Image processing1 introduction

Digital Image Processing:
Introduction

Brian Mac Namee
Brian.MacNamee@comp.dit.ie

Course Website: http://www.comp.dit.ie/bmacnamee

2
of
36
Introduction

“One picture is worth more than ten
thousand words”
Anonymous

3
of
36
Miscellanea
Lectures:
– Thursdays 12:00 – 13:00
– Fridays 15:00 – 16:00
Labs:
– Wednesdays 09:00 – 11:00
Web Site: www.comp.dit.ie/bmacnamee/
– Previous year’s slides are available here
– Slides etc will also be available on WebCT
E-mail: Brian.MacNamee@dit.ie

4
of
36
References
“Digital Image Processing”, Rafael C.
Gonzalez & Richard E. Woods,
Addison-Wesley, 2002
– Much of the material that follows is taken from
this book
“Machine Vision: Automated Visual
Inspection and Robot Vision”, David
Vernon, Prentice Hall, 1991
– Available online at:
homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/BOOKS/VERNON/

5
of
36
Contents
This lecture will cover:
– What is a digital image?
– What is digital image processing?
– History of digital image processing
– State of the art examples of digital image
processing
– Key stages in digital image processing

6
of
36
What is a Digital Image?
A digital image is a representation of a two-
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

dimensional image as a finite set of digital
values, called picture elements or pixels

7
of
36
What is a Digital Image? (cont…)
Pixel values typically represent gray levels,

colours, heights, opacities etc
Remember digitization implies that a digital
image is an approximation of a real scene

1 pixel

8
of
36
What is a Digital Image? (cont…)
Common image formats include:
– 1 sample per point (B&W or Grayscale)
– 3 samples per point (Red, Green, and Blue)
– 4 samples per point (Red, Green, Blue, and “Alpha”,
a.k.a. Opacity)

For most of this course we will focus on grey-scale
images

9
of
36
What is Digital Image Processing?
Digital image processing focuses on two
major tasks
– Improvement of pictorial information for
human interpretation
– Processing of image data for storage,
transmission and representation for
autonomous machine perception
Some argument about where image
processing ends and fields such as image
analysis and computer vision start

10
of
36
What is DIP? (cont…)
The continuum from image processing to
computer vision can be broken up into low-,
mid- and high-level processes
Low Level Process Mid Level Process High Level Process
Input: Image Input: Image Input: Attributes
Output: Image Output: Attributes Output: Understanding
Examples: Noise Examples: Object Examples: Scene
removal, image recognition, understanding,
sharpening segmentation autonomous navigation

In this course we will
stop here

11
of
36
History of Digital Image Processing
Early 1920s: One of the first applications of

digital imaging was in the news-
paper industry
– The Bartlane cable picture
transmission service Early digital image

– Images were transferred by submarine cable
between London and New York
– Pictures were coded for cable transfer and
reconstructed at the receiving end on a
telegraph printer

12
of
36
History of DIP (cont…)
Mid to late 1920s: Improvements to the

Bartlane system resulted in higher quality
images
– New reproduction
processes based
on photographic
techniques
– Increased number
of tones in Improved
digital image Early 15 tone digital
reproduced images image

13
of
36
1960s: Improvements in computing

technology and the onset of the space race
led to a surge of work in digital image
processing
– 1964: Computers used to
improve the quality of
images of the moon taken
by the Ranger 7 probe
– Such techniques were used
A picture of the moon taken
in other space missions by the Ranger 7 probe
including the Apollo landings minutes before landing

14
of
36
1970s: Digital image processing begins to

be used in medical applications
– 1979: Sir Godfrey N.
Hounsfield & Prof. Allan M.
Cormack share the Nobel
Prize in medicine for the
invention of tomography,
the technology behind
Computerised Axial Typical head slice CAT
Tomography (CAT) scans image

15
of
36
1980s - Today: The use of digital image
processing techniques has exploded and
they are now used for all kinds of tasks in all
kinds of areas
– Image enhancement/restoration
– Artistic effects
– Medical visualisation
– Industrial inspection
– Law enforcement
– Human computer interfaces

16
of
36
Examples: Image Enhancement
One of the most common uses of DIP

techniques: improve quality, remove noise
etc

17
of
36
Examples: The Hubble Telescope
Launched in 1990 the Hubble
telescope can take images of
very distant objects
However, an incorrect mirror
made many of Hubble’s
images useless
Image processing
techniques were
used to fix this

18
of
36
Examples: Artistic Effects
Artistic effects are
used to make
images more
visually appealing,
to add special
effects and to make
composite images

19
of
36
Examples: Medicine
Take slice from MRI scan of canine heart,

and find boundaries between types of tissue
– Image with gray levels representing tissue
density
– Use a suitable filter to highlight edges

Original MRI Image of a Dog Heart Edge Detection Image

20
of
36
Examples: GIS
Geographic Information Systems

– Digital image processing techniques are used
extensively to manipulate satellite imagery
– Terrain classification
– Meteorology

21
of
36
Examples: GIS (cont…)
Night-Time Lights of

the World data set
– Global inventory of
human settlement
– Not hard to imagine
the kind of analysis
that might be done
using this data

22
of
36
Examples: Industrial Inspection
Human operators are

expensive, slow and
unreliable
Make machines do the
job instead
Industrial vision systems

are used in all kinds of
industries
Can we trust them?

23
of
36
Examples: PCB Inspection
Printed Circuit Board (PCB) inspection
– Machine inspection is used to determine that
all components are present and that all solder
joints are acceptable
– Both conventional imaging and x-ray imaging
are used

24
of
36
Examples: Law Enforcement
Image processing

techniques are used
extensively by law
enforcers
– Number plate
recognition for speed
cameras/automated
toll systems
– Fingerprint recognition
– Enhancement of
CCTV images

25
of
36
Examples: HCI
Try to make human
computer interfaces more
natural
– Face recognition
– Gesture recognition
Does anyone remember the
user interface from “Minority
Report”?
These tasks can be
extremely difficult

26
of
36
Key Stages in Digital Image Processing

Image Morphological
Restoration Processing

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object
Acquisition Recognition

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image
Processing Compression

27
of
Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:
36 Image Aquisition

Image Morphological

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image

28
of
36 Image Enhancement

Image Morphological

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image

29
of
36 Image Restoration

Image Morphological

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image

30
of
36 Morphological Processing

Image Morphological

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image

31
of
36 Segmentation

Image Morphological

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image

32
of
36 Object Recognition

Image Morphological

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image

33
of
36 Representation & Description

Image Morphological

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image

34
of
36 Image Compression

Image Morphological

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image

35
of
36 Colour Image Processing

Image Morphological

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement

Image Object

Representation
Problem Domain
& Description
Colour Image Image

36
of
36
Summary
We have looked at:
– What is a digital image?
– What is digital image processing?
– History of digital image processing
– State of the art examples of digital image
processing
– Key stages in digital image processing
Next time we will start to see how it all
works…

Image processing1 introduction

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked (20)

Similar to Image processing1 introduction (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Image processing1 introduction

Editor's Notes