Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Images and pictures

As we mentioned in the preface, human beings are predominantly visual creatures: we rely heavily
on our vision to make sense of the world around us. We not only look at things to identify and
classify them, but we can scan for differences, and obtain an overall rough “feeling” for a scene with
a quick glance.
Humans have evolved very precise visual skills: we can identify a face in an instant; we can
differentiate colours; we can process a large amount of visual information very quickly.
However, the world is in constant motion: stare at something for long enough and it will change
in some way. Even a large solid structure, like a building or a mountain, will change its appearance
depending on the time of day (day or night); amount of sunlight (clear or cloudy), or various shadows
falling upon it.
We are concerned with single images: snapshots, if you like, of a visual scene. Although image
processing can deal with changing scenes, we shall not discuss it in any detail in this text.
For our purposes, an image is a single picture which represents something. It may be a picture
of a person, of people or animals, or of an outdoor scene, or a microphotograph of an electronic
component, or the result of medical imaging. Even if the picture is not immediately recognizable,
it will not be just a random blur.

1.2 What is image processing?

Image processing involves changing the nature of an image in order to either

1. improve its pictorial information for human interpretation,

2. render it more suitable for autonomous machine perception.

We shall be concerned with digital image processing, which involves using a computer to change the
nature of a digital image (see below). It is necessary to realize that these two aspects represent two
separate but equally important aspects of image processing. A procedure which satisfies condition
(1)—a procedure which makes an image “look better”—may be the very worst procedure for satis-
fying condition (2). Humans like their images to be sharp, clear and detailed; machines prefer their
images to be simple and uncluttered.
Examples of (1) may include:

1
2 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

Enhancing the edges of an image to make it appear sharper; an example is shown in figure 1.1.
Note how the second image appears “cleaner”; it is a more pleasant image. Sharpening edges
is a vital component of printing: in order for an image to appear “at its best” on the printed
page; some sharpening is usually performed.

(a) The original image (b) Result after “sharperning”

Figure 1.1: Image sharperning

Removing “noise” from an image; noise being random errors in the image. An example is given
in figure 1.2. Noise is a very common problem in data transmission: all sorts of electronic
components may affect data passing through them, and the results may be undesirable. As
we shall see in chapter 5 noise may take many different forms;each type of noise requiring a
different method of removal.
Removing motion blur from an image. An example is given in figure 1.3. Note that in the
deblurred image (b) it is easier to read the numberplate, and to see the spikes on the fence
behind the car, as well as other details not at all clear in the original image (a). Motion blur
may occur when the shutter speed of the camera is too long for the speed of the object. In
photographs of fast moving objects: athletes, vehicles for example, the problem of blur may
be considerable.
Examples of (2) may include:

Obtaining the edges of an image. This may be necessary for the measurement of objects in
an image; an example is shown in figures 1.4. Once we have the edges we can measure their
spread, and the area contained within them. We can also use edge detection algorithms as a
first step in edge enhancement, as we saw above.
1.2. WHAT IS IMAGE PROCESSING? 3

(a) The original image (b) After removing noise

Figure 1.2: Removing noise from an image

(a) The original image (b) After removing the blur

Figure 1.3: Image deblurring

4 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

From the edge result, we see that it may be necessary to enhance the original image slightly,
to make the edges clearer.

(a) The original image (b) Its edge image

Figure 1.4: Finding edges in an image

Removing detail from an image. For measurement or counting purposes, we may not be
interested in all the detail in an image. For example, a machine inspected items on an assembly
line, the only matters of interest may be shape, size or colour. For such cases, we might want
to simplify the image. Figure 1.5 shows an example: in image (a) is a picture of an African
buffalo, and image (b) shows a blurred version in which extraneous detail (like the logs of
wood in the background) have been removed. Notice that in image (b) all the fine detail is
gone; what remains is the coarse structure of the image. We could for example, measure the
size and shape of the animal without being “distracted” by unnecessary detail.

1.3 Image Acquisition and sampling

Sampling refers to the process of digitizing a continuous function. For example, suppose we take
the function
    

  
and sample it at ten evenly spaced values of only. The resulting sample points are shown in
figure 1.6. This shows an example of undersampling, where the number of points is not sufficient to
reconstruct the function. Suppose we sample the function at 100 points, as shown in figure 1.7. We
can clearly now reconstruct the function; all its properties can be determined from this sampling.
In order to ensure that we have enough sample points, we require that the sampling period is not
greater than one-half the finest detail in our function. This is known as the Nyquist criterion, and
can be formulated more precisely in terms of “frequencies”, which are discussed in chapter 4. The
Nyquist criterion can be stated as the sampling theorem, which says, in effect, that a continuous
function can be reconstructed from its samples provided that the sampling frequency is at least
twice the maximum frequency in the function. A formal account of this theorem is provided by
Castleman [1].
1.3. IMAGE ACQUISITION AND SAMPLING 5

(a) The original image (b) Blurring to remove detail

Figure 1.5: Blurring an image

Figure 1.6: Sampling a function—undersampling

Figure 1.7: Sampling a function with more points

6 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

Sampling an image again requires that we consider the Nyquist criterion, when we consider an
image as a continuous function of two variables, and we wish to sample it to produce a digital image.
An example is shown in figure 1.8 where an image is shown, and then with an undersampled
version. The jagged edges in the undersampled image are examples of aliasing. The sampling rate

Correct sampling; no aliasing An undersampled version with aliasing

Figure 1.8: Effects of sampling

will of course affect the final resolution of the image; we discuss this below. In order to obtain a
sampled (digital) image, we may start with a continuous representation of a scene. To view the
scene, we record the energy reflected from it; we may use visible light, or some other energy source.

Using light
Light is the predominant energy source for images; simply because it is the energy source which
human beings can observe directly. We are all familiar with photographs, which are a pictorial
record of a visual scene.
Many digital images are captured using visible light as the energy source; this has the advantage
of being safe, cheap, easily detected and readily processed with suitable hardware. Two very popular
methods of producing a digital image are with a digital camera or a flat-bed scanner.
CCD camera. Such a camera has, in place of the usual film, an array of photosites; these are
silicon electronic devices whose voltage output is proportional to the intensity of light falling
on them.
For a camera attached to a computer, information from the photosites is then output to a
suitable storage medium. Generally this is done on hardware, as being much faster and more
efficient than software, using a frame-grabbing card. This allows a large number of images to
be captured in a very short time—in the order of one ten-thousandth of a second each. The
images can then be copied onto a permanent storage device at some later time.
This is shown schematically in figure 1.9.
The output will be an array of values; each representing a sampled point from the original
scene. The elements of this array are called picture elements, or more simply pixels.
1.3. IMAGE ACQUISITION AND SAMPLING 7

Digital output

CCD Array

Original scene

Figure 1.9: Capturing an image with a CCD array

Digital still cameras use a range of devices, from floppy discs and CD’s, to various specialized
cards and “memory sticks”. The information can then be downloaded from these devices to a
computer hard disk.
Flat bed scanner. This works on a principle similar to the CCD camera. Instead of the entire
image being captured at once on a large array, a single row of photosites is moved across the
image, capturing it row-by-row as it moves. Tis is shown schematically in figure 1.10.
Row of photosites
Photosites: silicon electronic devices whose voltage
Motion of row

output is proportional to the intensity of light falling

on them

Output row

Output array

Original scene

Figure 1.10: Capturing an image with a CCD scanner

Since this is a much slower process than taking a picture with a camera, it is quite reasonable
to allow all capture and storage to be processed by suitable software.

Other energy sources

Although light is popular and easy to use, other energy sources may be used to create a digital
image. Visible light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum: radiation in which the energy takes
8 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

the form of waves of varying wavelength. These range from cosmic rays of very short wavelength,
to electric power, which has very long wavelength. Figure 1.11 illustrates this. For microscopy, we


 
  
 
  
    
    
   
   
 
  


Cosmic Gamma VISIBLE Micro- Electric

X-rays UV light Infra-red TV Radio
rays rays LIGHT waves Power

Blue Green Red

      !#"$   &%  

!#"'$ ()

!#"'$

Figure 1.11: The electromagnetic spectrum

may use x-rays, or electron beams. As we can see from figure 1.11, x-rays have a shorter wavelength
than visible light, and so can be used to resolve smaller objects than are possible with visible light.
See Clark [2] for a good introduction to this. X-rays are of course also useful in determining the
structure of objects usually hidden from view: such as bones.
A further method of obtaining images is by the use of x-ray tomography, where an object is
encircled by an x-ray beam. As the beam is fired through the object, it is detected on the other side
of the object, as shown in figure 1.12. As the beam moves around the object, an image of the object
can be constructed; such an image is called a tomogram. In a CAT (Computed Axial Tomography)
scan, the patient lies within a tube around which x-ray beams are fired. This enables a large number
of tomographic “slices” to be formed, which can then be joined to produce a three-dimensional image.
A good account of such systems (and others) is given by Siedband [13]

1.4 Images and digital images

Suppose we take an image, a photo, say. For the moment, lets make things easy and suppose the
photo is monochromatic (that is, shades of grey only), so no colour. We may consider this image
as being a two dimensional function, where the function values give the brightness of the image at
any given point, as shown in figure 1.13. We may assume that in such an image brightness values
can be any real numbers in the range (black) to  
(white). The ranges of and will clearly
depend on the image, but they can take all real values between their minima and maxima.
Such a function can of course be plotted, as shown in figure 1.14. However, such a plot is of
limited use to us in terms of image analysis. The concept of an image as a function, however, will
1.4. IMAGES AND DIGITAL IMAGES 9

X-ray source

Object

Detectors

Figure 1.12: X-ray tomography





Figure 1.13: An image as a function

10 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

be vital for the development and implementation of image processing techniques.

Figure 1.14: The image of figure 1.13 plotted as a function of two variables

A digital image differs from a photo in that the , , and 
values are all discrete. Usually
they take on only integer values, so the image shown in figure 1.13 will have and ranging from 1
to 256 each, and the brightness values also ranging from 0 (black) to 255 (white). A digital image, as
we have seen above, can be considered as a large array of sampled points from the continuous image,
each of which has a particular quantized brightness; these points are the pixels which constitute the
digital image. The pixels surrounding a given pixel constitute its neighbourhood. A neighbourhood
can be characterized by its shape in the same way as a matrix: we can speak, for example, of a
 

  (
neighbourhood, or of a neighbourhood. Except in very special circumstances, neighbourhoods
have odd numbers of rows and columns; this ensures that the current pixel is in the centre of the
neighbourhood. An example of a neighbourhood is given in figure 1.15. If a neighbourhood has
an even number of rows or columns (or both), it may be necessary to specify which pixel in the
neighbourhood is the “current pixel”.

1.5 Some applications

Image processing has an enormous range of applications; almost every area of science and technology
can make use of image processing methods. Here is a short list just to give some indication of the
range of image processing applications.

1. Medicine
1.6. ASPECTS OF IMAGE PROCESSING 11

48 219 168 145 244 188 120 58

49 218 87 94 133 35 17 148

174 151 74 179 224 3 252 194

77 127 87 139 44 228 149 135

138 229 136 113 250 51 108 163 Current pixel

38 210 185 177 69 76 131 53

  
neighbourhood
178 164 79 158 64 169 85 97

96 209 214 203 223 73 110 200

Figure 1.15: Pixels, with a neighbourhood

Inspection and interpretation of images obtained from X-rays, MRI or CAT scans,
analysis of cell images, of chromosome karyotypes.

2. Agriculture

Satellite/aerial views of land, for example to determine how much land is being used for
different purposes, or to investigate the suitability of different regions for different crops,
inspection of fruit and vegetables—distinguishing good and fresh produce from old.

3. Industry

Automatic inspection of items on a production line,

inspection of paper samples.

4. Law enforcement

Fingerprint analysis,
sharpening or de-blurring of speed-camera images.

1.6 Aspects of image processing

It is convenient to subdivide different image processing algorithms into broad subclasses. There
are different algorithms for different tasks and problems, and often we would like to distinguish the
nature of the task at hand.

Image enhancement. This refers to processing an image so that the result is more suitable for
a particular application. Example include:

sharpening or de-blurring an out of focus image,

highlighting edges,
improving image contrast, or brightening an image,
12 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

removing noise.

Image restoration. This may be considered as reversing the damage done to an image by a
known cause, for example:

removing of blur caused by linear motion,

removal of optical distortions,
removing periodic interference.

Image segmentation. This involves subdividing an image into constituent parts, or isolating
certain aspects of an image:

finding lines, circles, or particular shapes in an image,

in an aerial photograph, identifying cars, trees, buildings, or roads.

These classes are not disjoint; a given algorithm may be used for both image enhancement or for
image restoration. However, we should be able to decide what it is that we are trying to do with
our image: simply make it look better (enhancement), or removing damage (restoration).

1.7 An image processing task

We will look in some detail at a particular real-world task, and see how the above classes may be
used to describe the various stages in performing this task. The job is to obtain, by an automatic
process, the postcodes from envelopes. Here is how this may be accomplished:

Acquiring the image. First we need to produce a digital image from a paper envelope. This an
be done using either a CCD camera, or a scanner.

Preprocessing. This is the step taken before the “major” image processing task. The problem here
is to perform some basic tasks in order to render the resulting image more suitable for the job
to follow. In this case it may involve enhancing the contrast, removing noise, or identifying
regions likely to contain the postcode.

Segmentation. Here is where we actually “get” the postcode; in other words we extract from the
image that part of it which contains just the postcode.

Representation and description. These terms refer to extracting the particular features which
allow us to differentiate between objects. Here we will be looking for curves, holes and corners
which allow us to distinguish the different digits which constitute a postcode.

Recognition and interpretation. This means assigning labels to objects based on their descrip-
tors (from the previous step), and assigning meanings to those labels. So we identify particular
digits, and we interpret a string of four digits at the end of the address as the postcode.

1.8 Types of digital images

We shall consider four basic types of images:
1.8. TYPES OF DIGITAL IMAGES 13

Binary. Each pixel is just black or white. Since there are only two possible values for each pixel,
we only need one bit per pixel. Such images can therefore be very efficient in terms of
storage. Images for which a binary representation may be suitable include text (printed or
handwriting), fingerprints, or architectural plans.
An example was the image shown in figure 1.4(b) above. In this image, we have only the two
colours: white for the edges, and black for the background. See figure 1.16 below.

1 1 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 0 0 0
0 0 1 0 0 0
0 0 0 1 0 0
0 0 0 1 1 0
0 0 0 0 0 1

Figure 1.16: A binary image

 
Greyscale. Each pixel is a shade of grey, normally from (black) to (white). This range
means that each pixel can be represented by eight bits, or exactly one byte. This is a very
natural range for image file handling. Other greyscale ranges are used, but generally they are
a power of 2. Such images arise in medicine (X-rays), images of printed works, and indeed
 %
different grey levels is sufficient for the recognition of most natural objects.
An example is the street scene shown in figure 1.1 above, and in figure 1.17 below.

True colour, or RGB. Here each pixel has a particular colour; that colour being described by the
 
amount of red, green and blue in it. If each of these components has a range – , this gives
a total of
 
%
( ( (


%
different possible colours in the image. This is enough colours

for any image. Since the total number of bits required for each pixel is , such images are

also called -bit colour images.
Such an image may be considered as consisting of a “stack” of three matrices; representing the
red, green and blue values for each pixel. This means that for every pixel there correspond
three values.
An example is shown in figure 1.18.

Indexed. Most colour images only have a small subset of the more than sixteen million possible
colours. For convenience of storage and file handling, the image has an associated colour map,
14 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

230 229 232 234 235 232 148

237 236 236 234 233 234 152
255 255 255 251 230 236 161
99 90 67 37 94 247 130
222 152 255 129 129 246 132
154 199 255 150 189 241 147
216 132 162 163 170 239 122

Figure 1.17: A greyscale image

or colour palette, which is simply a list of all the colours used in that image. Each pixel has
a value which does not give its colour (as for an RGB image), but an index to the colour in
the map.
 %
It is convenient if an image has colours or less, for then the index values will only require
one byte each to store. Some image file formats (for example, Compuserve GIF), allow only
 %
colours or fewer in each image, for precisely this reason.
Figure 1.19 shows an example. In this image the indices, rather then being the grey values
of the pixels, are simply indices into the colour map. Without the colour map, the image
would be very dark and colourless. In the figure, for example, pixels labelled 5 correspond to
0.2627 0.2588 0.2549, which is a dark greyish colour.

1.9 Image File Sizes

Image files tend to be large. We shall investigate the amount of information used in different image
 
  
type of varying sizes. For example, suppose we consider a binary image. The number of
bits used in this image (assuming no compression, and neglecting, for the sake of discussion, any
header information) is




%  
   ( % 
   

bytes
1.9. IMAGE FILE SIZES 15

49 55 56 57 52 53 64 76 82 79 78 78 66 80 77 80 87 77
58 60 60 58 55 57 93 93 91 91 86 86 81 93 96 99 86 85
58 58 54 53 55 56 88 82 88 90 88 89 83 83 91 94 92 88
83 78 72 69 68 69 125 119 113 108 111 110 135 128 126 112 107 106
88 91 91 84 83 82 137 136 132 128 126 120 141 129 129 117 115 101
69 76 83 78 76 75 105 108 114 114 118 113 95 99 109 108 112 109
61 69 73 78 76 76 96 103 112 108 111 107 84 93 107 101 105 102

Red Green Blue

Figure 1.18: A true colour image

16 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

0.1211 0.1211 0.1416

0.1807 0.2549 0.1729

4 5 5 5 5 5 0.2197 0.3447 0.1807

5 4 5 5 6 6 0.1611 0.1768 0.1924

5 5 5 0 8 9 0.2432 0.2471 0.1924

5 5 5 5 11 11 0.2119 0.1963 0.2002

5 5 5 8 16 20 0.2627 0.2588 0.2549

8 11 11 26 33 20 0.2197 0.2432 0.2588

.
. .
. .
.
11 20 33 33 58 37 . . .

Indices
Colour map
Figure 1.19: An indexed colour image

  ( %  Kb
   Mb.
(Here we use the convention that a kilobyte is one thousand bytes, and a megabyte is one million
bytes.)
A greyscale image of the same size requires:





%  
    
   
bytes
%
Kb
 %
Mb.

If we now turn our attention to colour images, each pixel is associated with 3 bytes of colour
 
  
information. A image thus requires
512 
(  %
 
 
   
bytes

(  %   Kb
(  % Mb.
much
Many images are of course such larger than this; satellite images may be of the order of several
thousand pixels in each direction.

1.10 Image perception

Much of image processing is concerned with making an image appear “better” to human beings.
We should therefore be aware of the limitations of the the human visual system. Image perception
consists of two basic steps:

1. capturing the image with the eye,

1.11. GREYSCALE IMAGES 17

2. recognising and interpreting the image with the visual cortex in the brain.
The combination and immense variability of these steps influences the ways in we perceive the world
around us.
There are a number of things to bear in mind:
1. Observed intensities vary as to the background. A single block of grey will appear darker
if placed on a white background than if it were placed on a black background. That is, we
don’t perceive grey scales “as they are”, but rather as they differ from their surroundings. In
figure 1.20 a grey square is shown on two different backgrounds. Notice how much darker the
square appears when it is surrounded by a light grey. However, the two central squares have
exactly the same intensity.

Figure 1.20: A grey square on different backgrounds

2. We may observe non-existent intensities as bars in continuously varying grey levels. See for
example figure 1.21. This image varies continuously from light to dark as we travel from left
to right. However, it is impossible for our eyes not to see a few horizontal edges in this image.

3. Our visual system tends to undershoot or overshoot around the boundary of regions of different
intensities. For example, suppose we had a light grey blob on a dark grey background. As
our eye travels from the dark background to the light region, the boundary of the region
appears lighter than the rest of it. Conversely, going in the other direction, the boundary of
the background appears darker than the rest of it.
We have seen in the previous chapter that matrices can be handled very efficiently in Matlab.
Images may be considered as matrices whose elements are the pixel values of the image. In this
chapter we shall investigate how the matrix capabilities of Matlab allow us to investigate images
and their properties.

1.11 Greyscale images

Suppose you are sitting at your computer and have started Matlab. You will have a Matlab
command window open, and in it the Matlab prompt
18 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

Figure 1.21: Continuously varying intensities

>>

ready to receive commands. Type in the command

>> w=imread(’wombats.tif’);

This takes the grey values of all the pixels in the greyscale image wombats.tif and puts them all
into a matrix w. This matrix w is now a Matlab variable, and so we can perform various matrix
operations on it. In general the imread function reads the pixel values from an image file, and
returns a matrix of all the pixel values.
Two things to note about this command:

1. It ends in a semicolon; this has the effect of not displaying the results of the command to the
screen. As the result of this particular command is a matrix of size
 %   %
, or with

%   %

elements, we don’t really want all its values displayed.

2. The name wombats.tif is given in single quote marks. Without them, Matlab would assume
that wombats.tif was the name of a variable, rather than the name of a file.

Now we can display this matrix as a greyscale image:

>> figure,imshow(w),pixval on

This is really three commands on the one line. Matlab allows many commands to be entered on
the same line; using commas to separate the different commands. The three commands we are using
here are:

figure, which creates a figure on the screen. A figure is a window in which a graphics object can
be placed. Objects may include images, or various types of graphs.

imshow(g), which displays the matrix g as an image.

1.12. RGB IMAGES 19

pixval on, which turns on the pixel values in our figure. This is a display of the grey values of the
pixels in the image. They appear at the bottom of the figure in the form






where is the column value of the given pixel; its row value, and its grey value. Since
wombats.tif is an 8-bit greyscale image, the pixel values appear as integers in the range
 
– .

This is shown in figure 1.22.

Figure 1.22: The wombats image with pixval on

If there are no figures open, then an imshow command, or any other command which generates
a graphics object, will open a new figure for displaying the object. However, it is good practice to
use the figure command whenever you wish to create a new figure.
We could display this image directly, without saving its grey values to a matrix, with the
command

imshow(’wombats.tif’)

However, it is better to use a matrix, seeing as these are handled very efficiently in Matlab.

1.12 RGB Images

As we shall discuss in chapter 11; we need to define colours in some standard way, usually as a
subset of a three dimensional coordinate system; such a subset is called a colour model. There are
20 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

in fact a number of different methods for describing colour, but for image display and storage a
standard model is RGB, for which we may imagine all the colours sitting inside a “colour cube” of

side as shown in figure 1.23. The colours along the black-white diagonal, shown in the diagram




  


Cyan White

 


Blue Magenta




 Yellow
Green




Black Red
Figure 1.23: The colour cube for the RGB colour model

as a dotted line, are the points of the space where all the , , values are equal. They are the

 

different intensities of grey. We may also think of the axes of the colour cube as being discretized
to integers in the range 0–255.
RGB is the standard for the display of colours: on computer monitors; on TV sets. But it is not
a very good way of describing colours. How, for example, would you define light brown using RGB?
As we shall see also in chapter 11, there are some colours which are not realizable with the RGB
model; in that they would require negative values of one or two of the RGB components. Matlab
handles 24-bit RGB images in much the same way as greyscale. We can save the colour values to a
matrix and view the result:

>> a=imread(’autumn.tif’);
>> figure,imshow(a),pixval on

Note now that the pixel values now consist of a list of three values, giving the red, green and blue
components of the colour of the given pixel.
An important difference between this type of image and a greyscale image can be seen by the
command

>> size(a)

which returns three values: the number of rows, columns, and “pages” of a, which is a three-
dimensional matrix, also called a multidimensional array. Matlab can handle arrays of any di-
mension, and a is an example. We can think of a as being a stack of three matrices, each of the
same size.
To obtain any of the RGB values at a given location, we use similar indexing methods to above.
For example
1.13. INDEXED COLOUR IMAGES 21

>> a(100,200,2)

returns the second colour value (green) at the pixel in row 100 and column 200. If we want all the
colour values at that point, we can use

>> a(100,200,1:3)

However, Matlab allows a convenient shortcut for listing all values along a particular dimension;
just using a colon on its own:

>> a(100,200,:)

A useful function for obtaining RGB values is impixel; the command

>> impixel(a,200,100)

returns the red, green, and blue values of the pixel at column 200, row 100. Notice that the order
of indexing is the same as that which is provided by the pixval on command. This is opposite to
the row, column order for matrix indexing. This command also applies to greyscale images:

>> impixel(g,100,200)

will return three values, but since g is a single two-dimensional matrix, all three values will be the
same.

1.13 Indexed colour images

The command

>> figure,imshow(’emu.tif’),pixval on

produces a nice colour image of an emu. However, the pixel values, rather than being three integers
as they were for the RGB image above, are three fractions between 0 and 1. What is going on here?
If we try saving to a matrix first and then displaying the result:

>> em=imread(’emu.tif’);
>> figure,imshow(em),pixval on

we obtain a dark, barely distinguishable image, with single integer grey values, indicating that em
is being interpreted as a single greyscale image.
In fact the image emu.tif is an example of an indexed image, consisting of two matrices: a
colour map, and an index to the colour map. Assigning the image to a single matrix picks up only
the index; we need to obtain the colour map as well:

>> [em,emap]=imread(’emu.tif’);
>> figure,imshow(em,emap),pixval on

Matlab stores the RGB values of an indexed image as values of type double, with values between
0 and 1.
22 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

Information about your image

A great deal of information can be obtained with the imfinfo function. For example, suppose we
take our indexed image emu.tif from above.

>> imfinfo(’emu.tif’)

ans =

Filename: ’emu.tif’
FileModDate: ’26-Nov-2002 14:23:01’
FileSize: 119804 (has been compressed)
Format: ’tif’
FormatVersion: []
Width: 331 = 127,104 bytes
Height: 384
BitDepth: 8
ColorType: ’indexed’
FormatSignature: [73 73 42 0]
ByteOrder: ’little-endian’
NewSubfileType: 0
BitsPerSample: 8
Compression: ’PackBits’
PhotometricInterpretation: ’RGB Palette’
StripOffsets: [16x1 double]
SamplesPerPixel: 1
RowsPerStrip: 24
StripByteCounts: [16x1 double]
XResolution: 72
YResolution: 72
ResolutionUnit: ’Inch’
Colormap: [256x3 double]
PlanarConfiguration: ’Chunky’
TileWidth: []
TileLength: []
TileOffsets: []
TileByteCounts: []
Orientation: 1
FillOrder: 1
GrayResponseUnit: 0.0100
MaxSampleValue: 255
MinSampleValue: 0
Thresholding: 1

Much of this information is not useful to us; but we can see the size of the image in pixels, the size
of the file (in bytes), the number of bits per pixel (this is given by BitDepth), and the colour type
(in this case “indexed”).
1.14. DATA TYPES AND CONVERSIONS 23

For comparison, let’s look at the output of a true colour file (showing only the first few lines of
the output):
>> imfinfo(’flowers.tif’)

ans =

Filename: [1x57 char]

FileModDate: ’26-Oct-1996 02:11:09’
FileSize: 543962 (Contains header info.)
Format: ’tif’
FormatVersion: []
Width: 500 = 543,000
Height: 362
BitDepth: 24
ColorType: ’truecolor’

Now we shall test this function on a binary image:

>> imfinfo(’text.tif’)

ans =

Filename: [1x54 char]

FileModDate: ’26-Oct-1996 02:12:23’
FileSize: 3474
Format: ’tif’
FormatVersion: []
Width: 256
Height: 256
BitDepth: 1
ColorType: ’grayscale’

What is going on here? We have a binary image, and yet the colour type is given as “grayscale”.
The fact is that Matlab does not distinguish between greyscale and binary images: a binary image
is just a special case of a greyscale image which has only two intensities. However, we can see that
text.tif is a binary image since the number of bits per pixel is only one.

1.14 Data types and conversions

Elements in Matlab matrices may have a number of different numeric data types; the most common
are listed in table 1.1. There are others, but those listed will be sufficient for all our work with
images. These data types are also functions, we can convert from one type to another. For example:
>> a=23;
>> b=uint8(a);
>> b

b =
24 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

Data type Description Range



int8 8-bit integer — 127
uint8
int16
8-bit unsigned integer
16-bit integer
 0 — 255
( % 
— 32767
uint16 16-bit unsigned integer 0 — 65535
double Double precision real number Machine specific

Table 1.1: Data types in Matlab

23

>> whos a b
Name Size Bytes Class

a 1x1 8 double array

b 1x1 1 uint8 array

Even though the variables a and b have the same numeric value, they are of different data types. An
important consideration (of which we shall more) is that arithmetic operations are not permitted
with the data types int8, int16, uint8 and uint16.
A greyscale image may consist of pixels whose values are of data type uint8. These images are
thus reasonably efficient in terms of storage space, since each pixel requires only one byte. However,
arithmetic operations are not permitted on this data type; a uint8 image must be converted to
double before any arithmetic is attempted.
We can convert images from one image type to another. Table 1.2 lists all of Matlab’s functions
for converting between different image types. Note that the gray2rgb function, does not create a

Function Use Format

ind2gray Indexed to Greyscale y=ind2gray(x,map);
gray2ind Greyscale to indexed [y,map]=gray2ind(x);
rgb2gray RGB to greyscale y=rgb2gray(x);
gray2rgb Greyscale to RGB y=gray2rgb(x);
rgb2ind RGB to indexed [y,map]=rgb2ind;
ind2rgb Indexed to RGB y=ind2rgb(x,map);

Table 1.2: Converting images in Matlab

colour image, but an image all of whose pixel colours were the same as before. This is done by
simply replicating the grey values of each pixel: greys in an RGB image are obtained by equality of
the red, green and blue values.

1.15 Basics of image display

An image may be represented as a matrix of the grey values of its pixels. The problem here is to
display that matrix on the computer screen. There are many factors which will effect the display;
1.15. BASICS OF IMAGE DISPLAY 25

they include:

1. ambient lighting,

2. the monitor type and settings,

3. the graphics card,

4. monitor resolution.

The same image may appear very different when viewed on a dull CRT monitor or on a bright LCD
monitor. The resolution can also affect the display of an image; a higher resolution may result in
the image taking up less physical area on the screen, but this may be counteracted by a loss in the
colour depth: the monitor may be only to display 24-bit colour at low resolutions. If the monitor
is bathed in bright light (sunlight, for example), the display of the image may be compromised.
Furthermore, the individual’s own visual system will affect the appearance of an image: the same
image, viewed by two people, may appear to have different characteristics to each person. For our
purpose, we shall assume that the computer set up is as optimal as is possible, and the monitor is
able to accurately reproduce the necessary grey values or colours in any image.
A very basic Matlab function for image display is image. This function simply displays a
matrix as an image. However, it may not give necessarily very good results. For example:

>> c=imread(’cameraman.tif’);
>> image(c)

will certainly display the cameraman, but possibly in an odd mixture of colours, and with some
stretching. The strange colours come from the fact that the image command uses the current colour
map to assign colours to the matrix elements. The default colour map is called jet, and consists of
64 very bright colours, which is inappropriate for the display of a greyscale image.
To display the image properly, we need to add several extra commands to the image line.

1. truesize, which displays one matrix element (in this case an image pixel) for each screen
pixel. More formally, we may use truesize([256 256]) where the vector components give
the number of screen pixels vertically and horizontally to use in the display. If the vector is
not specified, it defaults to the image size.

2. axis off which turns off the axis labelling,

3. colormap(gray(247)), which adjusts the image colour map to use shades of grey only. We
can find the number of grey levels used by the cameraman image with

>> size(unique(c))

ans =

247 1

Since the cameraman image thus uses 247 different grey levels, we only need that number of
greys in the colour map.

Thus a complete command for viewing this image will be

26 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

>> image(c),truesize,axis off, colormap(gray(247))

We may to adjust the colour map to use less or more colours; however this can have a dramatic
effect on the result. The command

>> image(c),truesize,axis off, colormap(gray(512))

will produce a dark image. This happens because only the first 247 elements of the colour map will
be used by the image for display, and these will all be in the first half of the colour map; thus all
dark greys. On the other hand,

>> image(c),truesize,axis off, colormap(gray(128))

will produce a very light image, because any pixel with grey level higher than 128 will simply pick
that highest grey value (which is white) from the colour map.
The image command works well for an indexed colour image, as long as we remember to use
imread to pick up the colour map as well:

>> [x,map]=imread(’cat.tif’);
>> image(x),truesize,axis off,colormap(map)

For true colour images, the image data will be read (by imread) as a three dimensional array.
In such a case, image will ignore the current colour map, and assign colours to the display based
on the values in the array. So

>> t=imread(’twins.tif’);
>> image(t),truesize,axis off

will produce the correct twins image.

In general the image function can be used to display any image or matrix. However, there is a
command which is more convenient, and does most of the work of colour mapping for us; we discuss
this in the next section.

1.16 The imshow function

Greyscale images
We have seen that if x is a matrix of type uint8, then the command

imshow(x)

will display x as an image. This is reasonable, since the data type uint8 restricts values to be
integers between 0 and 255. However, not all image matrices come so nicely bundled up into this
data type, and lots of Matlab image processing commands produces output matrices which are of
type double. We have two choices with a matrix of this type:

1. convert to type uint8 and then display,

2. display the matrix directly.

1.16. THE IMSHOW FUNCTION 27

The second option is possible because imshow will display a matrix of type double as a greyscale
image as long as the matrix elements are between 0 and 1. Suppose we take an image and convert
it to type double:
>> c=imread(’caribou.tif’);
>> cd=double(c);
>> imshow(c),figure,imshow(cd)

The results are shown in figure 1.24.

(a) The original image (b) After conversion to type double

Figure 1.24: An attempt at data type conversion

However, as you can see, figure 1.24(b) doesn’t look much like the original picture at all! This is



because for a matrix of type double, the imshow function expects the values to be between 0 and 1,

where 0 is displayed as black, and 1 is displayed as white. A value with

  
is displayed as
grey scale . Conversely, values greater than 1 will be displayed as 1 (white) and values less
than 0 will be displayed as zero (black). In the caribou image, every pixel has value greater than
or equal to 1 (in fact the minimum value is 21), so that every pixel will be displayed as white. To
display the matrix cd, we need to scale it to the range 0—1. This is easily done simply by dividing
all values by 255:
>> imshow(cd/255)

and the result will be the caribou image as shown in figure 1.24(a).
We can vary the display by changing the scaling of the matrix. Results of the commands:
>> imshow(cd/512)
>> imshow(cd/128)

are shown in figures 1.25.

Dividing by 512 darkens the image, as all matrix values are now between 0 and 0.5, so that the
brightest pixel in the image is a mid-grey. Dividing by 128 means that the range is 0—2, and all
pixels in the range 1—2 will be displayed as white. Thus the image has an over-exposed, washed-out
appearance.
28 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

(a) The matrix cd divided by 512 (b) The matrix cd divided by 128

Figure 1.25: Scaling by dividing an image matrix by a scalar

The display of the result of a command whose output is a matrix of type double can be greatly
affected by a judicious choice of a scaling factor.
We can convert the original image to double more properly using the function im2double. This
applies correct scaling so that the output values are between 0 and 1. So the commands
>> cd=im2double(c);
>> imshow(cd)

will produce a correct image. It is important to make the distinction between the two functions
double and im2double: double changes the data type but does not change the numeric values;
im2double changes both the numeric data type and the values. The exception of course is if the
original image is of type double, in which case im2double does nothing. Although the command
double is not of much use for direct image display, it can be very useful for image arithmetic. We
have seen examples of this above with scaling.
Corresponding to the functions double and im2double are the functions uint8 and im2uint8.
If we take our image cd of type double, properly scaled so that all elements are between 0 and 1,
we can convert it back to an image of type uint8 in two ways:
>> c2=uint8(255*cd);
>> c3=im2uint8(cd);

Use of im2uint8 is to be preferred; it takes other data types as input, and always returns a correct
result.

Binary images
Recall that a binary image will have only two values: 0 and 1. Matlab does not have a binary
data type as such, but it does have a logical flag, where uint8 values as 0 and 1 can be interpreted
as logical data. The logical flag will be set by the use of relational operations such as ==, < or >
or any other operations which provide a yes/no answer. For example, suppose we take the caribou
matrix and create a new matrix with
1.16. THE IMSHOW FUNCTION 29

>> cl=c>120;

(we will see more of this type of operation in chapter 2.) If we now check all of our variables with
whos, the output will include the line:
cl 256x256 65536 uint8 array (logical)

This means that the command

>> imshow(cl)

will display the matrix as a binary image; the result is shown in figure 1.26.

(a) The caribou image turned binary (b) After conversion to type uint8

Figure 1.26: Making the image binary

Suppose we remove the logical flag from cl; this can be done by a simple command:
>> cl = +cl;

Now the output of whos will include the line:

cl 256x256 65536 uint8 array

If we now try to display this matrix with imshow, we obtain the result shown in figure 1.26(b). A
very disappointing image! But this is to be expected; in a matrix of type uint8, white is 255, 0 is
black, and 1 is a very dark grey–indistinguishable from black. Remember: c1 is an array of 0's and 1's
To get back to a viewable image, we can either turn the logical flag back on, and the view the
result:
>> imshow(logical(cl))

or simply convert to type double:

>> imshow(double(cl))

Both these commands will produce the image seen in figure 1.26.
30 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

1.17 Bit planes

Greyscale images can be transformed into a sequence of binary images by breaking them up into
their bit-planes. If we consider the grey value of each pixel of an 8-bit image as an 8-bit binary word,
then the 0th bit plane consists of the last bit of each grey value. Since this bit has the least effect
in terms of the magnitude of the value, it is called the least significant bit, and the plane consisting
of those bits the least significant bit plane. Similarly the 7th bit plane consists of the first bit in
each value. This bit has the greatest effect in terms of the magnitude of the value, so it is called
the most significant bit, and the plane consisting of those bits the most significant bit plane.
If we take a greyscale image, we start by making it a matrix of type double; this means we can
perform arithmetic on the values.

>> c=imread(’cameraman.tif’);
>> cd=double(c);

We now isolate the bit planes by simply dividing the matrix cd by successive powers of 2, throwing
away the remainder, and seeing if the final bit is 0 or 1. We can do this with the mod function.

>> c0=mod(cd,2);
>> c1=mod(floor(cd/2),2);
>> c2=mod(floor(cd/4),2);
>> c3=mod(floor(cd/8),2);
>> c4=mod(floor(cd/16),2);
>> c5=mod(floor(cd/32),2);
>> c6=mod(floor(cd/64),2);
>> c7=mod(floor(cd/128),2);

These are all shown in figure 1.27. Note that the least significant bit plane, c0, is to all intents and
purposes a random array, and that as the index value of the bit plane increases, more of the image
appears. The most significant bit plane, c7, is actually a threshold of the image at level 127:

>> ct=c>127;
>> all(c7(:)==ct(:))

ans =

We shall discuss thresholding in chapter 7.

We can recover and display the original image with

>> cc=2*(2*(2*(2*(2*(2*(2*c7+c6)+c5)+c4)+c3)+c2)+c1)+c0;
>> imshow(uint8(cc))

1.18 Spatial Resolution

Spatial resolution is the density of pixels over the image: the greater the spatial resolution, the more
pixels are used to display the image. We can experiment with spatial resolution with Matlab’s
1.18. SPATIAL RESOLUTION 31

c0 c1 c2

c3 c4 c5

c6 c7

Figure 1.27: The bit planes of an 8-bit greyscale image

32 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

 %   %
imresize function. Suppose we have an 8-bit greyscale image saved to the matrix x.
Then the command

imresize(x,1/2);

will halve the size of the image. It does this by taking out every other row and every other column,
thus leaving only those matrix elements whose row and column indices are even:

 
 
      
        

      

        imresize(x,1/2)    

       ..

.
..
.
..
.
..
.
.. .. .. .. .. .. ..
. . . . . . .

If we apply imresize to the result with the parameter 2 rather than 1/2, all the pixels are repeated
to produce an image with the same size as the original, but with half the resolution in each direction:































.. .. .. ..
. . . .

 
  
The effective resolution of this new image is only . We can do all this in one line:

x2=imresize(imresize(x,1/2),2);

By changing the parameters of imresize, we can change the effective resolution of the image to
smaller amounts:

Command Effective resolution

%   % 
imresize(imresize(x,1/4),4);
imresize(imresize(x,1/8),8);
  
% %
 ) 

imresize(imresize(x,1/16),16);
imresize(imresize(x,1/32),32);

To see the effects of these commands, suppose we apply them to the image newborn.tif:

x=imread(’newborn.tif’);

The effects of increasing blockiness or pixelization become quite pronounced as the resolution de-
 
  
creases; even at
clear, and at
%   % 
resolution fine detail, such as the edges of the baby’s fingers, are less
all edges are now quite blocky. At

the image is barely recognizable,
 
%  %
 
  
and at and the image becomes unrecognizable.
1.18. SPATIAL RESOLUTION 33

 
  
(a) The original image (b) at resolution

Figure 1.28: Reducing resolution of an image

(a) At
%   % 
resolution (b) At
   resolution

Figure 1.29: Further reducing the resolution of an image

34 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

% %
 
 ) 
(a) At resolution (b) at resolution

Figure 1.30: Even more reducing the resolution of an image

Exercises
1. Watch the TV news, and see if you can observe any examples of image processing.

2. If your TV set allows it, turn down the colour as far as you can to produce a monochromatic
display. How does this affect your viewing? Is there anything which is hard to recognize
without colour?

3. Look through a collection of old photographs. How can they be enhanced, or restored?

4. For each of the following, list five ways in which image processing could be used:

medicine
astronomy
sport
music
agriculture
travel

5. Image processing techniques have become a vital part of the modern movie production process.
Next time you watch a film, take note of all the image processing involved.

6. If you have access to a scanner, scan in a photograph, and experiment with all the possible
scanner settings.

(a) What is the smallest sized file you can create which shows all the detail of your photo-
graph?
(b) What is the smallest sized file you can create in which the major parts of your image are
still recognizable?
1.18. SPATIAL RESOLUTION 35

(c) How do the colour settings affect the output?

7. If you have access to a digital camera, again photograph a fixed scene, using all possible
camera settings.

(a) What is the smallest file you can create?

(b) How do the light settings effect the output?

8. Suppose you were to scan in a monochromatic photograph, and then print out the result.
Then suppose you scanned in the printout, and printed out the result of that, and repeated
this a few times. Would you expect any degradation of the image during this process? What
aspects of the scanner and printer would minimize degradation?

9. Look up ultrasonography. How does it differ from the image acquisition methods discussed in
this chapter? What is it used for? If you can, compare an ultrasound image with an x-ray
image. How to they differ? In what ways are they similar?

10. If you have access to an image viewing program (other than Matlab) on your computer,
make a list of the image processing capabilities it offers. Can you find imaging tasks it is
unable to do?

11. Type in the command

>> help imdemos

This will give you a list of, amongst other things, all the sample TIFF images which come
with the Image Processing Toolbox. Make a list of these sample images, and for each image

(a) determine its type (binary, greyscale, true colour or indexed colour),
(b) determine its size (in pixels)
(c) give a brief description of the picture (what it looks like; what it seems to be a picture
of)

12. Pick a greyscale image, say cameraman.tif or wombats.tif. Using the imwrite function,
write it to files of type JPEG, PNG and BMP.
What are the sizes of those files?

13. Repeat the above question with

(a) a binary image,

(b) an indexed colour image,
(c) a true colour image.

14. Open the greyscale image cameraman.tif and view it. What data type is it?

15. Enter the following commands:

>> em,map]=imread(’emu.tif’);
>> e=ind2gray(em,map);

These will produce a greyscale image of type double. View this image.
36 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

16. Enter the command

>> e2=im2uint8(e);

and view the output.

What does the function im2uint8 do? What affect does it have on

(a) the appearance of the image?

(b) the elements of the image matrix?

17. What happens if you apply im2uint8 to the cameraman image?

18. Experiment with reducing spatial resolution of the following images:

(a) cameraman.tif
(b) The greyscale emu image
(c) blocks.tif
(d) buffalo.tif

In each case note the point at which the image becomes unrecognizable.