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Digital Image Processing:

Introduction

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Contents
This lecture will cover:
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

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

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What is a Digital Image?

A digital image is a representation of a twodimensional image as a finite set of digital
values, called picture elements or pixels

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

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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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What is a Digital Image? (cont)

Common image formats include:
1 sample per point (B&W or Grayscale)
3 samples per point (Red, Green, and Blue)
4 samples per point (Red, Green, Blue, and Alpha,
a.k.a. Opacity)

For most of this course we will focus on grey-scale

images

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What is Digital Image Processing?

Digital image processing focuses on two
major tasks
Improvement of pictorial information for
human interpretation
Processing of image data for storage,
transmission and representation for
autonomous machine perception

Some argument about where image

processing ends and fields such as image
analysis and computer vision start

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What is DIP? (cont)

The continuum from image processing to
computer vision can be broken up into low-,
mid- and high-level processes
Low Level Process

Mid Level Process

High Level Process

Input: Image
Output: Image

Input: Image
Output: Attributes

Input: Attributes
Output: Understanding

Examples: Noise
removal, image
sharpening

Examples: Object
recognition,
segmentation

Examples: Scene
understanding,
autonomous navigation

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

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History of Digital Image Processing

Early 1920s: One of the first applications of
digital imaging was in the newspaper industry
The Bartlane cable picture
transmission service
Early digital image
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

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

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History of DIP (cont)

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

Improved
digital image

Early 15 tone digital

image

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

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History of DIP (cont)

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

A picture of the moon taken

by the Ranger 7 probe
minutes before landing

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

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History of DIP (cont)

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

Typical head slice CAT

image

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History of DIP (cont)

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

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

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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 Hubbles
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

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

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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

Original MRI Image of a Dog Heart

Edge Detection Image

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

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Examples: GIS
Geographic Information Systems
Digital image processing techniques are used
extensively to manipulate satellite imagery
Terrain classification
Meteorology

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

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Examples: GIS (cont)

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

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

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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
Can we trust them?

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Examples: PCB Inspection

Printed Circuit Board (PCB) inspection
Machine inspection is used to determine that
all components are present and that all solder
joints are acceptable
Both conventional imaging and x-ray imaging
are used

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

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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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Examples: HCI

Try to make human computer

interfaces more natural
Face recognition
Gesture recognition

Does anyone remember the

user interface from Minority
Report?
These tasks can be
extremely difficult

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Key Stages in Digital Image Processing

Image
Restoration

Morphological
Processing

Image
Enhancement

Segmentation

Image
Acquisition

Object
Recognition

Problem Domain

Representation
& Description

Colour Image
Processing

Image
Compression

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

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Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:

Image Aquisition
Image
Restoration

Morphological
Processing

Image
Enhancement

Segmentation

Image
Acquisition

Object
Recognition

Problem Domain

Representation
& Description

Colour Image
Processing

Image
Compression

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

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Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:

Image Enhancement
Image
Restoration

Morphological
Processing

Image
Enhancement

Segmentation

Image
Acquisition

Object
Recognition

Problem Domain

Representation
& Description

Colour Image
Processing

Image
Compression

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

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Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:

Image Restoration
Image
Restoration

Morphological
Processing

Image
Enhancement

Segmentation

Image
Acquisition

Object
Recognition

Problem Domain

Representation
& Description

Colour Image
Processing

Image
Compression

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

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Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:

Morphological Processing
Image
Restoration

Morphological
Processing

Image
Enhancement

Segmentation

Image
Acquisition

Object
Recognition

Problem Domain

Representation
& Description

Colour Image
Processing

Image
Compression

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

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Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:

Segmentation
Image
Restoration

Morphological
Processing

Image
Enhancement

Segmentation

Image
Acquisition

Object
Recognition

Problem Domain

Representation
& Description

Colour Image
Processing

Image
Compression

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

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Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:

Object Recognition
Image
Restoration

Morphological
Processing

Image
Enhancement

Segmentation

Image
Acquisition

Object
Recognition

Problem Domain

Representation
& Description

Colour Image
Processing

Image
Compression

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

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Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:

Representation & Description
Image
Restoration

Morphological
Processing

Image
Enhancement

Segmentation

Image
Acquisition

Object
Recognition

Problem Domain

Representation
& Description

Colour Image
Processing

Image
Compression

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Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:

Image Compression
Image
Restoration

Morphological
Processing

Image
Enhancement

Segmentation

Image
Acquisition

Object
Recognition

Problem Domain

Representation
& Description

Colour Image
Processing

Image
Compression

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Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:

Colour Image Processing
Image
Restoration

Morphological
Processing

Image
Enhancement

Segmentation

Image
Acquisition

Object
Recognition

Problem Domain

Representation
& Description

Colour Image
Processing

Image
Compression

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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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References
Digital Image Processing, Rafael C.
Gonzalez & Richard E. Woods,
Addison-Wesley, 2002
Much of the material that follows is taken from
this book

Machine Vision: Automated Visual

Inspection and Robot Vision, David
Vernon, Prentice Hall, 1991
Available online at:
homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/BOOKS/VERNON/

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References
Course website
http://www.comp.dit.ie/bmacnamee/gaip.htm Brian Mac Namee