DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING

What is an Image ?

An image is a picture or photograph. They are most common and convenient means of storing,
conveying and transmitting information.

What is Digital Image Processing ?

Digital image processing can be defined as subjecting numerical representation of objects to a series
of operations in order to obtain a desired result. Digital image processing begins with one image and
produces a modified version of that image.

Advantages of Digital Image Processing:

Advantages of handling remote sensing data in digital mode as compared to photographic mode are
listed below:

ease in data storage and distribution

images can be identically duplicated during reproduction and distribution without any
change or loss of information
visualisation of greater details
images can be processed to generate new images without altering the original image
faster extraction of quantitative information and
repeatability of results.

Components of an Image Processing System:

Processing Machine (Computer): It may be a general purpose computer according to task to

be performed. The basic use of this device is that it will perform all digital image processing
task off line.
Storage Device: Storage devices are used for storing of images for different purposes and
use.
Display Device: It is used for displaying data. Example of a display device is generally a colour
monitor.
Image Processing Software: Image processing software such as IGIS, ERDAS, NDVI and
Geomatical are specially designed programming modules that perform specific tasks.
Printing Device: It is used for representing and storing image data in hard copy format. It
could be laser, inkjet or any other printer.

Steps in Digital Image Processing:

Image Preprocessing: It is usually necessary to preprocess remote sensing data prior to its
analysis because image data recorded by sensors contain errors which degrade quality of the
image and cause the image to appear noise, blurred and distorted.
Image Enhancement: Image enhancement is carried out to improve the appearance of
certain image features to assist in human interpretation and analysis.
Image Transformations: Image transformations are operations similar in concept to those for
image enhancement.
 Thematic Information Extraction: It includes all the processes used for extracting thematic
information from images

Types of Digital Images

Digital images can be classified into several types based on their form or method of generation.

 Black and White or Binary image Pixels in this type of images show only two colours, either
black or white
 Gray Scale or Monochrome Image Pixels in this type of images show white and black colours
including the different shades between the two colours
 Colour or RGB Image Each pixel in this type of image has a particular colour which is
described by the amount of red, green and blue colours in it

Characteristics of Digital Images/ Sensor resolution

There are three basic measures for digital image characteristics:

o spatial resolution: depends upon satellite orbit configuration and sensor design.
Different sensors have different resolution.
o spectral resolution: I. Resolution depends upon satellite orbit configuration.
II. Signifies the number and width of spectral bands of the
sensors.

III. More and final spectral channels

o Radiometric resolution:
I. Describes the sensors ability to discriminate differences in energy.
II. The better the radiometric resolution the more sensitive the sensor
is.
o Temporal resolution: I. The time it takes to satellite to complete 1 orbit cycle also
called revisit time
III. Depends on satellite sensors capabilities overlap and latitude.
IV. Same satellites have greater resolution.

CONCEPT OF TRUE AND FALSE COLOUR COMPOSITE

True Colour Composite If we display three image bands of a remote sensing data acquired in red,
green and blue spectral ranges in red, green and blue colour guns/plane of a monitor, respectively,
then a true colour composite (TCC) image is generated.

It looks like a natural colour composite image in which spectral bands are combined in such a way
that the appearance of the displayed image resembles a visible colour photograph.

FCC

These are artificially generated colour images in which blue, green and red colours are assigned to
the wavelength regions to which they do not belong
Advantages of digital image processing are:

• images can be identically duplicated during reproduction and distribution without any change or
loss of information

• visualisation of greater details

• images can be processed to generate new images without altering the original image

• faster extraction of quantitative information and

• repeatability of results.

Define an image and a digital image.

2) Discuss major steps in digital image processing.

3) Write about the types of digital image.

4) Define true and false colour composites.

5) What do you mean by image histogram?

Stages in Remote sensing

(a) Source of Energy (sun/self-emission);

(b) Transmission of energy from the source to the surface of the earth;

(c) Interaction of energy with the earth’s surface;

(d) Propagation of reflected/emitted energy through atmosphere;

(e) Detection of the reflected/emitted energy by the sensor;

(f) Conversion of energy received into photographic/digital form of data;

(g) Extraction of the information contents from the data products; and

(h) Conversion of information into Map/Tabular forms

SENSORS

A sensor is a device that gathers electromagnetic radiations, converts it into a signal and presents it
in a form suitable for obtaining information about the objects under investigation

Multispectral Scanners: These sensors are designed to obtain images of the objects while sweeping
across the field of view

The Multi-Spectral Scanners are divided into the following types:

(i) Whiskbroom Scanners (ii) Pushbroom Scanners

(i) Whiskbroom Scanners : The whiskbroom scanners are made up of a rotating mirror and a single
detector

(i) Push broom : The pushbroom scanners consist of a number of detectors which are equivalent to
the number obtained by dividing the swath of the sensor by the size of the spatial resolution

DATA PRODUCTS
Photographic Images: Photographs are acquired in the optical regions of electromagnetic spectrum,
i.e. 0.3 – 0.9 µm

Digital Images: A digital image consists of discrete picture elements called pixels.

Elements of Visual Interpretation

Tone- relative colour or brightness of an object

Shape- general form structure

Size- function of scale

Pattern- visibly discernible of an object

Texture- tonal variation

Shadow- relative height of the object

Association- recognizable objects

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF RASTER DATA MODEL

The use of Raster Data Model confers many advantages :-

First the technology required Raster Graphics is inexpensive and Ubiquitous. Nearly everyone
currently owns some sort of Raster data generator mainly a digital camera and flow cellular phones
are sold today that don`t include such functionality.

Additional advantages of Raster graphics are the relative simplicity of the underline data structure
each great location represented in the raster image corelates to a single value

Dispite the advantage there are also several disadvantages for using the raster data model

The First disadvantage is that raster files are typically very large particularly in the case of raster
images build from the cell by the cell encoding from the methodology the sheer number of values
stored for a given dataset result in potentially anormous files

A second disadvantage of the raster model is that the output images are less than thiei vector
counterparts. This is particularly noticeable where the raster images are enlarged or zoomed.
The final Disadvantage of using the raster data model is that it is not suitable for some types of
spatial analyst.

For example difficulties arise when attempting to overlay and analyse multiple raster graphics
produced at differing scales and pixels resolutions.