SEM III

CASE STUDY

RETINA DISPLAY
Retina Display is a brand name used by Apple for liquid crystal displays that,
according to Apple, have a high enough pixel density that the human eye is unable to notice pixilation at a typical viewing distance.

The term is used for several Apple products, including the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and MacBook Pro. Because the typical viewing distance is different, depending on each device's use, the pixels per inch claimed to be of retina quality can differ, depending on the size of the display, with higher ppi for smaller displays and lower ppi for larger displays: 326 ppi for the smallest devices (iPhone and iPod Touch), 264 ppi for midsized devices (iPad), and 220 ppi for larger devices (MacBook Pro). When an Apple product has retina display, each user interface widget is doubled in width and height to compensate for the smaller pixels. Apple calls this mode HiDPI mode. Apple has applied to register the term "Retina" as a trademark in regard to computers and mobile devices with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Canadian Intellectual Property Office, and in Jamaica.

Retina Display models

The displays are manufactured by different suppliers in the world. Currently, the iPad's display comes from Samsung, while the Macbook Pro, iPhone, and iPod touch displays are made by LG and Samsung.

MULTIMEDIA

Page 1

SEM III

CASE STUDY

Apple markets the following devices as having Retina Displays.

Model

PPI (pixels per inch)

ppcm (pixels per cm)

Resolution

Typical Viewing Distance (in/cm)

Pixels per Degree (PPD)

iPhone 4/4S and iPod Touch (4th generation) 326 iPhone 5 and iPod Touch (5th generation) 128

960640 10 inches (25 cm) 1136640 57

iPad (3rd/4th generation)

264

105

20481536

15 inches (38 cm)

69

MacBook Pro with Retina Display 15"

220

87

28801800

20 inches (51 cm)

77

MacBook Pro with Retina Display 13"

227

89

25601600

20 inches (51 cm)

79

MULTIMEDIA

Page 2

SEM III
Technical definition

CASE STUDY

When introducing the iPhone 4, Steve Jobs said the magic number for a Retina display is about 300 PPI for a device held 10 to 12 inches from the eye. One way of expressing this as a unit is Pixels per Degree (PPD) which takes into account both the screen resolution and the distance from which the device is viewed. Based on Jobs' magic number of 300, the threshold for a Retina Display starts at a PPD value of 53. 53 PPD means that a tall skinny triangle with a height equal to the viewing distance and a top angle of one degree will have a base on the device's screen that covers 53 pixels. Any display's viewing quality (from phone displays to huge projectors) can be described with this size-independent universal parameter. Note that the PPD parameter is not an intrinsic parameter of the display itself, unlike absolute pixel resolution (e.g. 1024 x 800 pixels) or relative pixel density (e.g. 72 PPI), but is dependent on the distance between the display and the eye of the person (or lens of the device) viewing the display; moving the eye closer to the display reduces the PPD, and moving away from it increases the PPD in proportion to the distance. It can be calculated by multiplying the distance to the screen times the resolution of the screen in pixels per unit length times twice the Tan of divided by 360 (equal to half a degree in radians). Remember to use units, whether imperial or metric, consistently in applying this formula. If the distance to the screen is measured in inches, then the resolution of the screen must be in PPI. If the distance to the screen is measured in centimeters, the resolution of the screen must be in PPC. Two times the Tan of divided by 360 can also be approximated with divided by 180 (= 0.01745). In practice, thus far Apple has converted a device's display to Retina by doubling the number of pixels in each direction, quadrupling the total resolution. This increase, combined with the size-doubling of the user interface, creates a sharper interface at the same physical dimensions.

MULTIMEDIA

Page 3

SEM III

CASE STUDY

Some Stuff about PIXEL DENSITY

Pixels per centimeter (ppcm), Pixels per inch (PPI) or pixel density is a measurement of the resolution of devices in various contexts: typically computer displays, image scanners, and digital camera image sensors. Ppcm can also describe the resolution, in pixels, of an image to be printed within a specified space. Note, the unit is not square centimeters. For instance, a 100100 pixel image that is printed in a 1 cm square has a resolution of 100 pixels per centimeter (ppcm). Used in this way, the measurement is meaningful when printing an image. It has become commonplace to refer to PPI as DPI, which is incorrect because PPI always refers to input resolution. Good quality photographs usually require 300 pixels per inch, at 100% size, when printed onto coated paper stock, using a printing screen of 150 lines per inch (lpi). This delivers a quality factor of 2, which delivers optimum quality. The lowest acceptable quality factor is considered to be 1.5, which equates to printing a 225ppi image using a 150 lpi screen onto coated paper Screen frequency is determined by the type of paper that the image is to be printed on. An absorbent paper surface, uncoated recycled paper for instance, will allow the droplets of ink to spread (dot gain), and so requires a more open printing screen. Input resolution can therefore be reduced in order to minimize file size without any loss in quality, as long as the quality factor of 2 is maintained. This is easily determined by doubling the line frequency. For example, printing on an uncoated paper stock often limits the printing screen frequency to no more than 120 lpi, therefore, a quality factor of 2 is achieved with images of 240 ppi.

MULTIMEDIA

Page 4

SEM III

CASE STUDY

Calculation of monitor PPI

Theoretically, PPI can be calculated from knowing the diagonal size of the screen in inches and the resolution in pixels (width and height). This can be done in two steps: 1. Calculate diagonal resolution in pixels using the Pythagorean Theorem:

2. Calculate PPI:

where is diagonal resolution in pixels is width resolution in pixels is height resolution in pixels is diagonal size in inches (this is the number advertised as the size of the display). For example, for a 21.5 inch (54.61 cm) screen with a 19201080 resolution (in which = 1920, = 1080 and = 21.5), we get 102.46 PPI; for a typical 10.1 inch netbook screen with a 1024600 resolution (in which = 1024, = 600 and = 10.1), we get 117.5 PPI. Note that these calculations may not be very precise. Frequently, screens advertised as X inch screen can have their real physical dimensions of viewable area differ, for example: Apple Inc.'s Mid-2011 iMac is advertised as a "21.5 inch (viewable) [...] display," but its actual viewable area is 545.22 mm or 21.465 inches. The more precise figure increases the calculated PPI from 102.46 (using 21.5) to 102.63. The HP LP2065 20 inch (50.8 cm) monitor has an actual viewable area of 20.1 inch (51 cm).

MULTIMEDIA

Page 5

SEM III
INSIGHTS
Calculating PPI of camera screens

CASE STUDY

Camera manufacturers often quote camera screens in 'number of dots'. This is not the same as the number of pixels, because there are 3 'dots' per pixel red, green and blue. For example, the Canon 50d is quoted as having 920,000 dots. This translates as 307,200 pixels (x3 = 921,600 dots). Thus the screen is 640480 pixels This must be taken into account when working out the PPI. Using the above calculations, you require the screen's dimensions, but other methods require you to have the total pixels, not total dots. 'Dots' and 'pixels' are often confused in reviews and specs when viewing information about digital cameras specifically. Scanners and cameras "PPI" or "pixel density" may also be used to describe the resolution of an image scanner. In this context, PPI is synonymous with samples per inch. In digital photography, pixel density is the number of pixels divided by the area of the sensor. A typical DSLR circa 2013 will have 16.2 MP/cm2; a typical compact will have 2070 MP/cm2. For example Sony Alpha SLT-A58 has 20.1 megapixels on an APS-C sensor having 6.2 MP/cm2 since a compact camera like Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX50V has 20.4 megapixels on an 1/2.3" sensor having 70 MP/cm2. Interestingly, as can be seen here, the professional camera has a lower PPI than a compact camera, because it has larger photodiodes due to having far larger sensors. Named pixel densities The Google Android developer documentation groups displays by their approximate pixel densities into the following categories: LDPI: Low density, ~120 dots per inch MDPI: Medium density, ~160 dots per inch HDPI: High density, ~240 dots per inch XHDPI: eXtra High density, ~320 dots per inch XXHDPI: eXtra eXtra High density, ~480 dots per inch XXXHDPI: eXtra eXtra eXtra High density, ~640 dots per inch Metrication
The digital publishing industry often uses "pixels per centimeter" instead of "pixels per inch".

MULTIMEDIA

Page 6

SEM III
Resolution independence

CASE STUDY

Resolution independence is a computing concept whereby elements on a computer screen are rendered at sizes independent from the pixel grid, resulting in a UI that is displayed at a consistent size, regardless of the size of the screen. Concept As early as 1978, the typesetting system TeX due to Donald Knuth introduced resolution independence into the world of computers. The intended view can be rendered beyond the atomic resolution without any artifacts, and the automatic typesetting decisions are guaranteed to be identical on any computer up to an error less than the diameter of an atom. This pioneering system has a corresponding font system, Metafont, which provides suitable fonts of the same high standards of resolution independence. The terminology Device independent file format is the file format of Donald Knuth's pioneering TeX system. The content of such a file can be interpreted at any resolution without any artifacts, even at very high resolutions not currently in use. Implementation OS X Apple has included some support for resolution independence in earlier versions of OS X (formerly Mac OS X), which could be demonstrated with the developer tools Quartz Debug that included a feature allowing the user to scale the interface. However, the feature was incomplete, as some icons will not show (such as in System Preferences), UI elements were displayed at odd positions and certain bitmap GUI elements are not scaled smoothly. On June 11, 2012, Apple introduced the 2012 MacBook Pro with a new retina display (28801800 or 5.2 megapixels), which doubles the resolution of OS X in every direction. This laptop has a display that is resolution independent and provides options to scale the display by showing relative resolution. The display can be given more or less screen space without actually changing the display resolution.

Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows has supported DPI aware programs since Windows Vista. and allows user specified DPI settings for the windowing interface. The Windows Presentation Foundation from Microsoft, and consequently, WPF applications, are also designed to be resolution-independent.

MULTIMEDIA

Page 7

SEM III
Other

CASE STUDY

Although not related to true resolution independence, some other operating systems use GUIs that are able to adapt to changed font sizes. Microsoft Windows 95 onwards used the MarlettTrueType font in order to scale some window controls (close, maximize, minimize, resize handles) to arbitrary sizes. AmigaOS from version 2.04 (1991) was able to adapt its window controls to any font size. Video games are often resolution independent; an early example is Another World for DOS, which used polygons to draw its 2D content and was later remade using the same polygons at a much higher resolution. 3D games are resolution independent since the perspective is calculated every frame and so it can vary its resolution.

RETINA DISPLAY: With CHROMEBOOK PIXEL

The Chromebook Pixel is a laptop at the high end of Google's Chromebook family of machines, which all use Chrome OS as their operating system. Priced at $1299 at its release on February 21, 2013, the machine featured a touchscreen with the highest pixel density of any laptop, a faster CPU than its predecessors in the Intel Core i5, 32 GB of solid-state storage, and an exterior design described by Wired as "an austere rectangular block of aluminum with subtly rounded edges." A second Pixel featuring LTE wireless communication and twice the storage capacity was shipped for arrival on April 12, 2013, priced at $1449.

MULTIMEDIA

Page 8