UNIT-I

DIGITAL IMAGE FUNDAMENTALS

&
IMAGE TRANSFORMS

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 What is Digital Image Processing?
 An image is defined as a two-dimensional function, f(x,y),
where x and y are spatial (plane) coordinates, and the
amplitude of f at any pair of coordinates (x,y) is called the
intensity of the image at that point.
 When x, y and the amplitude of f are all finite, discrete
quantities, we call the image a digital image.
 The field of digital image processing refers to processing
digital images by using computers.
 A digital image consists of a finite number of elements, each
of which has a particular location and value.
 The elements are referred as picture elements, image
elements, pels and pixels.
 Machines vs humans
 Among the five senses, vision is considered to
be vital one for a human being.
 But a human being can perceive only visible
part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
 But machines can span the entire range of
electromagnetic spectrum from gamma to
radio waves.
 Image vision vs Image analysis
 Image processing is a branch in which both
the input and output of a process are images.
 The goal of computer vision is to use
computers to emulate human vision, including
learning, making inferences and taking
actions.
 The area of image analysis is in between
image processing and computer vision.
 The Origin of Digital Image Processing

• One of the first applications of digital images was in

the newspaper industry, when pictures were first sent
by submarine cable between London and New York.

• Specialized printing equipment coded pictures for

cable transmission and then reconstructed them at
the receiving end.

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• Figure was transmitted in this way and reproduced on
a telegraph printer fitted with typefaces simulating a
halftone pattern.

• The initial problems in improving the visual quality of

these early digital pictures were related to the
selection of printing procedures and the distribution
of intensity levels

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• The printing based on photographic
reproduction
technique made tapes perforated at the
telegraph
from receiving terminal from 1921.

• Figure shows an image obtained using this method.

• The improvements are tonal quality and in resolution.

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• The early Bartlane systems were capable of coding
images in five distinct levels of gray.
• This capability was increased to 15 levels in 1929.

• Figure is typical of the type of images thatcould be

obtained using the 15-tone equipment.

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• Figure shows the first image of the moon taken by
Ranger

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 Applications of DIP
• The field of image processing applications in
has medicine and the space program.

• Computer procedures are used to enhance the contrast

or code the intensity levels into color for easier
interpretation of X-rays and other images used in
industry, medicine, and the biological sciences.

• Geographers use the same or similar techniques to

study pollution patterns from aerial and satellite
imagery
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 Types of Processes in Image Processing
 There are 3 types of computerized processes.
 They are : low, mid and high level processes.
 Low-level processes involve primitive operations such as
image preprocessing to reduce noise, contrast enhancement
and image sharpening.
 Here both the input and output are images.
 Mid-level processing involves segmentation (partitioning
image into regions), description of objects to reduce them to
a form so that a computer can process and classification
(recognition) of objects.
 Here inputs are images but outputs are attributes extracted
from images.
 In high-level processing, we ‘make sense’ of a collection of
recognized objects.
 Categorizing Images
 One can categorize images according to their source.
 One of the main sources is due to electromagnetic spectrum.

 The electromagnetic spectrum arranged according to energy per photon

 The spectra band ranges from gamma rays (high energy), X-
rays, Ultraviolet, Visible, Infrared, Microwaves to radio waves
(low energy).
 Other sources are acoustic, ultrasonic and electronic (electron
beams used in electron microscopy).
 Gamma Ray Imaging
 These are used in nuclear medicine and astronomical
observations.
 In medicine, it is used for complete bone scan.
 The nuclear imaging is also used in positron emission
tomography (PET).
 It can render the 3-D image of patients.
 It can detect tumors in the brain and lungs.
 The images of stars which exploded about 15000
years ago, can be captured using gamma rays.
Examples of Gamma Ray Images
(Bone scan and PET images)
 X-ray Imaging
• It is also used in medicine and astronomy.
• We can get images of blood vessels in
angiography.
• It is also used in Computerized Axial
Tomography (CAT) to generate 3-D rendition of
a patient.
• High energy X-ray images are used in industrial
processes (electronic circuit board).
 Examples of X-ray Images
(Chest X-ray and Circuit boards)
 Ultraviolet Imaging
 It is used in lithography, industrial inspection,
microscopy, lasers, biological imaging and
astronomical observations.
 Corn, cereals, onions caused by parasitic fungi
can be identified using this imaging technique.
Examples of Ultraviolet Images
(Normal corn vs Smut corn)
 Visible and Infrared Images
 It is used in light microscopy, astronomy, remote
sensing, industry and law enforcement.
 It is mainly used in weather observation and
prediction.
 Visual inspection of manufactured goods use visible
spectrum.
 Automated counting, license plate reading, tracking
and identifying bills, etc belong to visible images.
 Infrared images are used for night vision systems.
 Examples of visible and infrared images
(Microprocessor and surface of an audio CD)
 Microwave Images
(Thumb print and paper currency)
Radar images belong to this category. It
can penetrate the inaccessible regions of
earth’s surface.
 Radio Images
(MRI of human knee and spine)

It is used in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

 Acoustic imaging
 The images use sound energy.
 They are used in geological exploration,
industry and medicine.
 It is also used in mineral and oil exploration.
 Ultrasonic images are used in obstetrics to
determine the health of unborn babies and
determining the sex of the baby.
Fundamental steps in Digital Image
Processing
 Fundamental steps of DIP
 Image acquisition – This stage involves preprocessing, such
as acquiring or storing /scaling.
 Image enhancement – Here we bring out details that were
obscured or highlight some features of interest in an image.
(eg) increasing the contrast of an image.
 Image Restoration – Here we talk about how to improve the
appearance of an image. Unlike enhancement, which is
subjective, this is objective.
 Color Image Processing – Due to Internet, this area is
becoming popular. Various color models are worthy to
know.
 Wavelets – Representing the images in various degrees of
resolution in the basis of wavelets.
 Fundamental steps of DIP
 Compression – It is a technique for reducing the storage required to
save an image or bandwidth needed to transmit.
 Morphological Processing – It deals with tools for extracting image
components that are useful in the representation and description of
shape.
 Segmentation – These procedures partition an image into its
constituent parts or objects.
 Representation and description – It follows the output of a
segmentation stage.
 It uses either the boundary of a region or all the points in the region
itself.
 Description ( also called feature selection) deals with extracting
attributes or are basic for differentiating one class of objects from
another.
 Recognition – It is the process that assigns a label (eg. Vehicle) to an
object based on its descriptors.
Components of an Image Processing System
Basic components of a general-purpose system used
for digital image processing
 Image sensors – Two elements are needed to acquire
digital images.
 First one is the physical device that is sensitive to
energy radiated by the object that within image.
 The second one, called the digitizer, is a device for
converting the output of the physical sensing device
into digital form.
 (eg) in a digital video camera, the sensors produce an
electrical output proportional to light intensity.
 The digitizer converts these outputs to digital data.
Basic components of a general-purpose system
used for digital image processing
 Specialized Image Processing Hardware -
 It consists of digitizer plus hardware that performs other
primitive operations such as an arithmetic logic unit (ALU),
which performs arithmetic and logical operations on entire
image.
 This type of hardware is also called as front-end subsystem
and its characteristic is speed.
 This unit does things that require fast data throughputs
which main computer cannot handle.
 Computer – In an image processing system it is a general-
purpose computer.
 Software – It consists of specialized modules that does
specific tasks (eg. matlab)
Basic components of a general-purpose system
used for digital image processing
 Mass storage – An image of 1024 X 1024 size, storing the
intensity of each pixel in 8 bits, requires one megabyte of storage.

 For short-time storage, we can use computer memory.

 Another method is to use a specialized board called frame buffer,
that store one or more images and can be accessed rapidly.
 They enable us to instantaneously zoom, scroll (vertical shift) and
pan (horizontal shift).
 For on-line storage magnetic disks or optical-media are used.
 The archival storage needs massive capacity but are accessed
infrequently.
 Image Displays – These are mainly color TV monitors.
 Hardcopy – These devices include laser printers, film cameras,
inkjet units, etc.
 Brightness Adaptation
 There are 2 phenomena which clearly
demonstrate that the perceived brightness is
not a simple function of intensity.
 The visual system tends to undershoot or
overshoot around the boundary of regions of
different intensities.
 These scalloped bands near the boundaries
are called Mach bands.
Image Formation Model
 Image Formation Model
 When an image is generated from a physical process, its
values are proportional to energy radiated by a physical
source (em waves).
 Hence f(x,y) must be nonzero and finite. That is
0  f ( x, y )  

 The function f(x,y) is characterized by 2 components.

 1) The amount of source illumination incident on the scene
being viewed called illumination component denoted as i(x,y)
 2) The amount of illumination reflected by the objects in the
scene called reflectance component denoted as r(x,y).
 Image Formation Model
f ( x , y )  i ( x, y ) r ( x, y )
 where 0  f ( x, y )  

 and 0  r ( x, y )  1

 When r(x,y) is zero, we have total absorption and when it is 1,

we have total reflectance.
 The nature of i(x,y) is determined by the illumination source
and r(x,y) is determined by the characteristics of the imaged
objects.
 If the images are formed via transmission of illumination
through a medium such as a chest X-ray, we use transmissivity
instead of reflectivity function.
 Illumination values of objects
 On a clear day, sun produces about 90000 lm/m2 of
illumination on the surface of the Earth. It is about
10000 lm/ m2 on a cloudy day.
 On a clear evening, a full moon gives about 0.1 lm/
m2 of illumination.
 The typical illumination within office is about 1000
lm/m2.
 The typical values of r(x,y) are: 0.01 for black velvet,
0.65 for stainless steel, 0.8 for white wall paint, 0.90
for silver plated metal and 0.93 for snow.
 Image Sampling
 The output of many sensors is continuous voltage.
 To get a digital image, we need to convert this
voltage into digital form.
 But this involves 2 processes, namely sampling and
quantization.
 An image is continuous with respect to x and y
coordinates and in amplitude.
 Digitizing the coordinates is called sampling.
 Digitizing the amplitude is called quantization.
 Sampling and Quantization
 Let us consider a gray scale image.
 We can take intensity values along a particular line.
 Subsequently, we consider few equally spaced points (discrete
locations) along this line and mark the intensity values at
these points called sampling points.
 But the values of amplitude are continuous in nature.
 The gray level values can also be converted (quantized) into
discrete quantities.
 This is called quantization.
 We have converted the gray level ranges into 4 levels.
 For this we assign one of the 4 discrete gray levels (closest
one) to each sample.
Representing a Digital Image
 Representing an image as a Matrix
• The result of sampling and quantization is a matrix of
real numbers.
• Thus a sampled digital image has M rows and N
columns.
• The values of the coordinates (x,y) also has become
discrete due to quantization.
• Thus we can write a M X N digital image as:
• f(0,0) f(0,1) … f(0,N-1)
• f(1,0) f(1,1) … f(1,N-1)
• f(x,y) = . . .
• : : :
• f(M-1,0) f(M-1,1) …f(M-1,N-1)
 Dynamic range of an image
• The range of values spanned by the gray scale is
called dynamic range of an image.
• An image with high dynamic range is said to be a high
contrast image.
• An image with low dynamic range leads to a dull,
washed out look.
• The number of bits required to store a digitized
image is
• b  M N k

• When M = N, b = (N^2)k
• For example, a 256 X 256 image represented with 8
bits takes 5,24,288 bits.
Dynamic Range of Images
 Spatial and Gray-Level Resolution
 Sampling determines the spatial resolution of
an image.
 Resolution is the smallest number of
discernible line pairs per unit distance.
 Gray-level resolution is the smallest
discernible change in gray level.
 Zooming and Shrinking Digital Images
 Zooming is viewed as oversampling and shrinking is viewed as
under sampling.
 Zooming is a 2 step process: the creation of new pixel
locations and assignment of gray levels to those new
locations.
 For example, say we want to zoom an image of size 500 X 500
to 750 X 750.
 We can use nearest neighbor interpolation for zooming.
 Pixel replication is the special case of nearest neighbor
interpolation.
 Pixel replication is used to zoom the image by an integer
number of times.
 Here new locations are exact duplicates of old locations.
 It is very fast but produces check board effect and hence is
undesirable for larger magnification.
 Shrinking an image
 For shrinking an image by one-half, we delete every
other row and column.
 In order to shrink an image by non integer factor, we
expand the grid to fit over the original image, do
gray-level nearest neighbor or bilinear interpolation,
and then shrink the grid back to its original specified
size. (Assignment).
 It is good to blur an image slightly before shrinking it.
Image zooming using nearest neighbor gray-
level interpolation
Image size:128X128 Image size:512X512

Image size:256X256
Image Zooming using bilinear interpolation

Image size:128X128 Image size:512X512

Image size:256X256
 Relationships between Pixels
Neighbors of a Pixel
 A pixel p at coordinates (x,y) has 4 horizontal and vertical
neighbors whose coordinates are given by
 (x+1,y), (x-1,y), (x,y+1), (x,y-1).
 This set of pixels is called the 4-neighbors of p and is
denoted by N4(p). Some of the neighbors of p lie outside
the image if (x,y) is on the border of the image.
 The four diagonal neighbors of p have coordinates
 (x+1, y+1), (x+1, y-1), (x-1, y+1), (x-1, y-1)
 And are denoted by ND(p). These points, along with 4-
neighbors are called 8-neighbors of p, denoted by N 8(p).
 Adjacency and Connectivity
 To establish if 2 pixels are connected, it must be
determined if they are neighbors and if their gray
levels satisfy a specified criterion of similarity.
 For example, in a binary image, 2 pixels may be 4
neighbors but they are said to be connected only if
they have the same value.
 In a gray scale image, we consider any subset of
allowed gray level values for connectivity.
 3 types of adjacency
 4-adjacency: Two pixels p and q with values from V
are 4 adjacent if q is in the set N4(q).
 8-adjacenty: Two pixels p and q with values from V
are 8-adjacent if q is in the set N8(q).
 m-adjacency: Two pixels p and q with values from
V are m-adjacent if
 q is in N4(p), or
 q is in ND(p) and set N4(p) ∩ N4(q) has no pixels whose
values are from V.
 Digital Path

Arrangement of pixels pixels that are 8-adjacecnt (dashed)

A (digital) path (or curve) from pixel p with coordinates

(x,y) to pixel q with coordinates (s,t) is a sequence of
distinct pixels with coordinates
(x0 , y0), (x1 , y1 ), …,(xn , yn )
Here n is the length of the path.
If (x0 , y0) = (xn , yn ), the path is a closed path.
 Distance Measures
• For pixels p, q and z with coordinates (x,y), (s,t) and (v,w)
respectively, D is a distance function or metric if
• D(p,q) ≥ 0 (D(p,q) = 0 iff p = q)
• D(p,q) = D(q,p) and
• D(p,z) ≤ D(p,q) + D(q,z)
• The Euclidean distance between p and q is defined as
• De(p,q) = [(x – s)2 + (y – t)2]1/2
• Here the pixels having a distance less than or equal to some
value r from (x,y) are the points contained in a disk of radius r
centered at (x,y)
 D4 distance
• The D4 distance (called city-block distance) between p and q is
defined as
• D4(p,q) = | x – s| + | y – t|.
• Here the pixels have a D4 distance from (x,y) less than or equal
to some value r form a diamond centered at (x,y).
• (eg) the pixels with D4 distance ≤ 2 from (x,y) (the center
point) form the following contours of constant distance:
• 2
• 2 1 2
• 2 1 0 1 2
• 2 1 2
• 2
• The pixels with D4 = 1 are the 4-neighbors of (x,y).
 D8 distance
• The D8 distance (called chessboard distance) between p and q
is defined as
• D8(p,q) = max(| x – s|, |y – t|).
• The pixels with D8 distance from (x,y) less than or equal to
some value r form a square centered at (x,y).
• (eg) the pixels with D8 distance ≤ 2 from (x,y) (center point)
form the following contours of constant distance:
• 2 2 2 2 2
• 2 1 1 1 2
• 2 1 0 1 2
• 2 1 1 1 2
• 2 2 2 2 2
• The pixels with D8 = 1 are the 8-neighbors of (x,y).
Structure of the Human Eye

D KHALANDARBASHA

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 The eye is nearly a sphere, with an average
diameter of approximately 20mm.

 Three membranes enclose the eye

 The cornea and sclera outer cover the choroid

the retina.

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 Cornea
• The cornea is a tough, transparent tissue that covers
the anterior surface of the eye.

• Continuous with the cornea,the sclera is an opaque

membrane that encloses the remainder of the optic
globe.

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 Choroid
• The choroid lies directly below the sclera.

• This membrane contains a net- work of blood vessels that

serve as the major source of nutrition to the eye.

• The choroid coat is heavily pigmented and hence helps to

reduce the amount of extraneous light entering the eye
and the backscatter within the optical globe.

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• At its anterior extreme, the choroid is divided into the
ciliary body and the iris diaphragm.

• The latter contracts or expands to control the amount

of light that enters the eye

• The front of the iris contains the visible pigment

of the eye, whereas the back contains a black
pigment.

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• The lens is made up of concentric layers of fibrous
cells and is suspended by fibers that attach to the
ciliary body.

• It contains 60 to 70% water, about 6% fat, and more

protein than any other tissue in the eye.

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 Retin
a
• The innermost membrane of the eye is the retina,
which lines the Inside of the ǁall’s entire posterior
portion.

• When the eye is properly focused, light from an object

outside the eye is imaged on the retina.

• Pattern vision is afforded by the distribution of discrete

light receptors over the surface of the retina.

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• There are two classes of receptors: cones and rods.

• The cones in each eye number between 6 and 7

million.

• They are located primarily in the central portion of

the retina, called the fovea, and are highly sensitive
to color.

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• Muscles controlling the eye rotate the eyeball
until the image of an object of interest falls on the
fovea.

• Cone vision is called photopic or bright-light vision.

• The number of rods is much larger: Some 75 to

150 million are distributed over the retinal surface.

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• Figure shows the density of rods and cones for a
cross section of the right eye passing through the
region of emergence of the optic nerve from the
eye.

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• The absence of receptors in this area results in the
so-called blind spot.

• Fig. shows that cones are most dense in the center

of the retina (in the center area of the fovea)

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 Image Formation in the Eye
• The principal difference between the lens of the eye
and an ordinary optical lens is that the former is
flexible.

• The shape of the lens is controlled by tension in the

fibers of the ciliary body.

• To focus on distant objects, the controlling muscles

cause the lens to be relatively flattened.

• Similarly, these muscles allow the lens to

thicker
become in order to focus on objects near the eye. 24
• The distance between the center of the lens and the
retina called the focal length from
approximately 17 mm to about
varies as the
refractive
14 power of the lens increases mm,from
its minimum to its maximum.

• When the eye focuses on an object farther away the

lens exhibits its lowest refractive power.

• When the eye focuses on a nearby object, the lens is

most strongly refractive.

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• For example, the observer is looking at a tree 15 m
high at a distance of 100 m.

• If h is the height in mm of that object in the

retinal image,the geometry of Fig. yields
15/100 = h/17 or h=2.55mm.

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 Light and the Electromagnetic
Spectrum
• Sir Isaac Newton discovered that when a beam of
sunlight is passed through a glass prism,
• The emerging beam of light is not white but consists
instead of a continuous spectrum of colors ranging
from violet at one end to red at the other.

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• The intensity of a monochrome image f at any
coordinates (x, y) the gray level (l) of the image at
that point.

That is, l = f(x0 ,

y0 ) L lies in the range

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 GRAY SCALE
• The interval [Lmin , Lmax ] is called the gray scale.

• Common practice is to shift this interval numerically to

the interval [0, L-1],

• where L = 0 is considered black and

L = L-1 is considered white on the gray scale.

All intermediate values are shades of gray varying from

black to white.
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