Computer Vision Tutorial

Last Updated : 30 Jan, 2025

Computer Vision is a branch of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that enables

computers to interpret and extract information from images and videos,
similar to human perception. It involves developing algorithms to process
visual data and derive meaningful insights.

Why Learn Computer Vision?

1. High Demand in the Job Market: Essential for careers in AI, machine
learning, and data science across industries like healthcare, automotive,
and robotics.
2. Revolutionizing Industries: Powers advancements in self-driving cars,
medical diagnostics, agriculture, and manufacturing by automating visual
tasks.
3. Solving Real-World Problems: Enhances public safety, improves medical
imaging, and optimizes industrial processes.

Applications of Computer Vision

This Computer Vision tutorial is designed for both beginners and

experienced professionals, covering key concepts of computer vision,
including Image Processing, Feature Extraction, Object Detection and
Recognition, and Image Segmentation.
 Before diving into computer vision, it is recommended to have a
foundational understanding of:

1. Machine Learning

2. Deep Learning

3. OpenCV

These resources will help you build the necessary background for
understanding and implementing computer vision techniques
effectively

Mathematical Prerequisites for Computer Vision

1. Linear Algebra

Vectors
Matrices and Tensors
Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors
Singular Value Decomposition

2. Probability and Statistics

Probability Distributions
Bayesian Inference and Bayes’ Theorem
Markov Chains
Kalman Filters

3. Signal Processing

Image Filtering and Convolution

Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT)
Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)
Data Science Data Science Projects Data Analysis Data Visualization Machine Learning ML Projects De
Principal Component Analysis (PCA)

Image Processing
Image processing refers to a set of techniques for manipulating and
analyzing digital images. The techniques include:

1. Image Transformation is process of modifying or changing an images.

Geometric Transformations
Fourier Transform
Intensity Transformation

2. Image Enhancement improve the visual quality or clarity of image to

highlight important features or details to minimize noise or distortions.

Histogram Equalization
Contrast Enhancement
Image Sharpening
Color Correction

3. Noise Reduction Techniques removes unwanted noise from images while

preserving important features like edges and texture.

Gaussian Smoothing
Median Filtering
Bilateral Filtering
Wavelet Denoising

4. Morphological Operations process images based on their structure and

shape. Common morphological operations include:

Erosion and Dilation

Opening
Closing
Morphological Gradient

Feature Extraction
1. Edge Detection Techniques identify significant changes in the intensity or
color, that corresponds to the boundaries of objects with an image.

Canny Edge Detector

Sobel Operator
Prewitt Operator
Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG)
2. Corner and Interest Point Detection identify points in an image that are
distinctive and can be detected across different views, transformations or
scales.

Harris Corner Detection

Shi-Tomasi Corner Detector

3. Feature Descriptors generates a compact representation of local image

region around keypoints making it easier to correspond features across
different images.

SIFT (Scale-Invariant Feature Transform)

SURF (Speeded-Up Robust Features)
ORB (Oriented FAST and Rotated BRIEF)
HOG (Histogram of Oriented Gradients)

Deep Learning for Computer Vision

Deep learning has revolutionized the field of computer vision by enabling
machines to understand and interpret visual data in ways that were
previously unimaginable.

1. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs)

Convolutional Neural Networks are designed to learn spatial hierarchies of

features from image. Key components include:

Convolutional Layers
Pooling Layers
Fully Connected Layers

2. Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs)

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) consists of two networks

(generator and discriminator) that work against each other to create realistic
images. There are various types of GANs, each designed for specific tasks
and improvements:

Deep Convolutional GAN (DCGAN)

Conditional GAN (cGAN)
Cycle-Consistent GAN (CycleGAN)
Super-Resolution GAN (SRGAN)
 Wasserstein GAN (WGAN)
StyleGAN

3. Variational Autoencoders (VAEs)

Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) are probabilistic version of autoencoders,

which forces the model to learn a distribution over the latent space rather
than a fixed point. Other autoencoders used in computer vision are:

Vanilla Autoencoders
Denoising Autoencoders (DAE)
Convolutional Autoencoder (CAE)

4. Vision Transformers (ViT)

Vision Transformers (ViT) are inspired by transformers models to treat

images and sequence of patches and process them using self-attention
mechanisms. Common vision transformers include:

DeiT (Data-efficient Image Transformer)

Swin Transformer
CvT (Convolutional Vision Transformer)
T2T-ViT (Tokens-to-Token Vision Transformer)

5. Vision Language Models

Vision language models integrate visual and textual information to perform

image processing and natural language understanding.

CLIP (Contrastive Language-Image Pre-training)

ALIGN (A Large-scale ImaGe and Noisy-text)
BLIP (Bootstrapping Language-Image Pre-training)

Computer Vision Tasks

1. Image Classification assigns a label or category to an entire image based
on its content.

Multiclass classification classifies an image into multiple predefined

classes.
Multilabel classification involves assigning multiple labels to a single
image.
 Zero-shot classification classifies images into categories that model has
never seen during training.

You can perform image classification using following methods.

Image Classification using Support Vector Machine (SVM)

Image Classification using RandomForest
Image Classification using CNN
Image Classification using TensorFlow
Image Classification using PyTorch Lightning
Image Classification using InceptionResNetV2

To learn about the datasets for image classification, you can go through the
article on Dataset for Image Classification.

2. Object Detection involves identifying and locating objects within an

image by drawing bounding boxes around them. Object detection include
following concepts:

Bounding Box Regression

Intersection over Union (IoU)
Region Proposal Networks (RPN)
Non-Maximum Suppression (NMS)

Type of Object Detection Approaches

1. Single-Stage Object Detection

YOLO (You Only Look Once)

SSD (Single Shot Multibox Detector)

2. Two-Stage Object Detection

Region-Based Convolutional Neural Networks (R-CNNs)

Fast R-CNN
Faster R-CNN
Mask R-CNN

You can perform object detection using the following methods:

Object Detection using TensorFlow

Object Detection using PyTorch
3. Image Segmentation involves partitioning an image into distinct regions
or segments to identify objects or boundaries at a pixel level. Types of image
segmentation are:

Semantic Segmentation
Instance Segmentation
Panoptic Segmentation

You can perform image segmentation using the following methods:

Image Segmentation using K Means Clustering

Image Segmentation using UNet
Image Segmentation using UNet++
Image Segmentation using TensorFlow
Image Segmentation with Mask R-CNN

To learn more related to this, you can refer to: Computer Vision Tasks

How does Computer Vision Work?

Computer Vision Works similarly to our brain and eye work, To get any
Information first our eye capture that image and then sends that signal to
our brain. Then After, our brain processes that signal data and converted it
into meaningful full information about the object then It
recognizes/categorises that object based on its properties.

In a similar fashion to Computer Vision Work, In CV we have a camera to

capture the Objects and Then it processes that Visual data by some pattern
recognition algorithms and based on that property that object is identified.
But, Before giving unknown data to the machine/Algorithm, we trained that
machine on a vast amount of Visual labelled data. This labelled data
enables the machine to analyze different patterns in all the data points and
can relate to those labels.

Example: Suppose we provide audio data of thousands of bird songs. In that

case, the computer learns from this data, analyzes each sound, pitch,
duration of each note, rhythm, etc., and hence identifies patterns similar to
bird songs and generates a model. As a result, this audio recognition model
can now accurately detect whether the sound contains a bird song or not for
each input sound.

Evolution of Computer Vision

Time Period Evolution of Computer Vision

1. Development of deep learning algorithms for.

recognition image.
2. Introduction of convolutional neural networks (CNNs)
2010-2015 for image classification.
3. Use of computer vision in autonomous vehicles for
object detection and navigation.

1. Advancements in real-time object detection with

systems like YOLO (You Only Look Once).
2. in facial recognition technology, used in various
applications like unlocking smartphones and
surveillance.
2015-2020
3. Integration of computer vision in augmented reality (AR)
and virtual reality (VR) systems.
4. Use of computer vision in medical imaging for disease
diagnosis.

2020-2025 1. Further advancements in real-time object detection and

(Predicted) image recognition.
2. More sophisticated use of computer vision in
autonomous vehicles.
3. Increased use of computer vision in healthcare for early
disease detection and treatment.
 Time Period Evolution of Computer Vision

4. Integration of computer vision in more consumer

products, like smart home devices.

Applications of Computer Vision

1. Healthcare: Computer vision is used in medical imaging to detect
diseases and abnormalities. It helps in analyzing X-rays, MRIs, and other
scans to provide accurate diagnoses.
2. Automotive Industry: In self-driving cars, computer vision is used for
object detection, lane keeping, and traffic sign recognition. It helps in
making autonomous driving safe and efficient.
3. Retail: Computer vision is used in retail for inventory management, theft
prevention, and customer behaviour analysis. It can track products on
shelves and monitor customer movements.
4. Agriculture: In agriculture, computer vision is used for crop monitoring
and disease detection. It helps in identifying unhealthy plants and areas
that need more attention.
5. Manufacturing: Computer vision is used in quality control in defect detect
can It. manufacturing products that are hard to spot with the human eye.
6. Security and Surveillance: Computer vision is used in security cameras to
detect suspicious activities, recognize faces, and track objects. It can alert
security personnel when it detects a threat.
7. Augmented and Virtual Reality: In AR and VR, computer vision is used
to track the user’s movements and interact with the virtual environment.
It helps in creating a more immersive experience.
8. Social Media: Computer vision is used in social media for image
recognition. It can identify objects, places, and people in images and
provide relevant tags.
9. Drones: In drones, computer vision is used for navigation and object
tracking. It helps in avoiding obstacles and tracking targets.
10. Sports: In sports, computer vision is used for player tracking, game
analysis, and highlight generation. It can track the movements of players
and the ball to provide insightful statistics.

FAQs on Computer Vision

 What is OpenCV in computer vision?

OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision Library) is an open source

computer vision and machine learning software library. OpenCV was
built to provide a common infrastructure for computer vision
applications and to accelerate the use of machine perception in the
commercial products.

Is cv2 and OpenCV same?

No, Actually cv2 was a old Interface of old OpenCV versions named
as cv. it is the name that openCV developers choose when they
created the binding generators.

Which algorithm OpenCV uses?

OpenCV uses various algorithms, including but not limited to, Haar
cascades, SIFT (Scale-Invariant Feature Transform), SURF (Speeded-
Up Robust Features), and ORB (Oriented FAST and Rotated BRIEF).

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