Introduction to computer vision

and image processing

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Digital Image
Processing
Introduction

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What is an image?
• A projection of a 3D scene to a 2D plane

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What is an image ?
An image is a two-dimensional function f(x,y), where x and y are the
spatial (plane) coordinates, and the amplitude of f at any pair of
coordinates (x,y) is called the intensity (or gray level)of the image at that
level.

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• Depending on the values of x,y and f, there
are two types of iamges
1. Analogue image
2. Digital image

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 • What is analog image?
• An image is a two-dimensional function f(x,y), where
x and y are the spatial (plane) coordinates, and the
amplitude of f at any pair of coordinates (x,y) is
called the intensity (or gray level)of the image at that
level.

• When the above mathematical representation has

continuous range of values representing position
and intensity, image is analog image

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What is Digital Image?
• An image is a two-dimensional function f(x,y),
where x and y are the spatial (plane)
coordinates, and the amplitude of f at any pair
of coordinates (x,y) is called the intensity (or
gray level)of the image at that level.

If x,y and the amplitude values of f are finite and discrete

quantities, we call the image a digital image. A digital
image is composed of a finite number of elements called
pixels, each of which has a particular location and value.

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 What is a digital image?
• A digital image is a representation of a two-
dimensional image as a finite set of digital values,
called picture elements or pixels

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• What is Digital Image?(Cont.)
– Contains finite number of elements, each of which
has a particular location and value
– These elements are called picture elements ,image
elements or pixels

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 What is a digital image? (Cont.)
• Pixel values typically represent gray levels,
colours, heights, opacities etc
• Remember digitization implies that a digital
image is an approximation of a real scene

1 pixel

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• Advantages of Digital Images:
– Fast processing, cost effective, effective storage,
efficient transmission and manipulation.
• Disadvantages of Digital Images:
– High memory for good quality images and hence
requires fast processor

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 First Digital Photograph

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© 2002 R. C. Gonzalez & R. E. Woods
 Pixel intensity value
Consider the following
image (2724x2336 pixels)
f(1,1) = 103 to be 2D function or a
matrix with rows and
Pixel location columns

In 8-bit representation
Pixel intensity values
rows columns change between 0 (Black)
and 255 (White)
f(645:650,1323:1328) =
83 82 82 82 82 82
82 82 82 81 81 81
82 82 81 81 80 80
82 82 81 80 80 79
80 79 78 77 77 77
80 79 78 78 77 77

f(2724,2336) = 88

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Remember digitization implies that a digital image is an
approximation of a real scene

One pixel

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What is Digital Image Processing?
• The analysis and manipulation of a digital
image in order to improve its quality
• Digital image processing deals with
manipulation of digital images through a digital
computer.
• DIP focuses on developing a computer system
that is able to perform processing on an image.
• The input of that system is a digital image and
the system process that image using efficient
algorithms, and gives an image as an output.
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 What is Digital Image Processing?
• Digital image processing focuses on two major
tasks(Motivation for Digital Image Processing)
– Improvement of pictorial information for human
interpretation
– Processing of image data for storage, transmission
and representation for autonomous machine
perception

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 Uses of DIP
– Image enhancement/restoration
– Artistic effects
– Medical visualisation
– Law enforcement
– Human computer interfaces

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How it works.

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• There are a wide range of techniques available
for modifying and manipulating images in
various forms
•

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Applications of Image processing

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1. Image sharpening and restoration
• Image sharpening and restoration refers here to
process images that have been captured from the
modern camera to make them a better image or to
manipulate those images in way to achieve desired
result.
• This includes Zooming, blurring , sharpening , gray
scale to color conversion, detecting edges and vice
versa , Image retrieval and Image recognition. The
common examples are:

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• One of the most common uses of DIP techniques:
improve quality, remove noise etc

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• Image enhancement includes:
– noise filtering
– Adjusting contrast
– Deblurring
– Image Correction, Sharpening, and Resolution
Correction(Zooming, sharpening, edge detection)

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The original image

The zoomed image

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Blurr image
Sharp image

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2. Medical Technology
• In the medical field, Image Processing is used for various tasks
like X-Ray Imaging, Medical CT, UV imaging, Cancer Cell Image
processing, and much more. The introduction of Image
Processing to the medical technology field has greatly
improved the diagnostics process
• The image on the left is the original image. The image on the
right is the processed image. We can see that the processed
image is far better and can be used for better diagnostics

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3. Computer Vision
• One of the most interesting and useful applications of
Image Processing is in Computer Vision.
• Computer Vision is used to make the computer see,
identify things, and process the whole environment as
a whole.
• An important use of Computer Vision is Self Driving
cars, Drones etc.
• Computer Vision helps in obstacle detection, path
recognition, and understanding the environment.

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4. Pattern recognition:
• Pattern recognition is a part of Image
Processing that involves AI and Machine
Learning.
• Image processing is used to find out various
patterns and aspects in images. Pattern
Recognition is used for Handwriting analysis,
Image recognition, Computer-aided medical
diagnosis, and much more.

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5. in the field of remote sensing
• In the field of remote sensing , the area of the
earth is scanned by a satellite or from a very
high ground and then it is analyzed to obtain
information about it. One particular
application of digital image processing in the
field of remote sensing is to detect
infrastructure damages caused by an
earthquake.

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6. Transmission and encoding
• The very first image that has been transmitted
over the wire was from London to New York
via a submarine cable. The picture that was
sent is shown below.

The picture that was sent took three hours to reach from one place to another.

Now just imagine , that today we are able to see live video feed , or live cctv footage
from one continent to another with just a delay of seconds. It means that a lot of work
has been done in this field too. This field doesnot only focus on transmission , but also
on encoding. Many different formats have been developed for high or low bandwith to
encode photos and then stream it over the internet or e.t.c.
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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: GIS
•Geographic Information Systems
– Digital image processing techniques are used
extensively to manipulate satellite imagery
– Terrain classification
– Meteorology

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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

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 Examples: HCI
•Try to make human computer interfaces more natural
– Face recognition
– Gesture recognition

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(Distorting shape)

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What is a computer Vision?
• Computer vision is defined as a solution that leverages(uses) artificial
intelligence (AI) to allow computers to obtain meaningful data from
visual inputs.
• The insights gained from computer vision are then used to take
automated actions.
• Computer vision uses computers to emulate human vision, including
learning and being and able to make inferences and take actions based
on visual inputs
• Computer vision is a field of artificial intelligence that trains computers to
interpret and understand the visual world. Using digital images from
cameras and videos and deep learning models, machines can accurately
identify and classify objects — and then react to what they “see.
• Just like AI gives computers the ability to ‘think’, computer vision
allows them to ‘see’.
• Computer vision is a field of artificial
intelligence (AI) that enables computers and
systems to derive meaningful information
from digital images, videos and other visual
inputs — and take actions or make
recommendations based on that information. If
AI enables computers to think, computer
vision enables them to see, observe and
understand.
How does computer vision work?
• Computer vision needs lots of data.
• It runs analyses of data over and over until it
discerns(understands) distinctions and ultimately
recognize images.
• For example, to train a computer to recognize
automobile tires, it needs to be fed vast quantities of
tire images and tire-related items to learn the
differences and recognize a tire, especially one with
no defects.
• Two essential technologies are used to accomplish
this: a type of machine learning called deep learning
and a convolutional neural network (CNN).
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Computer Vision Vs image processing

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Summary:
• Image processing algorithms transform images in many ways,
such as sharpening, smoothing, filtering, enhancing,
restoration, blurring and so on.

• Computer vision, on the other hand, focuses on making sense

of what the machines see.
• A computer vision system inputs an image and outputs images
based on some specific task, such as object labels and
coordinates.
• Both of them work together in many cases; in fact, many
computer vision systems rely on image processing algorithms.
• Image processing involves processing of raw input images and
enhancing them, or preparing them to do some specific tasks.

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 Fundamental Steps in Digital Image Processing:

Outputs of these processes generally are image attributes

Outputs of these processes generally are images

Wavelets &
Colour Image Image Morphological
Multiresolution
Processing Compression Processing
processing

Image
Restoration
Segmentation

Image Knowledge Base

Enhancement Representation
& Description

Image
Acquisition Object
Recognition

Problem Domain 57
Fundamental Steps in DIP: (Description)

Step 1: Image Acquisition

The image is captured by a sensor (eg.
Camera), and digitized if the output of the
camera or sensor is not already in digital form,
using analogue-to-digital convertor

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Steps involved:

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Fundamental Steps in DIP: (Description)

Step 2: Image Enhancement

The process of manipulating an image so that the
result is more suitable than the original for
specific applications.

The idea behind enhancement techniques is to

bring out details that are hidden, or simple to
highlight certain features of interest in an image.

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Fundamental Steps in DIP: (Description)

Step 3: Image Restoration

- Improving the appearance of an image

- Tend to be mathematical or probabilistic

models. Enhancement, on the other hand, is
based on human subjective preferences regarding
what constitutes a “good” enhancement result.

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Fundamental Steps in DIP: (Description)

Step 4: Colour Image Processing

Use the colour of the image to extract features
of interest in an image

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Fundamental Steps in DIP: (Description)

Step 5: Wavelets
Are the foundation of representing images in
various degrees of resolution. It is used for
image data compression.

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Fundamental Steps in DIP: (Description)

Step 6: Compression
 Compression
Compression, as the name implies, deals with
techniques for reducing the storage required to save
an image, or the bandwidth required to transmit it.
Although storage technology has improved
significantly over the past decade, the same cannot be
said for transmission capacity. This is true particularly
in uses of the Internet, which are characterized by
significant pictorial content.
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Fundamental Steps in DIP: (Description)

Step 7: Morphological Processing

Tools for extracting image components that
are useful in the representation and
description of shape.

In this step, there would be a transition from

processes that output images, to processes
that output image attributes.

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Fundamental Steps in DIP: (Description)
Step 8: Image Segmentation
• Segmentation procedures partition an image into its
constituent parts or objects.
• Segmentation (partitioning an image into regions or objects)

• Important Tip:
– The more accurate the segmentation, the more likely
recognition is to succeed.

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Fundamental Steps in DIP: (Description)

Step 9: Representation and Description

- Representation: Make a decision whether the data
should be represented as a boundary or as a complete
region. It is almost always follows the output of a
segmentation stage.
- Boundary Representation: Focus on external shape
characteristics, such as corners and inflections
- Region Representation: Focus on internal properties,
such as texture or skeleton shape.

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Fundamental Steps in DIP: (Description)

Step 9: Representation and Description

- Description: also called, feature selection,

deals with extracting attributes that result in
some information of interest.

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Fundamental Steps in DIP: (Description)

Step 9: Recognition and Interpretation

Recognition: the process that assigns label to
an object based on the information provided
by its description.

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Fundamental Steps in DIP: (Description)

Step 10: Knowledge Base

Knowledge about a problem domain is coded
into an image processing system in the form of
a knowledge database.

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Components of an Image Processing System
Network

Image displays Computer Mass storage

Specialized image Image processing

Hardcopy
processing hardware software

Typical general-
Image sensors purpose DIP
Problem Domain system
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 Components of an Image Processing System
1. Image Sensors
– Two elements are required to acquire digital
images.
– The first is the physical device that is sensitive to
the energy radiated by the object we wish to
image (Sensor).
– The second, called a digitizer, is a device for
converting the output of the physical sensing
device into digital form.

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Components of an Image Processing System

2. Specialized Image Processing Hardware

Usually consists of the digitizer, mentioned before, plus
hardware that performs other primitive operations, such as an
arithmetic logic unit (ALU), which performs arithmetic and
logical operations in parallel on entire images.

This type of hardware sometimes is called a front-end

subsystem, and its most distinguishing characteristic is speed.
In other words, this unit performs functions that require fast
data throughputs that the typical main computer cannot
handle.

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Components of an Image Processing System

3. Computer
• The computer in an image processing system is a general-
purpose computer and can range from a PC to a supercomputer.
• In dedicated applications, sometimes specially designed
computers are used to achieve a required level of performance.

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Components of an Image Processing System

4. Image Processing Software

• Software for image processing consists of specialized modules
that perform specific tasks.
• A well-designed package also includes the capability for the user
to write code that, as a minimum, utilizes the specialized
modules.

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Components of an Image Processing System

5. Mass Storage Capability

• Mass storage capability is a must in a image processing
applications. And image of sized 1024 * 1024 pixels requires one
megabyte of storage space if the image is not compressed.

• Digital storage for image processing applications falls into three

principal categories:
1. Short-term storage for use during processing.
2. on line storage for relatively fast recall
3. Archival storage, characterized by infrequent access

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Components of an Image Processing System

5. Mass Storage Capability

One method of providing short-term storage is computer memory.
Another is by specialized boards, called frame buffers, that store one or
more images and can be accessed rapidly.

The on-line storage method, allows virtually instantaneous image zoom,

as well as scroll (vertical shifts) and pan (horizontal shifts). On-line
storage generally takes the form of magnetic disks and optical-media
storage. The key factor characterizing on-line storage is frequent access
to the stored data.

Finally, archival storage is characterized by massive storage requirements

but infrequent need for access.

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Components of an Image Processing System

6. Image Displays
• The displays in use today are mainly color (preferably flat
screen) TV monitors.
• Monitors are driven by the outputs of the image and graphics
display cards that are an integral part of a computer system.

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Components of an Image Processing System

7. Hardcopy devices
• Used for recording images, include laser printers, film
cameras, heat-sensitive devices, inkjet units and digital units,
such as optical and CD-Rom disks.

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Components of an Image Processing System

8. Networking
Is almost a default function in any computer system,
in use today. Because of the large amount of data
inherent in image processing applications the key
consideration in image transmission is bandwidth.

In dedicated networks, this typically is not a

problem, but communications with remote sites via
the internet are not always as efficient.

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