Digital Image Processing Guide

This document provides an overview of digital image processing. It defines a digital image as a finite set of digital values called pixels that represent properties like gray levels or colors. Common image file formats store 1, 3, or 4 samples per pixel for grayscale, RGB, and RGBA images respectively. Digital image processing focuses on improving images for human interpretation and processing images for machine perception tasks. The document outlines the history of the field and provides examples of applications in areas like medicine, astronomy, geography, industrial inspection, and law enforcement. It identifies key stages in digital image processing like acquisition, enhancement, restoration, morphological processing, segmentation, recognition, and representation.

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Digital Image Processing Guide

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Roshan atul

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Digital Image Processing

Dr.N Veda kumar

Professor,ECE
Sridevi Womens Engineering College
What is a Digital Image?
A digital image is a representation of a two-dimensional image as a
finite set of digital values, called picture elements or pixels
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
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
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
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
History of Digital Image
Processing
Early 1920s: One of the first applications of digital imaging was in
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

the news-
paper industry
• The Bartlane cable picture
transmission service
• Images were transferred by submarine cable between London
Early digital image
and New York
• Pictures were coded for cable transfer and reconstructed at the
receiving end on a telegraph printer
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
reproduced images

Improved
digital image Early 15 tone digital
image
History of DIP (cont…)
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
in other space missions
including the Apollo landings

A picture of the moon taken

by the Ranger 7 probe
minutes before landing
History of DIP (cont…)
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
Tomography (CAT) scans

Typical head slice CAT

image
History of DIP (cont…)
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
Applications – Imaging
modalities
Applications: Image
Enhancement
One of the most common uses of DIP techniques: improve
quality, remove noise etc
Applications: 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
Applications: Artistic Effects
Artistic effects are used to
make images more visually
appealing, to add special
effects and to make composite
images
Applications: Medicine
X-ray imaging
Applications: Medicine (cont...)
Gamma-ray imaging
Applications: Medicine (cont...)
•Radio frequencies
•Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
Applications: Medicine (cont...)
Ultrasound
Applications: Medicine (cont...)
3D tomography and rendering with transparencies (1)
Applications: Medicine (cont...)
3D tomography and rendering with transparencies (2)
Applications: Medicine (cont...)
3D tomography and rendering with transparencies (3)

Human brain Cancer cell Ice Block

(128 cross-sections) (256 cross-sections) (Human brain)
(128 cryo-sections)
Applications: Medicine (cont...)
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

Applications: GIS
Geographic Information Systems
• Satellite imagery
• Terrain classification (LANDSAT)
• Meteorology (NOAA)
Applications: GIS (cont…)
Night-Time Lights of the World data
set
(infra red)
• Global inventory of human
settlement
• Not hard to imagine the kind of
analysis that might be done using
this data
Applications: 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?
Applications: 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
Applications: 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
Applications: 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
Key Stages in Digital Image Processing

Image Morphological
Restoration Processing

Image
Segmentation
Enhancement