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Digital Image Processing:
47 Digital Imaging Fundamentals
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Contents
This lecture will cover:
– The human visual system
– Light and the electromagnetic spectrum
– Image representation
– Image sensing and acquisition
– Sampling, quantisation and resolution
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Human Visual System
The best vision model we have!
Knowledge of how images form in the eye
can help us with processing digital images
We will take just a whirlwind tour of the
human visual system
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Structure Of The Human Eye
The lens focuses light from objects onto the
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

retina
The retina is covered with
light receptors called
cones (6-7 million) and
rods (75-150 million)
Cones are concentrated
around the fovea and are
very sensitive to colour
Rods are more spread out
and are sensitive to low levels of illumination
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Blind-Spot Experiment
Draw an image similar to that below on a
piece of paper (the dot and cross are about
6 inches apart)

Close your right eye and focus on the cross

with your left eye
Hold the image about 20 inches away from
your face and move it slowly towards you
The dot should disappear!
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Image Formation In The Eye
Muscles within the eye can be used to
change the shape of the lens allowing us
focus on objects that are near or far away
An image is focused onto the retina causing
rods and cones to become excited which
ultimately send signals to the brain
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Brightness Adaptation & Discrimination

The human visual system can perceive

approximately 1010 different light intensity
levels
However, at any one time we can only
discriminate between a much smaller
number – brightness adaptation
Similarly, the perceived intensity of a region
is related to the light intensities of the
regions surrounding it
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Brightness Adaptation & Discrimination
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Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

An example of Mach bands

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Brightness Adaptation & Discrimination
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Brightness Adaptation & Discrimination
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Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

An example of simultaneous contrast

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Brightness Adaptation & Discrimination
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For more great illusion examples take a look at: http://web.mit.edu/persci/gaz/

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Available here: http://www.lottolab.org/Visual%20Demos/Demo%2015.html

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Optical Illusions

Our visual
systems play lots
of interesting
tricks on us
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Optical Illusions (cont…)
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Optical Illusions (cont…)
Stare at the cross
in the middle of
the image and
think circles
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Light And The Electromagnetic
47 Spectrum
Light is just a particular part of the
electromagnetic spectrum that can be
sensed by the human eye
The electromagnetic spectrum is split up
according to the wavelengths of different
forms of energy
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Reflected Light
The colours that we perceive are determined
by the nature of the light reflected from an
object
For example, if white
light is shone onto a
green object most Colours

wavelengths are Absorbed

absorbed, while green

light is reflected from
the object
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Sampling, Quantisation And Resolution

In the following slides we will consider what

is involved in capturing a digital image of a
real-world scene
– Image sensing and representation
– Sampling and quantisation
– Resolution
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Image Representation
Before we discuss image acquisition recall
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

that a digital image is composed of M rows

and N columns of pixels
each storing a value col

Pixel values are most

often grey levels in the
range 0-255(black-white)
We will see later on
that images can easily
be represented as f (row, col)

matrices row
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Image Acquisition
Images are typically generated by
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

illuminating a scene and absorbing the

energy reflected by the objects in that scene
– Typical notions of
illumination and
scene can be way off:
• X-rays of a skeleton
• Ultrasound of an
unborn baby
• Electro-microscopic
images of molecules
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Image Sensing
Incoming energy lands on a sensor material
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

responsive to that type of energy and this

generates a voltage
Collections of sensors are arranged to
capture images

Imaging Sensor

Line of Image Sensors

Array of Image Sensors
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Image Sensing

Using Sensor Strips and Rings

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Image Sampling And Quantisation
A digital sensor can only measure a limited
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

number of samples at a discrete set of

energy levels
Quantisation is the process of converting a
continuous analogue signal into a digital
representation of this signal
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Image Sampling And Quantisation
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Image Sampling And Quantisation
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Image Sampling And Quantisation
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Remember that a digital image is always
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

only an approximation of a real world

scene
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Image Representation
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Image Representation
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Image Representation
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Image Representation
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Spatial Resolution
The spatial resolution of an image is
determined by how sampling was carried out
Spatial resolution simply refers to the
smallest discernable detail in an image
– Vision specialists will
often talk about pixel
size
– Graphic designers will
talk about dots per
inch (DPI)
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Spatial Resolution (cont…)
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Spatial Resolution (cont…)
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Spatial Resolution (cont…)
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Spatial Resolution (cont…)
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Spatial Resolution (cont…)
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Intensity Level Resolution
Intensity level resolution refers to the
number of intensity levels used to represent
the image
– The more intensity levels used, the finer the level of
detail discernable in an image
– Intensity level resolution is usually given in terms of
the number of bits used to store each intensity level
Number of Intensity
Number of Bits Examples
Levels
1 2 0, 1
2 4 00, 01, 10, 11
4 16 0000, 0101, 1111
8 256 00110011, 01010101
16 65,536 1010101010101010
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Intensity Level Resolution (cont…)
256 grey levels (8 bits per pixel) 128 grey levels (7 bpp) 64 grey levels (6 bpp) 32 grey levels (5 bpp)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

16 grey levels (4 bpp) 8 grey levels (3 bpp) 4 grey levels (2 bpp) 2 grey levels (1 bpp)
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Saturation & Noise
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Resolution: How Much Is Enough?
The big question with resolution is always
how much is enough?
– This all depends on what is in the image and
what you would like to do with it
– Key questions include
• Does the image look aesthetically pleasing?
• Can you see what you need to see within the
image?
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Resolution: How Much Is Enough?
47 (cont…)

The picture on the right is fine for counting

the number of cars, but not for reading the
number plate
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Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
Intensity Level Resolution (cont…)

Low Detail Medium Detail High Detail

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Intensity Level Resolution (cont…)
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Intensity Level Resolution (cont…)
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Intensity Level Resolution (cont…)
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Summary
We have looked at:
– Human visual system
– Light and the electromagnetic spectrum
– Image representation
– Image sensing and acquisition
– Sampling, quantisation and resolution