MODULE 1

INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL
IMAGE PROCESSING
CONTENTS
• Introduction
• Fundamental Steps in Digital Image Processing
• Components of an Image Processing System
• Applications of Image Processing
• Sampling and Quantization
• Representing Digital Images (Data structure)
• Some Basic Relationships Between Pixels
INTRODUCTION
• 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 or gray-level
of the image at that point.
• When all these (x, y) and intensity values are finite, discrete
quantities, we call such as an image as digital image.
• The field digital image processing refers to the processing of
digital images by means of digital computer.
• Digital images consists of finite number of elements, where each of
them has a particular location and value. These elements are
nothing but picture elements, image elements, pixels.
• Pixel is the most widely used term to denote the elements of a digital
image.
• Vision is the most important advanced of our senses, so it is not
surprising that images play an important role in human perception.
• Human vision is limited to the visible part of electromagnetic (EM)
spectrum but imaging machines cover almost the entire spectrum
(gamma to radio waves).
• Images from sources such as ultrasound, etc. are also relevant to digital
image processing.
• There are no clear boundaries between image processing, image analysis
(image understanding), and computer vision.
• However, they are often considered as the low-, mid-, and high-level
stages of visual perception.
• Low-level image processing processes involve primitive
operations such as noise reduction, contrast enhancement,
and image sharpening.
• Mid-level image processing involves segmentation,
description to those objects to reduce them to a form
suitable for computer processing and classification
(recognition) of individual objects.
• High-level image processing involves collaboration of
recognized objects, as an image analysis, performing
cognitive functions which normally associated with vision.
• Sometimes image processing is thought as operations where
both input and output are images but this is sometimes too
limiting
FUNDAMENTAL STEPS IN DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING
Image Acquisition The image is captured by a sensor (e.g.. Camera), and digitized if the output of the
camera or sensor is not already in digital form, using analog-to-digital convertor
Image Enhancement The process of manipulating an image so that the result is more suitable than the
original for specific applications. The idea behind enhancement techniques is to
bring out details that are hidden, or simple to highlight certain features of interest
in an image.
Image Restoration It helps in improving the appearance of an image. Tend to be mathematical or
probabilistic models. Enhancement, on the other hand, is based on human
subjective preferences regarding what constitutes a “good” enhancement result.
Colour Image Processing Use the colour of the image to extract features of interest in an image. It is one of
the area which is gaining significant increase in the use of digital images over the
internet.
Wavelets They are the foundation of representing images in various degrees of resolution. It
is used for image data compression.
Compression It is the technique for reducing the storage required to save an image or the
bandwidth required to transmit it.
Morphological Processing It deals with the tools for extracting image components that are useful in the
representation and description of shape.
Image Segmentation Segmentation procedures partition an image into its constituent parts or objects.
Representation and Description Representation: Make a decision whether the data should be
represented as a boundary or as a complete region. It is almost
always follows the output of a segmentation stage.
• Boundary Representation: Focus on external shape
characteristics, such as corners and inflections.
• Region Representation: Focus on internal properties, such as
texture or skeleton shape.
• Description: also called, feature selection, deals with
extracting attributes that result in some information of interest.
Recognition It is the process that assigns label to an object based on the
information provided by its description.
COMPONENTS OF AN IMAGE PROCESSING SYSTEM
Image Sensors Two elements are required to acquire digital images. The first is the physical
device that is sensitive to the energy radiated by the object we wish to image
(Sensor). The second, called a digitizer, is a device for converting the output of
the physical sensing device into digital form.

Specialized Usually consists of the digitizer, mentioned before, plus hardware that
Image Processing performs other primitive operations, such as an arithmetic logic unit (ALU),
Hardware which performs arithmetic and logical operations in parallel on entire images.
This type of hardware sometimes is called a front-end subsystem.

Computer The computer in an image processing system is a general-purpose computer

Image Processing Software for image processing consists of specialized modules that perform
Software specific tasks. A well-designed package also includes the capability for the
user to write code that, as a minimum, utilizes the specialized modules.
Mass Storage Capability Mass storage capability is a must in a image processing applications and image
of sized 1024 * 1024 pixels requires one megabyte of storage space if the image
is not compressed.
Digital storage for image processing applications falls into three principal
categories:
 Short-term storage for use during processing.
 on line storage for relatively fast recall
 Archival storage, characterized by infrequent access
Image Displays The displays in use today are mainly colour (preferably flat screen) TV
monitors. Monitors are driven by the outputs of the image and graphics display
cards that are an integral part of a computer system.
Hardcopy devices Used for recording images, include laser printers, film cameras, heat-sensitive
devices, inkjet units and digital units, such as optical and CD-ROM disks.
Networking It is almost a default function in any computer system, in use today. Because of
the large amount of data inherent in image processing applications the key
consideration in image transmission is bandwidth.
APPLICATIONS OF IMAGE PROCESSING
• Today, there is almost no area that is not impacted in some way by
digital image processing.
• The areas of application of digital image processing are so varied.
• One of the simplest ways to understand the image processing
applications is to categorize images according to their source.
• The principal energy source for images we use today is the
electromagnetic energy spectrum.
• Other important sources of energy include acoustic, ultrasonic,
electronic.
• Synthetic images which are used for modelling and visualization are
generated by computer.
• Images based on radiation from EM spectrum are the most familiar
especially images using X-ray and visual bands in the spectrum.
• Basically EM waves can be conceptualized as propagating sinusoidal
waves with varying wavelengths. They can also be treated as a stream of
massless particles containing a wavelike particle moving at the speed of
light.
• Each massless particle contains some amount of energy. Each bundle of
energy is called as photon.
Medical Imaging
• Medical imaging is the procedure used to attain images of the body
parts for medical uses in order to identify or study diseases.
• Medical imaging is developing rapidly due to developments in image
processing techniques including image recognition, analysis, and
enhancement.
• In medicine, many techniques are used such as segmentation and
texture analysis, which is used for cancer and other disorder
identifications.
• Image registering and fusion methods are widely used nowadays
specially in new modalities such as PET-CT and PET-MRI.
• In the field of bioinformatics, telemedicine and the format less
compression techniques are used to communicate the image remotely.
Robot vision
• Robot Vision involves using a combination of camera hardware
and computer algorithms to allow robots to process visual data
from the world.
• Applications and benefits for robotic vision systems used in
industry or for service robots:
automating process
object detection
estimation by counting any type of moving
applications for security and surveillance
used in inspection to remove the parts with defects
defense applications
used by autonomous vehicle or mobile robots for
navigation
for interaction in computer-human interaction
Character recognition
• Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is
the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed,
handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether
from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scene-photo
or from subtitle text superimposed on an image.
• Applications include Automatic number plate recognition, In
airports, for passport recognition and information extraction,
Extracting business card information into a contact list and many
more.
Remote Sensing
• Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object
or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object
and thus in contrast to on-site observation, especially the Earth.
• Remote sensing is used in numerous fields, including geography,
land surveying and most Earth science disciplines (for example,
hydrology, ecology, meteorology, oceanography, glaciology,
geology).
• It is used in military, intelligence, commercial, economic, planning,
and humanitarian applications.