colours at different intensity levels, a variety of
colours can be created on the screen.

The capabilities of Animation in computer graphics is limited to display methods in

which the image can be quickly redrawn. This limitation excludes the storage tube
terminals. Both the directed –beam refresh and raster scan systems are capable of
animation. In computer aided design, animation would be powerful feature in
applications where the kinematic simulation is required. It is powerful and fast CPU
interfaced to the graphics terminal to process the large volumes of data required for
animated images.

1.2.5 Shadow-mask
Shadow-mask methods are commonly used in raster-scan systems (including color
TV) because they produce a much wider range of color than the beam penetration
method. A shadow-mask CRT has three 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. This type of CRT has three electron guns, one for each color dot, and a
shadow- mask grid just behind the phosphor –coated screen. Figure 4 below
illustrates the delta-delta shadow-mask method, commonly used in color CRT
systems. The three electron beam are deflected and focused as a group onto the
shadow mask, which contains a series of holes aligned with the phosphor-dot
patterns. When the three beams pass through a hole in the shadow mask, they
activate a dot triangle, which appears as a small color spot the screen 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 shadowmask as shown in fig.4

Figure 4 Shadow Mask

Technique

1.3 Flat panel Display

The term flat–panel displays refers to a class of video devices that have reduced
volume, weight, and power requirements compared to a CRT. A significant feature of
flat-panel displayed is that they are thinner than CRTs, and we can hang them on
walls or wear them on our wrists. The flat panel display as shown in fig 5.

It can separate flat-panel displays into two categories: emissive displays and non-
emissive displays. The emissive displays (or emitters) are devices that displays and
light-emitting diodes are examples of emissive displays. Non-emissive displays (or
non-emitters) use optical effects to convert sunlight or light from some other source
into graphics patterns. The most important example of a non-emissive flat-panel
display is a liquid- crystal device. The flat panel display shown in fig 5.
 Figure 5 Flat panel Display

1.3.1 Plasma Display

Plasma panels, also called gas discharge displays, are constructed by filling the
region between two glass plates with a mixture of gases that usually include neon. A
series of vertical conducting ribbons is placed on one glass panel, and a set of
horizontal ribbons is built into the other glass panel. Firing voltages applied to a pair
of horizontal and vertical conductors cause the gas at the intersection of two
conductors to break down into glowing plasma of electrons and ions. Picture
definition is stored in a refresh buffer, and the firing voltages are applied to refresh
the pixel positions (at the intersections of the conductors) 60 times per second.
Another type of emissive device is the light-emitting diode (LED). A matrix of
diodes is arranged to form the pixel positions in the display, and picture definition is
stored in refreshbuffer. As in scan- line refreshing of a CRT, information is read from
the refresh buffer and converted to voltage levels that are applied to the diodes to
produce the light patterns in thedisplay.

1.3.2 Liquid- crystal displays

Liquid- crystal displays (LCDs) are commonly used in systems, such as
calculators and portable, laptop computers. These non-emissive devices 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.
The term liquid crystal refers to the fact that these compounds have a crystalline
arrangement of molecules, yet they flow like a liquid. Flat-panel displays commonly
use nematic (threadlike) liquid-crystal compounds that tend to keep the long axes of
the rod- shaped molecules aligned. A flat-panel display can then be constructed with
a nematic liquid crystal, as demonstrated in fig. below. Two glass plates, each
containing a light polarizer at right angles to the other palate, 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. Normally, the molecules are
aligned as shown in the “on state” of Figure8.Polarizedlight passing through the
material is twisted so that it will pass through the opposite polarizer. The light is
reflected back to the viewer. To turn off the pixel, we apply 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 definition is
stored in a refresh buffer, and the screen is refreshed at the rate of 60 frames per
second, as in the emissive devices.
The 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 a triad of color pixels at
each screen location. Another method for constructing LCDs is to place a transistor
at each pixel location, using thin-film transistortechnology.
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.

1.4 Summary

In this unit covered the construction and working of Cathode Ray Tube Graphic
Display Device (CRT) and also describe the raster –scan display (refresh) technique
and random – scan (Vector Refresh) display technique. In this unit also describes
about colour CRT monitor technique and Flat Panel Display techniques such as
Liquid Crystal Display Techniques.

SAQ’s
1. Explain the working principle of Cathode Ray Tube Graphic Display Device
with neat sketch.
2. List out the various graphic display techniques used in CAD System.
3. Differentiate between Random Scan and Raster Scan Display techniques
4. Explain the working of Flat Panel Graphic Display Technique with neat
Sketch.