Computer graphics machines represent the picture (pixels) as an image and then project it onto a screen.
Then to see computer graphics in action, imagine you are working in a company that has an art department and computer programs communicate pictures directly to their artists who render those pictures onto the monitor.
Basics
Computer graphics refers to computer-mediated visual processing of information. It forms part of video games, films, architecture and medical imaging systems – its techniques informed by sciences like geometry, optics and physics.
Prior to the mid-1960s, computer graphics largely utilised rasters. Raster images are made of pixels that make its image on the screen; found today in early personal computers, graphing calculators and games for phones.
As a computer graphics business, Evans & Sutherland opened Evans & Sutherland in Salt Lake City in 1968. Together they created the light pen instrument which could be used to draw shapes on computer screens and then remember them later; furthermore, they devised an equation to describe the flow of light from the source through the surface to camera lenses; the first key to accurate rendering.
Applications
Computer graphics can be useful for many purposes, data visualization can be applied across many areas. When capturing sales data for reports, computer graphics is more efficient than store and report it, for example.
By the 1960s, computer graphics were advancing further. Researchers like E E Zajac created a movie about how the satellite’s attitude can be modulated when it passes close by Earth in orbit on a mainframe computer at Bell Telephone Laboratory; Evans and Sutherland set up their own computer graphics hardware manufacturer in Salt Lake City because it was near the University of Utah.
Two-dimensional computer graphics are essential for digital art and graphic design, allowing creators to free their imagination and create incredible illustrations and designs. Video game makers utilize the same kinds of graphics to create beautiful and visually arresting environments for our gamers to explore and experience.
Hardware
Computer Graphics Hardware is the hardware that makes software apps draw pictures on computer monitors. This main output device for graphical devices is the video monitor, a cathode ray tube CRT (cathode ray tube with an electron gun) firing beams of electrons directed at specific spots on a phosphor-coated screen. The intensity of each screen point (pixel) is captured into a cache known as the refresh buffer then “painted” on a single row scan line at a time through grab from the cache and “paint”.
Drawing and designing in two dimensions – both with the classical drawing process, but also with more precise and efficient digital approaches – became the new profession of graphic artists, especially in the 1980s with the introduction of home computers like the Amiga and Macintosh. Computers were instantly embraced as ways to both save time and get it right, relative to manual tools.
Software
The computer graphics applications comprise raster and vector graphic editors, video editors, 3D models and web designers. Those include the free vector graphics editor Vectr with a user friendly features both for beginners and experts; Adobe Photoshop, which changed photo editing in its favour as a best-seller in the publishing world.
It wasn’t until the 1960s that computer graphics became commercialised. John Warnock – who later invented PostScript page description language for publishing – led the way in this area when he was at Bell Telephone Laboratory creating an animation of two-giro gravity attitude control system operation.
Computer graphics were also used for business presentation graphics (picture speaks a thousand words), weather maps, medical imaging (MRIs and CT scans), engineering drawings (as a replacement for blueprints), typesetting, random-scan screens with higher resolution screens and faster processing speed, and typesetting. Graphics hardware changed in tandem.
Expensive 3D tools such as TDI (AT&T/CrystalGraphics), ALIAS and trueSpace (Caligari Corporation) emerged. They used random scan panels, which reloaded their matrix every 30-60 seconds to simulate the impression of fast motion.
