DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING

REPRESENTATION & DESCRIPTION

 Introduction
• After an image is segmented into regions; the resulting
aggregate of segmented pixels is represented & described for
further computer processing.
• Representing region involves two choices:
 in terms of its external characteristics
(boundary)
 in terms of its internal characteristics
(pixels comprising the region)
• Above scheme is only part of task of making data useful to
computer.
• Next task is to Describe the region based on
representation.
• Ex. A region may be represented by its boundary & its boundary is
described by features such as its length, the orientation of straight line
joining its extreme points & number of concavities in the boundary.
 Introduction
Q. Which to choose when?

• External representation is chosen when primary focus is on

shape characteristics.

• Internal representation is chosen when primary focus is on

regional properties such as color & texture.

• Sometimes it is necessary to choose both representations.

• Features selected as descriptors should be insensitive to

changes in size, translation & rotation.
 Representation
• It deals with compaction of segmented data into
representations that facilitate the computation of
descriptors.

1) Boundary (Border) Following:

Most of the algorithms require that points in the boundary of a
region be ordered in a clockwise (or counterclockwise)
direction.

We assume
i) we work with binary images with object and background
represented as 1 & 0 respectively.
ii) Images are padded with borders of 0s to eliminate the
possibility of object merging with image border.
 Representation
1) Let the starting point b0 be the uppermost, leftmost point in
the image. c0 the west neighbor of b0. Examine 8 neighbors
of b0 starting at c0 & proceed in clockwise direction.

1 1 1 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

1 1 1 1

Let b1 denote first neighbor encountered with value 1 & c1 be

background point immediately preceding b1 in the sequence.
 Representation
2) Let b = b1 & c = c1
3) Let the 8-neighbors of b, starting at c & proceeding in
clockwise directions be denoted by n1, n2, …..n8. Find first nk
labeled 1.
4) Let b = nk & c = nk-1

c0 b0 1 1 1 b 1 1

1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
 Representation
2) Let b = b1 & c = c1
3) Let the 8-neighbors of b, starting at c & proceeding in
clockwise directions be denoted by n1, n2, …..n8. Find first nk
labeled 1.
4) Let b = nk & c = nk-1

b 1 b 1 b 1 1
0
1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
 Representation
5) Repeat step 3 & 4 until b = b0 & next boundary point found is
b1. The sequence of b points found when the algorithm stops
constitutes the set of ordered boundary points.

The algorithm is also called as Moore boundary Tracking

algorithm.

1 c0 b0 c

1 1 1 1 1 b

1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
 Representation
2) Chain codes:
They are used to represent a boundary by a connected sequence
of straight line segments of specified length & direction.

Typically this representation is based on 4- or 8-connectivity of

segments.

The direction of each segment is coded by using a numbering

scheme.
1 3 2 1

2 0 4 0

3 5 6 7
•
Representation
A boundary code formed as a sequence of such directional
numbers is referred to as a Freeman chain code.

• Digital images are acquired & processed in a grid format

with
equal spacing in x and y directions.

• So a chain code can be generated by following a boundary

(say clockwise direction) and assigning a direction to the
segments connecting every pair of pixels.

Unacceptable method: (because)

1) Resulting chain tends to be quite long
2) Any small disturbances along the boundary due to noise or
imperfect segmentation can cause changes in code.
Representation
•
Representation
A solution to this problem is to resample the boundary by
selecting a larger grid spacing.

• Then, as the boundary is traversed, a boundary point is

assigned to each node of the large grid, depending upon the
proximity of original boundary to that node.

• The re-sampled boundary can now be represented by a 4- or

8-code.

• The accuracy of the resulting code representation depends

on the spacing of the sampling grid.
•
Representation
The chain code of a boundary depends upon the starting
point.

• However the code can be normalized:

– We treat the chain code as a circular sequence of direction
numbers & redefine starting point so that resulting sequence
forms an integer of minimum magnitude.
– We can also normalize for rotation by the first difference of the
chain code instead of the code itself.

Ex. First difference of 4-direction chain code 10103322 is

3133030.
 Representation
• Considering the circular sequence first element is calculated
by subtracting last and first component. Ex. 33133030

• These normalization are exact only if the boundaries are

invariant to rotation and scale change.
 Representation
3) Polygon Approximation using Min. Perimeter Polygons:
• A digital boundary can be approximated with arbitrary
accuracy by a polygon.
• For a closed boundary, approx becomes exact when
no. of
segments of polygon = no. of points in the boundary.
• Goal of poly. Approx is to capture the essence of the shape in
a given boundary using fewest no. of segments.

• Min. Perimeter Polygon (MPP):

– An approach for generating an algorithm to compute MPPs is
to enclose a boundary by a set of concatenated cells.
– Think boundary as a rubb e r band .
– As allowed to shrink, it will be constrained by the inner &
outer
walls of the bounding regions.
•
Representation
This shrinking produces the shape of a polygon of min.
perimeter.

• Size of cells determine the accuracy of the polygonal

approximation.

• In the limit if size of each cell corresponds to a pixel in the

boundary , the error in each cell between the boundary
& the MPP approx. at most would be √2d, where d-min
possible pixel distance.

• This error can be reduced to half by forcing each cell in poly

approx to be centered on its corresponding pixel in the
original boundary.
 Representation
• The objective is to use the largest possible cell size
acceptable in a given application.

• Thus, producing MPPs with fewest no. of vertices.

• The cellular approach reduces the shape of the object

enclosed by the original boundary to the area circumscribed
by the gray wall.

• Fig. shows shape in dark gray.

• Its boundary consists of 4-connected straight line segments.

 Representation
• If we traverse the boundary in counter clockwise direction.

• Every turn encountered in the transversal will be either a

convex (white) or concave(black) vertex, with the angle of
vertex being an interior angle of the 4-connected boundary.

• Every concave vertex has a corresponding mirror vertex in

light gray wall, located diagonally opposite.

• MPP vertices coincide with the convex vertices of inner wall

and mirror concave vertices of outer wall.
 Representation
Other Polygonal Approximation Approaches:
• Merging Techniques:
- Techniques based on average error or other criteria have
been applied to the problem of polygonal approximation.

- One approach is to merge points along a boundary until

the least square error line fit of the points merged so far
exceeds a preset threshold.

- When this condition occurs, parameters of line are

stored, the error is set to 0, the procedure is repeated,
merging new points along the boundary until the error
again exceeds the threshold.

At the end, the intersection of adjacent line segments form the

vertices of the polygon.
 Representation
Splitting techniques:

One approach to boundary segment splitting is to subdivide a

segment successively into two parts until a specified criteria
is satisfied.

For ex. A requirement might be that the max. perpendicular

distance from a boundary segment to the line joining its two
end points not exceeding a preset threshold.

This approach has the advantage of seeking prominent inflection

points.

For a closed boundary, best starting points are two farthest

points in the boundary.
 Representation
Signature:
It is a 1D functional representation of a boundary & may be
generated in various ways.

One of the simplest is to plot the distance from the centroid to

the boundary as a function of angle.

Signatures generated by this method are invariant to

translation
but they depend on rotation and scaling.

Normalization with respect to rotation can be achieved by

finding a way to select the same starting point to generate
the signature, regardless of shape’s orientation.
 Representation
Based on the assumptions of uniformity in scaling wrt. both axes
and that sampling is taken at equal intervals of θ, changes in
size of a shape result in changes in the amplitude values of
the corresponding signature.

One way to normalize this is to scale all functions so that they

always span the same range of values. e.g [0,1]

Main advantage is simplicity but serious disadvantage is that

scaling of the entire function depends upon only two values:
maximum & minimum.

If the shapes are noisy, error can occur.

 Representation
Skeletons:
An important approach to represent the structural shape of a
plane region is to reduce it to a graph.
The reduction may be accomplished by obtaining the
skeleton of
the region via thinning (skeletonizing) algorithm.
Ex. Auto inspection of PCB, counting of asbestos fibers in air
filters.
Skeleton of a region may be defined as the medial axis
transformation (MAT).
MAT of a region R with border B is as follows:
For every point p in R, we find its closest neighbor in B.
If p has more than such neighbor, it is said to belong to the
medial axis (skeleton).
‘prairie fire concept’
 Representation
Implementation involves calculating the distance from every
interior point to every boundary point on region.

Thinning algorithm deals with deleting the boundary points

of a
region subject to condition that deleting these points:
1) Does not remove end points.
2) Does not break connectivity &
3) Does not cause excessive erosion of the region.

Thinning algorithm:
Region points are assumed to have value 1 & background points
are assumed to have value 0.
 Representation

p8 p1 p4
p7 p6 p5
Step 1 flags a con tour point for deletion if the following
conditions are satisfied:
a) 2 ≤ N(p1) ≤ 6

b) T(p1) = 1

c) p2.p4.p6 = 0

d) p4.p6.p8 = 0

where N(p1) is the number of nonzero neighbors of p1; i.e. N(p1) =

p2 + p3 + …… + p8 + p9
 where pi is either 0 or 1.

 T(p1) is number of 0-1 transitions in the ordered sequence p2, p3,

….., p8, p9., p2
 Representation
In Step 2:
conditions a & b remain the same, but conditions c & d are
changed to
c’) p2.p4.p8 = 0
d’) p2.p6.p8 = 0

0 0 1
1 p1 0
1 0 1

Step 1 is applied to every border pixel in binary region under

consideration
If 1 or more of conditions a to d are violated, the value of point
in question is not changed.
 Representation
If all conditions are satisfied, the point is flagged for deletion.
But not deleted until all border points have been processed.
This delay prevents the change of structure of data during
execution of algorithm.

After step 1 been applied to all border points, those who are
flagged are deleted (changed to 0).

Step 2 is applied to resulting data in exactly same manner as step

1.
 Descript
Boundary Descriptors:
ors
Simple descriptors:

Length: The number of pixels along a boundary gives a rough

approximation of its length.

Diameter:
Diameter of a boundary is defined as :
Diam(B) = max [D(pi,pj)]
Where, D – is distance measure &
pi, pj – are points on the boundary
It is the distance between any two
border points on region.
 Descript
ors
Major axis: The largest diameter is the major axis

Minor axis: A line perpendicular to the major axis

Basic rectangle: The box consisting of major and minor axes with
points intersecting the border forms a basic rectangle.

Eccentricity: Ratio of major axis to minor axis.

Curvature: It is the rate of change of slope

 Descript
Shape Numbers:
ors
The first difference of a chain coded boundary depends upon the
starting point.
The shape number of such a boundary based on 4-directional
code, is defined as the first difference of smallest magnitude.

Order n: of a shape is defined as the number of digits in its

representation.
N is even for a closed boundary.