1.a) Define Computer Graphics. Explain the applications of Computer Graphics.
Answer:
Basics of Computer Graphics
Computer graphics is an art of drawing pictures, lines, charts, etc. using computers with the help
of programming. Computer graphics image is made up of number of pixels. Pixel is the smallest
addressable graphical unit represented on the computer screen.
Applications of Computer Graphics
a. Graphs and Chart
- An early application for computer graphics is the display of simple data graphs usually plotted on a character printer. Data plotting is still one of the most common graphics application.
- Graphs & charts are commonly used to summarize functional, statistical, mathematical, engineering and economic data for research reports, managerial summaries and other types of publications.
- Typically examples of data plots are line graphs, bar charts, pie charts, surface graphs, contour plots and other displays showing relationships between multiple parameters in two dimensions, three dimensions, or higher-dimensional spaces
b. Computer-Aided Design
- A major use of computer graphics is in design processes-particularly for engineering and
architectural systems. - CAD, computer-aided design or CADD, computer-aided drafting and design methods are
now routinely used in the automobiles, aircraft, spacecraft, computers, home appliances. - Circuits and networks for communications, water supply or other utilities are constructed
with repeated placement of a few geographical shapes. - Animations are often used in CAD applications. Real-time, computer animations using
wire-frame shapes are useful for quickly testing the performance of a vehicle or system.
c. Virtual-Reality Environments
- Animations in virtual-reality environments are often used to train heavy-equipment
operators or to analyze the effectiveness of various cabin configurations and control
placements. - With virtual-reality systems, designers and others can move about and interact with objects in various ways. Architectural designs can be examined by taking simulated “walk” through the rooms or around the outsides of buildings to better appreciate the overall effect of a particular design.
- With a special glove, we can even “grasp” objects in a scene and turn them over or move them from one place to another.
d. Data Visualizations
- Producing graphical representations for scientific, engineering and medical data sets and processes is another fairly new application of computer graphics, which is generally referred to as scientific visualization. And the term business visualization is used in connection with data sets related to commerce, industry and other nonscientific areas.
- There are many different kinds of data sets and effective visualization schemes depend on the characteristics of the data. A collection of data can contain scalar values, vectors or higher-order tensors.
e. Education and Training
- Computer generated models of physical,financial,political,social,economic & othersystems are often used as educational aids.
- Models of physical processes physiological functions,equipment, such as the color codeddiagram as shown in the figure, can help trainees to understand the operation of a system.
- For some training applications,special hardware systems are designed.Examples of suchspecialized systems are the simulators for practice sessions ,aircraft pilots,air trafficcontrol personnel.
- Some simulators have no video screens, for eg: flight simulator with only a control panel for instrument flying
f. Computer Art
- The picture is usually painted electronically on a graphics tablet using a stylus, which cansimulate different brush strokes, brush widths and colors.
- Fine artists use a variety of other computer technologies to produce images. To create pictures the artist uses a combination of 3D modeling packages, texture mapping, drawing programs and CAD software etc.
- Commercial art also uses theses “painting” techniques for generating logos & other designs, page layouts combining text & graphics, TV advertising spots & other applications.
- A common graphics method employed in many television commercials is morphing, where one object is transformed into another.
g. Entertainment
- Television production, motion pictures, and music videos routinely a computer graphics methods.
- Sometimes graphics images are combined a live actors and scenes and sometimes the films are completely generated a computer rendering and animation techniques.
- Some television programs also use animation techniques to combine computer generated figures of people, animals, or cartoon characters with the actor in a scene or to transform an actor’s face into another shape.
h. Image Processing
- The modification or interpretation of existing pictures, such as photographs and TV scans is called image processing.
- Methods used in computer graphics and image processing overlap, the two areas are concerned with fundamentally different operations.
- Image processing methods are used to improve picture quality, analyze images, or recognize visual patterns for robotics applications.
- Image processing methods are often used in computer graphics, and computer graphics methods are frequently applied in image processing.
- Medical applications also make extensive use of image processing techniques for picture enhancements in tomography and in simulations and surgical operations.
- It is also used in computed X-ray tomography(CT), position emission tomography(PET),and computed axial tomography(CAT).
i. Graphical User Interfaces
- It is common now for applications software to provide graphical user interface (GUI).
- A major component of graphical interface is a window manager that allows a user to display multiple, rectangular screen areas called display windows.
- Each screen display area can contain a different process, showing graphical or non -graphical information, and various methods can be used to activate a display window.
- Using an interactive pointing device, such as mouse, we can active a display window on some systems by positioning the screen cursor within the window display area and pressing the left mouse button.