Chapter 7: Simple Graphics

and Image Processing

 Simple Graphics

• Graphics: Discipline that underlies the

representation and display of geometric shapes in
two- and three-dimensional space
• A Turtle graphics toolkit provides a simple and
enjoyable way to draw pictures in a window
– turtle is a non-standard, open-source Python
module

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 2

 Overview of Turtle Graphics

• Turtle graphics originally developed as part of the

children’s programming language Logo
– Created by Seymour Papert and his colleagues at
MIT in the late 1960s
• Analogy: Turtle crawling on a piece of paper, with a
pen tied to its tail
– Sheet of paper is a window on a display screen
– Position specified with (x, y) coordinates
• Cartesian coordinate system, with origin (0, 0) at the
center of a window

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 3

 Overview of Turtle Graphics
(continued)

• Together, these attributes make up a turtle’s state

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 4
 Turtle Operations

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 5

 Turtle Operations (continued)

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 6

 Turtle Operations (continued)

• Interface: set of methods of a given class

– Used to interact with an object
– Use docstring mechanism to view an interface
• help(<class name>)
• help(<class name>.<method name>)

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 7

 Object Instantiation and the
turtle Module
• Before you apply any methods to an object, you
must create the object (i.e., an instance of)
• Instantiation: Process of creating an object
• Use a constructor to instantiate an object:

• To instantiate the Turtle class:

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 8

 Object Instantiation and the
turtle Module (continued)

• To close a turtle’s window, click its close box

• Attempting to manipulate a turtle whose window
has been closed raises an error
Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 9
 Object Instantiation and the
turtle Module (continued)

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 10

 Drawing Two-Dimensional Shapes

• Many graphics applications use vector graphics,

or the drawing of simple two-dimensional shapes,
such as rectangles, triangles, and circles

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 11

 Drawing Two-Dimensional Shapes
(continued)

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 12

 Taking a Random Walk

• Like any animal, a turtle can wander around

randomly:

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 13

 Taking a Random Walk (continued)

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 14

 Colors and the RGB System

• Display area on a computer screen is made up of

colored dots called picture elements or pixels
• Each pixel represents a color – the default is black
• RGB is a common system for representing colors
– RGB stands for red, green, and blue
– Each color component can range from 0 – 255
• 255 à maximum saturation of a color component
• 0 à total absence of that color component
– A true color system

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 15

 Colors and the RGB System (cont’d)

• Each color component requires 8 bits; total number

of bits needed to represent a color value is 24
– Total number of RGB colors is 224 (16,777,216)
Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 16
 Example: Drawing with Random
Colors
• The Turtle class includes a pencolor method
for changing the turtle’s drawing color
– Expects integers for the three RGB components

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 17

 Examining an Object's Attributes

• Mutator methods change the internal state of a

Turtle method
– Example: pencolor method

• Accessor methods return the values of a Turtle

object’s attributes without altering its state
– Example: position method

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 18

 Manipulating a Turtle’s Screen
• The Screen object’s attributes include its width
and height in pixels and its background color
• Use t.screen to access a turtle’s Screen
object, then call a Screen method on this object

Fundamentals of Python: From First Programs Through Data Structures 19

 Image Processing

• Digital image processing includes the principles

and techniques for the following:
– The capture of images with devices such as flatbed
scanners and digital cameras
– The representation and storage of images in efficient
file formats
– Constructing the algorithms in image-manipulation
programs such as Adobe Photoshop

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 20

 Analog and Digital Information

• Computers must use digital information which

consists of discrete values
– Example: Individual integers, characters of text, or
bits
• The information contained in images, sound, and
much of the rest of the physical world is analog
– Analog information contains a continuous range
of values
• Ticks representing seconds on an analog clock’s
face represent an attempt to sample moments of
time as discrete values (time itself is analog)
Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 21
 Sampling and Digitizing Images

• A visual scene projects an infinite set of color and

intensity values onto a two-dimensional sensing
medium
– If you sample enough of these values, digital
information can represent an image more or less
indistinguishable (to human eye) from original scene
• Sampling devices measure discrete color values at
distinct points on a two-dimensional grid
– These values are pixels
– As more pixels are sampled, the more realistic the
resulting image will appear
Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 22
 Image File Formats

• Once an image has been sampled, it can be stored

in one of many file formats
• A raw image file saves all of the sampled
information
• Data can be compressed to minimize its file size
– JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
• Uses lossless compression and a lossy scheme
– GIF (Graphic Interchange Format)
• Uses a lossy compression and a color palette of up
to 256 of the most prevalent colors in the image

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 23

 Image-Manipulation Operations

• Image-manipulation programs either transform the

information in the pixels or alter the arrangement of
the pixels in the image
• Examples:
– Rotate an image
– Convert an image from color to grayscale
– Blur all or part of an image
– Sharpen all or part of an image
– Control the brightness of an image
– Perform edge detection on an image
– Enlarge or reduce an image’s size
Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 24
 The Properties of Images

• The coordinates of pixels in the two-dimensional

grid of an image range from (0, 0) at the upper-left
corner to (width-1, height-1) at lower-right corner
– width/height are the image’s dimensions in pixels
– Thus, the screen coordinate system for the display
of an image is different from the standard Cartesian
coordinate system that we used with Turtle graphics
• The RGB color system is a common way of
representing the colors in images

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 25

 The images Module

• Non-standard, open-source Python tool

– Image class represents an image as a two-
dimensional grid of RGB values

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 26

 The images Module (continued)

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 27

 A Loop Pattern for Traversing a Grid

• Most of the loops we have used in this book have

had a linear loop structure
• Many image-processing algorithms use a nested
loop structure to traverse a two-dimensional grid
of pixels

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 28

 A Loop Pattern for Traversing a Grid
(continued)

• Previous loop uses a row-major traversal

– We use this template to develop many of the
algorithms that follow:

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 29

 A Word on Tuples

• A pixel’s RGB values are stored in a tuple:

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 30

 Converting an Image to Black and
White
• For each pixel, compute average of R/G/B values
• Then, reset pixel’s color values to 0 (black) if the
average is closer to 0, or to 255 (white) if the
average is closer to 255

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 31

 Converting an Image to Black and
White (continued)

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 32

 Converting an Image to Grayscale
• Black and white photographs contain various
shades of gray known as grayscale
• Grayscale can be an economical scheme (the only
color values might be 8, 16, or 256 shades of gray)
• A simple method:

– Problem: Does not reflect manner in which different

color components affect human perception
• Scheme needs to take differences in luminance
into account
Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 33
 Converting an Image to Grayscale
(continued)

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 34

 Copying an Image
• The method clone builds and returns a new image
with the same attributes as the original one, but
with an empty string as the filename

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 35

 Blurring an Image
• Pixilation can be mitigated by blurring

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 36

 Edge Detection

• Edge detection removes the full colors to uncover

the outlines of the objects represented in the image

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 37

 Edge Detection (continued)

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 38

 Reducing the Image Size
• The size and the quality of an image on a display
medium depend on two factors:
– Image’s width and height in pixels
– Display medium’s resolution
• Measured in pixels, or dots per inch (DPI)
• The resolution of an image can be set before the
image is captured
– A higher DPI causes sampling device to take more
samples (pixels) through the two-dimensional grid
• A size reduction usually preserves an image’s
aspect ratio

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 39

 Reducing the Image Size (continued)

• Reducing size throws away some pixel information

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 40
 Summary

• Object-based programming uses classes, objects,

and methods to solve problems
• A class specifies a set of attributes and methods
for the objects of that class
• The values of the attributes of a given object make
up its state
• A new object is obtained by instantiating its class
• The behavior of an object depends on its current
state and on the methods that manipulate this state
• The set of a class’s methods is called its interface
Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 41
 Summary (continued)

• Turtle graphics is a lightweight toolkit used to draw

pictures in a Cartesian coordinate system
• RGB system represents a color value by mixing
integer components that represent red, green, and
blue intensities
• A grayscale system uses 8, 16, or 256 distinct
shades of gray

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 42

 Summary (continued)

• Digital images are captured by sampling analog

information from a light source, using a device such
as a digital camera or a flatbed scanner
– Can be stored in several formats, like JPEG and GIF
• When displaying an image file, each color value is
mapped onto a pixel in a two-dimensional grid
– A nested loop structure is used to visit each position
• Image-manipulation algorithms either transform
pixels at given positions or create a new image
using the pixel information of a source image

Fundamentals of Python: First Programs 43