Digital Image Processing

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT
(SPATIAL FILTERING 1)
 Contents

In this lecture we will look at spatial filtering

techniques:
 Neighbourhood operations
 What is spatial filtering?
 Smoothing operations
 What happens at the edges?
 Correlation and convolution
 Neighbourhood Operations

Neighbourhood operations simply operate on a

larger neighbourhood of pixels than point operations
Neighbourhoods are Origin x
mostly a rectangle
around a central pixel
Any size rectangle
and any shape filter (x, y)
are possible Neighbourhood

y Image f (x, y)
 Simple Neighbourhood Operations

Some simple neighbourhood operations include:

 Min: Set the pixel value to the minimum in the neighbourhood
 Max: Set the pixel value to the maximum in the
neighbourhood
 Median: The median value of a set of numbers is the
midpoint value in that set (e.g. from the set [1, 7, 15, 18, 24] 15
is the median). Sometimes the median works better than the
average
 Simple Neighbourhood Operations Example

Original Image x Enhanced Image x

123 127 128 119 115 130

140 145 148 153 167 172

133 154 183 192 194 191

194 199 207 210 198 195

164 170 175 162 173 151

y y
 The Spatial Filtering Process
Origin x
a b c r s t
d
g
e
h
f
i
* u
x
v
y
w
z
Original Image Filter
Simple 3*3 Pixels
e 3*3 Filter
Neighbourhood
eprocessed = v*e +
r*a + s*b + t*c +
u*d + w*f +
y Image f (x, y) x*g + y*h + z*i

The above is repeated for every pixel in the

original image to generate the filtered image
 Spatial Filtering: Equation Form

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

g ( x, y )    w(s, t ) f ( x  s, y  t )
s   at   b

Filtering can be given

in equation form as
shown above
Notations are based
on the image shown
to the left
 Smoothing Spatial Filters
One of the simplest spatial filtering operations we
can perform is a smoothing operation
 Simply average all of the pixels in a neighbourhood around a
central value
 Especially useful
in removing noise
from images
 Also useful for 1
/9 1
/9 1
/9
highlighting gross
detail Simple
1
/9 1
/9 /9
1
averaging
filter
1
/9 1
/9 /9
1
 Smoothing Spatial Filtering
Origin x
104 100 108 1
/9 1
/9 1
/9

* /9 /9 /9
1 1 1
99 106 98

95 90 85 1
/9 1
/9 1
/9
1
/9 100
104 1
/9 108
1
/9
Original Image Filter
Simple 3*3 /9 106
1
99 1
/9 198
/9
3*3 Smoothing Pixels
Neighbourhood /9 190
1
95 /9 185
/9 Filter
e = 1/9*106 +
1
/9*104 + 1/9*100 + 1/9*108 +
1
/9*99 + 1/9*98 +
y Image f (x, y) 1
/9*95 + 1/9*90 + 1/9*85
= 98.3333
The above is repeated for every pixel in the
original image to generate the smoothed image
 Image Smoothing Example

The image at the top left

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

is an original image of
size 500*500 pixels
The subsequent images
show the image after
filtering with an averaging
filter of increasing sizes
 3, 5, 9, 15 and 35
Notice how detail begins
to disappear
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Image Smoothing Example

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

Image Smoothing Example

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

Image Smoothing Example

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

Image Smoothing Example

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

Image Smoothing Example

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

Image Smoothing Example

 Weighted Smoothing Filters
More effective smoothing filters can be generated
by allowing different pixels in the neighbourhood
different weights in the averaging function
 Pixels closer to the
central pixel are more
important 1
/16 2
/16 /16
1

 Often referred to as a
weighted averaging 2
/16 4
/16 /16
2

1
/16 2
/16 /16
1

Weighted
averaging filter
 Another Smoothing Example
By smoothing the original image we get rid of lots
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

of the finer detail which leaves only the gross

features for thresholding

Original Image Smoothed Image Thresholded Image

 Averaging Filter Vs. Median Filter Example
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Original Image Image After Image After

With Noise Averaging Filter Median Filter
Filtering is often used to remove noise from images
Sometimes a median filter works better than an
averaging filter
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Averaging Filter Vs. Median Filter Example

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

Averaging Filter Vs. Median Filter Example

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

Averaging Filter Vs. Median Filter Example

Simple Neighbourhood Operations Example

x
123 127 128 119 115 130

140 145 148 153 167 172

133 154 183 192 194 191

194 199 207 210 198 195

164 170 175 162 173 151

y
Strange Things Happen At The Edges!

At the edges of an image we are missing

pixels to form a neighbourhood
Origin x
e e

e e e
y Image f (x, y)
 Strange Things Happen At The Edges!
(cont…)

There are a few approaches to dealing with missing

edge pixels:
 Omit missing pixels
 Only works with some filters
 Can add extra code and slow down processing
 Pad the image
 Typically with either all white or all black pixels
 Replicate border pixels
 Truncate the image
 Allow pixels wrap around the image
 Can cause some strange image artefacts
Simple Neighbourhood Operations Example

x
123 127 128 119 115 130

140 145 148 153 167 172

133 154 183 192 194 191

194 199 207 210 198 195

164 170 175 162 173 151

y
 Strange Things Happen At The Edges!
(cont…)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Filtered Image:
Zero Padding

Original Filtered Image:

Image Replicate Edge Pixels

Filtered Image:
Wrap Around Edge Pixels
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

(cont…)
Strange Things Happen At The Edges!
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

(cont…)
Strange Things Happen At The Edges!
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

(cont…)
Strange Things Happen At The Edges!
 Correlation & Convolution
The filtering we have been talking about so far is
referred to as correlation with the filter itself
referred to as the correlation kernel
Convolution is a similar operation, with just one
subtle difference
a b c r s t
d e e u v w eprocessed = v*e +
f g h x y z
Original
Image
* Filter
z*a + y*b + x*c +
w*d + u*e +
Pixels t*f + s*g + r*h

For symmetric filters it makes no difference

 Summary

In this lecture we have looked at the idea of spatial

filtering and in particular:
 Neighbourhood operations
 The filtering process
 Smoothing filters
 Dealing with problems at image edges when using filtering
 Correlation and convolution
Next time we will looking at sharpening filters and
more on filtering and image enhancement