Digital Im age
Processing
Lecture No: 02
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W hat is Digital Image Processing?
● An image may be defined as a two-dimensional function f(x,y) where x and y
are spatial (plane) coordinates.
● Amplitude of f at any pair of coordinates is called “ Intensity or gray level of
the image” at that point.
● x,y, and the amplitude values of f are all finite, discrete quantities, the image is
called as “Digital Image”
● Image is composed of a finite number of elements with particular location and
value.
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W hat is DIP (Cont’d…)
● These elements are referred to as picture elements, image elements, pels, and
pixels.
● Image processing can be defined as a discipline in which both the input and
output of a process are images.
● On the other hand, computer vision – whose ultimate goal is to use computers
to emulate human vision, including learning and being able to make
inferences and take actions based on visual inputs.
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W hat is DIP (Cont’d…)
Digital image processing focuses on three major tasks
● Improvement of pictorial information for human
interpretation.
● Image processing for autonomous machine application
● Processing of image data for storage, transmission and
representation
Some argument about where image processing ends and fields such as
image analysis and computer vision start
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W hat is DIP (Cont’d…)
Hum an Perception
Employ methods able to enhance pictorial information
for human interpretation and analysis such as:
● Noise filtering
● Content enhancement
● Contrast enhancement
● Deblurring
● Remote sensing
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W hat is DIP (Cont’d…)
● The continuum from image processing to computer
vision can be broken up into low-, mid- and high-level
processes
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History of Digital I mage Processing
Early 1920s: One of the first applications of
digital imaging was in the newspaper
industry
● The Bartlane cable picture transmission
service
● Images were transferred by submarine
cable between London and New York
● Pictures were coded for cable transfer and
reconstructed at the receiving end on a telegraph
printer
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History of DIP (Cont’d…)
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
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History of DIP (Cont’d…)
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
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History of DIP (Cont’d…)
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
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History of DIP (Cont’d…)
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
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Examples: Image Enhancement
One of the most common uses of DIP techniques:
improve quality, remove noise etc
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Examples: 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
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Examples: Artistic Effects
Artistic effects are used to
make images more visually
appealing, to add special
effects and to make
composite images
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Examples: Medicine
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
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Examples: GIS
Geographic Information Systems
● Digital image processing techniques are used
extensively to manipulate satellite imagery
● Terrain classification
● Meteorology
Geographic Information Systems
● Digital image processing techniques are used
extensively to manipulate satellite imagery
● Terrain classification
● Meteorology
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Examples: GIS (Cont’d…)
Night-Time Lights of the
World data set
Global inventory of human
settlement
Not hard to imagine the
kind of analysis that might
be done using this data
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Examples: 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
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Examples: 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
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Key Stages in Digital Image Processing
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Key Stages in Digital Im ag e Processing: Im ag e Aquisition
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Key Stages in Digital I mage Processing: I mage E nhancement
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Key Stages in Digital I mage Processing: I mage Restoration
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Key Stages in Digital I mage Processing:
Morphological Processing
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Key Stages in Digital I mage Processing: I mage Segmentation
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Key Stages in Digital I mage Processing: Object Recognition
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Key Stages in Digital I mage Processing: Representation &
Description
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Key Stages in Digital I mage Processing: I mage Compression
Key Stages in Digital I mage Processing:
I mage Compression
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Key Stages in Digital I mage Processing: Color I mage Processing
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Summary
We have looked at:
What is a digital image?
What is digital image processing?
History of digital image processing
State of the art examples of digital image processing
Key stages in digital image processing
Next time we will start to see how it all works…
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