EC 703:

IMAGE PROCESSING AND

COMPUTER VISION

By:
1
Rahul K Patel
ECE Department
I.I.I.T, Surat
 UNIT - I
Introduction
“One picture is worth more than ten thousand words”
-Anonymous
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
1. Gonzalez R. C. and Woods R. E, "Digital Image Processing",
Pearson Prentice Hall, 3n1 Ed., 2008.
2. Linda Shapiro and Stockman George, "Computer Vision",
Prentice Hall, 15t Ed., 2001.
3. Forsyth D. and Ponce J., "Computer Vision - A Modern
Approach", Prentice-Hall, 1st Ed., 2003.
4. Sonka M. Hlavac V., Boyle R., "Image Processing, Analysis
and Machine Vision", Cengage Learning, 2r4 Indian
Reprint, 2009.
5. Jain R., Kasturi R. and Schunk B., "Machine Vision",
McGraw - Hill, 1st Ed., 1995.
6. Jain A. K., "Fundamentals Of Digital Image Processing",
PHI, 1st Ed., 1989.
7. Ballard D. H. and Brown C. N., "Computer Vision", Prentice
Hall, 1st Ed., 1982.
UNIT - I
 Introduction:

 Digital Image,

 Image Processing Origins; Imaging In X-Rays,

Ultraviolet, Visible Infra red, visible, Microwave
And Radio Bands


 Fundamentals Of Image Processing

 Components Of Image Processing Systems.

UNIT - I
 Digital Image Fundamentals:

 Visual Perception — Human Eye, Brightness Adaptation And

Discrimination, Electromagnetic Spectrum;
 Image Sensing And Acquisition — Single, Strip And Array
Sensors,
 Image Formation Models; Image Sampling And Quantization —
Basic Concepts,
Representation Of Image, Special And Gray Level Resolution,
Aliasing, Zooming And Shrinking;
 Relationships Between Pixels — Nearest Neighbor, Adjacency,
Connectivity, Regions, And Boundaries; Distance Measures;
 Image Operations On A Pixel Basis; Linear And Nonlinear
Operations.
WHAT IS IMAGE?

 “What we see and/or feel is an image” -- (Layman)

 “An image is a representation, likeness, or imitation of an

object or thing, a vivid or graphic description, something
introduced to represent something else” – (Webster
dictionary)
CLASSIFICATION OF IMAGES

Object

Image

Visible Image
Non Visible Images
Pictures
Optical
Photographs
Spectral Temperature
Paintings
bands
Drawing Gravitational
Potential
Wind Profile
CLASSIFICATION OF IMAGES

Visible Image

Digital Image Analog Image

DIGITAL IMAGE
 An image is two dimensional function, f(x,y), where x and y are spatial
(plane) coordinates, and the amplitude of f at any pair of coordinates
(x, y) is called the intensity or grey level of the image at that point

 When x, y, and the amplitude values of f are all finite, discrete

quantities, we call the image a digital image.

 The field of digital image processing refers to processing digital

images by means of a digital computer/processor.

 Digital image is composed of a finite number of elements, which

has a particular location and values referred as a picture
elements, image elements, pels or pixels
Digital Image representation
x

Origin

y
Image “After snow storm” f(x,y)
 f(0,0) f(0,1) f(0,2)……………………….. f(0,M-1)
f(1,0) f(1,1) f(1,2) ………………………..f(1,M-1)

f(x,y)=

f(N-2,0) f(N-2,1)……………………….. f(N-2,M-1)

f(N-1,0) f(N-2,1)………………………….f(N-1,M-1)
 THE ORIGINS OF DIGITAL IMAGE
PROCESSING

One of the first application areas of digital

images was newspapers industries (cable
between London and NY) Digital computers: 1940
1st computer able to do digital image
Important to reduce transfer time manipulations: early 1960

© 1992–2008 R. C. Gonzalez & R. E. Woods

THE ORIGINS OF DIGITAL IMAGE
PROCESSING
 The early Bartlane systems were capable of coding
images in five distinct levels of gray. This capability was
increased to 15 levels in 1929
 THE ORIGINS OF DIGITAL IMAGE
PROCESSING
 Fig. shows the first image of the moon taken by Ranger 7
on July 31, 1964 at 9:09 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time
(EDT), about 17 minutes before impacting the lunar
surface
EXAMPLES OF FIELDS THAT USE
DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING
 Almost each and every area of technical endeavor
that is impacted in some way by digital image
processing

Principal energy source for images today:

electromagnetic energy spectrum.
GAMMA-RAY IMAGING
Gamma rays:

Nuclear medicine
(injection of
radioactive tracer)

Astronomical
observations
(object generate
gamma rays)
 GAMMA-RAY IMAGING
PET = Positron Emission Tomography

imaging at molecular level

 X-RAY IMAGING
 X-rays are among the oldest sources of EM
radiation used for imaging

 Discovered in 1895 by German physicist

William Roentgen (Nobel prize in physics,
1901) - used in medicine/industry/astronomy

 X-ray tube (catode/anode, controlled by

voltage), emitting ray, absorption by object,
rest captured onto a film, digitized

 C.A.T. (Computerized Axial Tomography)

uses X-rays.
An x-ray picture
(radiograph) taken by
Röntgen of Albert von
Kölliker's hand at a
public lecture on 23
January 1896
Copyright: Radiology Centennial, Inc.
EXAMPLES OF X-RAY IMAGING
IMAGING IN THE ULTRAVIOLET BAND
 Applications of ultraviolet “light” are varied.
They include lithography, industrial inspection,
microscopy, lasers, biological imaging, and
astronomical observations

 Fluorescence microscopy is an excellent method

for studying materials that can be made to
fluoresce, either in their natural form (primary
fluorescence) or when treated with chemicals
capable of fluorescing (secondary fluorescence)
 EXAMPLES OF UV IMAGING

Ultraviolet band: Lasers:

microscopy (fluorescence) biological imaging

the excited electron jumps to astronomical imaging
another energy level emitting light
industrial inspections
as a low-energy photon in the red
region
IMAGING IN THE VISIBLE AND INFRARED
BANDS
 Considering that the visual band of the
electromagnetic spectrum is the most familiar in
all our activities, it is not surprising that imaging
in this band outweighs by far all the others in
terms of breadth of application

 The infrared band often is used in conjunction

with visual imaging
EXAMPLES OF IMAGES OBTAINED WITH A LIGHT MICROSCOPE
INFRARED: REMOTE SENSING, WEATHER PREDICTION,
SATELLITE SENSING/ NIGHT VISION

 Thematic bands in NASA’s LANDSAT satellite

LANDSAT SATELLITE IMAGES OF THE
WASHINGTON, D.C. AREA
WEATHER OBSERVATION AND PREDICTION
 Weather observation and prediction also are major
applications of multispectral imaging from satellites
EXAMPLES OF INFRARED SATELLITE IMAGES
EXAMPLES OF INFRARED SATELLITE
IMAGES
AUTOMATED INSPECTION TASKS
EXAMPLES OF IMAGING IN THE VISUAL
SPECTRUM
IMAGING IN THE MICROWAVE BAND
 The dominant application of imaging in the microwave band is
radar
 The unique feature of imaging radar is its ability to collect data
over virtually any region at any time, regardless of weather or
ambient lighting conditions
IMAGING IN THE RADIO BAND
 The major applications of imaging in the radio band are in
medicine and astronomy
 In medicine, radio waves are used in Magnetic Resonance
Imaging (MRI)
EXAMPLES IN WHICH OTHER IMAGING
MODALITIES ARE USED
 Other sources of energy beside electromagnetic
waves are

 Acoustic waves: seismic, marine/atmospheric,

sonar/radar, ultrasound

 Electron microscopy

 Synthetic (computer generated) images

EXAMPLES
EXAMPLES
EXAMPLES
EXAMPLES
 A transmission electron microscope (TEM) works much like
a slide projector
 A scanning electron microscope (SEM), on the other hand,
actually scans the electron beam and records the
interaction of beam and sample at each location
EXAMPLES
 Fractals are striking examples of computer-generated
images (Lu [1997])
 Basically, a fractal is nothing more than an iterative
reproduction of a basic pattern according to some
mathematical rules
 For instance, tiling is one of the simplest ways to generate
a fractal image
 A square can be subdivided into four square sub-regions,
each of which can be further subdivided into four smaller
square regions, and so on
 Depending on the complexity of the rules for filling each
sub-square, some beautiful tile images can be generated
using this method. Of course, the geometry can be arbitrary
EXAMPLES OF FRACTAL IMAGES
FUNDAMENTAL STEPS IN DIGITAL
IMAGE PROCESSING

Image Morphological
Restoration Processing

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object
Acquisition Recognition

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image
Processing Compression
IMAGE ACQUISITION
 Image acquisition is the first process

 Acquisition could be as simple as being given an

image that is already in digital form

 Generally, the image acquisition stage involves

preprocessing, such as scaling
FUNDAMENTAL STEPS IN DIGITAL IMAGE
PROCESSING: IMAGE ACQUISITION

Image Morphological
Restoration Processing

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object
Acquisition Recognition

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image
Processing Compression
IMAGE ENHANCEMENT
 Image enhancement is the process of
manipulating an image so that the result is more
suitable than the original for a specific
application

 The word specific is important here, because it

establishes at the outset that enhancement
techniques are problem oriented

 Ex. A method that is quite useful for enhancing

X-ray images may not be the best approach for
enhancing satellite images taken in the infrared
band of the electromagnetic spectrum
FUNDAMENTAL STEPS IN DIGITAL IMAGE
PROCESSING: IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

Image Morphological
Restoration Processing

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object
Acquisition Recognition

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image
Processing Compression
IMAGE RESTORATION
 Image restoration is an area that also deals with
improving the appearance of an image

 However, unlike enhancement, which is

subjective, image restoration is objective, in the
sense that restoration techniques tend to be
based on mathematical or probabilistic models of
image degradation

 Enhancement, on the other hand, is based on

human subjective preferences regarding what
constitutes a “good” enhancement result
FUNDAMENTAL STEPS IN DIGITAL IMAGE
PROCESSING: IMAGE RESTORATION

Image Morphological
Restoration Processing

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object
Acquisition Recognition

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image
Processing Compression
MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESSING
 Morphological processing deals with tools for
extracting image components that are useful in
the representation and description of shape
FUNDAMENTAL STEPS IN DIGITAL IMAGE
PROCESSING: MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESSING

Image Morphological
Restoration Processing

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object
Acquisition Recognition

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image
Processing Compression
SEGMENTATION
 Segmentation procedures partition an image into
its constituent parts or objects
FUNDAMENTAL STEPS IN DIGITAL
IMAGE PROCESSING: SEGMENTATION

Image Morphological
Restoration Processing

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object
Acquisition Recognition

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image
Processing Compression
OBJECT RECOGNITION
 Recognition is the process that assigns a label
(e.g., “vehicle”) to an object based on its
descriptors
FUNDAMENTAL STEPS IN DIGITAL IMAGE
PROCESSING: OBJECT RECOGNITION

Image Morphological
Restoration Processing

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object
Acquisition Recognition

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image
Processing Compression
REPRESENTATION & DESCRIPTION
 Representation and description almost always
follow the output of a segmentation stage, which
usually is raw pixel data, constituting either the
boundary of a region (i.e., the set of pixels
separating one image region from another) or all
the points in the region itself
FUNDAMENTAL STEPS IN DIGITAL IMAGE
PROCESSING: REPRESENTATION &
DESCRIPTION
Image Morphological
Restoration Processing

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object
Acquisition Recognition

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image
Processing Compression
IMAGE COMPRESSION
 Compression, as the name implies, deals with
techniques for reducing the storage required to
save an image, or the bandwidth required to
transmit it
 Image compression is familiar (perhaps
inadvertently) to most users of computers in the
form of image file extensions, such as the jpg file
extension used in the JPEG (Joint Photographic
Experts Group) image compression standard
FUNDAMENTAL STEPS IN DIGITAL IMAGE
PROCESSING: IMAGE COMPRESSION

Image Morphological
Restoration Processing

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object
Acquisition Recognition

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image
Processing Compression
COLOUR IMAGE PROCESSING
 Color image processing is an area that has been
gaining in importance because of the significant
increase in the use of digital images over the
Internet
 Color is used also as the basis for extracting
features of interest in an image
FUNDAMENTAL STEPS IN DIGITAL
IMAGE PROCESSING: COLOUR IMAGE
PROCESSING
Image Morphological
Restoration Processing

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object
Acquisition Recognition

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image
Processing Compression
COMPONENTS OF AN IMAGE
PROCESSING SYSTEM
THANK YOU