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Module - 4
Fundamentals of Digital Image Processing
Introduction to Image processing and applications. Image as 2D data. Image
representation in Gray scale, Binary and Colour images. Fundamental steps in
image processing. Components of image processing system. Coordinate
conventions. Sampling and quantization. Spatial and Gray Level Resolution. Basic
relationship between pixels – neighbourhood, adjacency, connectivity.
Fundamentals of spatial domain-convolution operation.
Image
● An image is defined as a two-dimensional function,F(x,y), where x and y are
spatial coordinates, and the amplitude of F at any pair of coordinates (x,y) is
called the intensity or gray level of that image at that point.
● When x,y, and amplitude values of F are finite, we call it a digital image.
● In other words, an image can be defined by a two-dimensional array
specifically arranged in rows and columns.
● The field of digital image processing refers to processing digital images by
means of a digital computer.
● Digital Image is composed of a finite number of elements, each of which
elements have a particular value at a particular location.
● These elements are referred to as picture elements, image elements, and
pixels.
● A Pixel is most widely used to denote the elements of a Digital Image.
● Digital image processing is the use of a digital computer to process digital
images through an algorithm.
● As a subcategory or field of digital signal processing, digital image
processing has many advantages over analog image processing.
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● It allows a much wider range of algorithms to be applied to the input data
and can avoid problems such as the build-up of noise and distortion during
processing.
● Image processing involves processing or altering an existing image in a
desired manner.
● Digital Image Processing - Two major tasks :
○ Improvement of pictorial information for human interpretation
○ Processing of image data for storage, transmission and representation
for autonomous machine perception.
● It is a type of signal processing in which input is an image and output may
be image or characteristics/ features associated with that image.
Gray scale
● Grayscale is a group of shades without any visible color.
● On a monitor, each pixel of a grayscale display carries an amount of light,
ranging from the weakest amount of light, or black, to the strongest amount
of light, or white.
● Grayscale only contains brightness information, not color.
● Grayscale image is one of the digital image categories where every pixel
may only be of varying shades of gray without any color information.
Image as 2D data
● A digital image is a 2D array of pixels.
● Each pixel is characterized by its (x, y) coordinates and its value.
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● Digital images are characterized by matrix size, pixel depth and resolution.
● The matrix size is determined from the number of the columns (m) and the
number of rows (n) of the image matrix (m × n).
● The size of a matrix is selected by the operator. Generally, as the matrix
dimension increases the resolution is getting better .
● Pixel or bit depth refers to the number of bits per pixel that represent the
color levels of each pixel in an image.
Image representation in Gray scale, Binary and Color images
Binary image
● The binary image as it name states, contain only two pixel values 0 and 1.
● Here 0 refers to black color and 1 refers to white color.
● It is also known as Monochrome.
Black and white image
● The resulting image that is formed hence consist of only black and white
color and thus can also be called as Black and White image.
● No gray level
● One of the interesting about this binary image is that there is no gray level in
it.
● Only two colors that are black and white are found in it.
● To store this type of image, we use the PBM (Portable Bitmap) format.
2, 3, 4,5, 6 bit color format
● The images with a color format of 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 bit are not widely used
today. They were used in old times for old TV displays, or monitor displays.
● But each of these colors have more than two gray levels, and hence has gray
color unlike the binary image.
● In a 2 bit 4, in a 3 bit 8, in a 4 bit 16, in a 5 bit 32, in a 6 bit 64 different
colors are present.
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8 bit color format
● 8 bit color format is one of the most famous image format.
● It has 256 different shades of colors in it.
● It is commonly known as Grayscale image.
● The range of the colors in 8 bit vary from 0-255.
● Where 0 stands for black, and 255 stands for white, and 127 stands for gray
color.
● This format was used initially by early models of the operating systems
UNIX and the early color Macintoshes.
● The format of these images are PGM ( Portable Gray Map ).
● This format is not supported by default from windows.
● In order to see gray scale image, you need to have an image viewer or image
processing toolbox such as Matlab.
16 bit color format
● It is a color image format.
● It has 65,536 different colors in it.
● It is also known as High color format.
● It has been used by Microsoft in their systems that support more than 8 bit
color format.
● Now in this 16 bit format and the next format we are going to discuss which
is a 24 bit format are both color format.
● The distribution of color in a color image is not as simple as it was in
grayscale image.
● A 16 bit format is actually divided into three further formats
● which are Red , Green and Blue. The famous (RGB) format.
● It is pictorially represented in the image below.
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● The distribution of 16 bit has been done like this.
● 5 bits for R, 6 bits for G, 5 bits for B.
● The additional bit that was left behind is added into the green bit.
● Because green is the color which is most soothing to eyes in all of these
three colors.
● Note this distribution is not followed by all the systems.
● Some have introduced an alpha channel in the 16 bit.
● Another distribution of 16 bit format is like this:
● 4 bits for R, 4 bits for G, 4 bits for B, 4 bits for alpha channel.
● Or some distribute it like this 5 bits for R, 5 bits for G, 5 bits for B, 1 bits for
alpha channel.
24 bit color format
● 24 bit color format also known as true color format.
● Like 16 bit color format, in a 24 bit color format, the 24 bits are again
distributed in three different formats of Red, Green and Blue.
● Since 24 is equally divided on 8, so it has been distributed equally between
three different color channels.
● Their distribution is like this: 8 bits for R, 8 bits for G, 8 bits for B
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● It is the most common used format. Its format is PPM ( Portable pixMap)
which is supported by Linux operating system. The famous windows has its
own format for it which is BMP ( Bitmap ).
Problem : The spatial resolution of an image is given by 128 X 128. What is the
storage requirement if it is represented by 256 gray levels?
Solution:
Spatial resolution = 128 × 128
Number of pixels:
128×128=16384 pixels
Gray levels = 256
Since:
256 = 28
So each pixel requires 8 bits.
Total storage in bits
16384×8=131072 bits
Convert to bytes
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1 byte=8 bits
131072÷8=16384 bytes
1 KB=1024 bytes
16384÷1024=16 KB
The storage requirement is:
131072 bits=16384 bytes=16 KB
Applications of Digital Image Processing
The main purpose of the DIPis divided into following 5 groups:
1. Visualization: The objects which are not visible, they are observed.
2. Image sharpening and restoration: It is used for better image resolution.
3. Image retrieval:An image of interest can be seen
4. Measurement of pattern: In an image, all the objects are measured.
5. Image Recognition: Each object in an image can be distinguished.
6. Image sharpening and restoration
7. Medical field
8. Remote sensing
9. Transmission and encoding
10.Machine/Robot vision
11.Color processing
12.Pattern recognition
13.Video processing
14.Microscopic Imaging
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Image sharpening and restoration
● Image sharpening and restoration refers here to process images that have
been captured from the modern camera to make them a better image or to
manipulate those images in way to achieve desired result.
● It refers to do what Photoshop usually does.
● This includes Zooming, blurring , sharpening , gray scale to color
conversion, detecting edges and vice versa , Image retrieval and Image
recognition.
Medical field
● The common applications of DIP in the field of medical is
○ Gamma ray imaging
○ CT scan
○ X Ray Imaging
○ Medical CT
○ UV imaging
○ Segmentation and texture analysis, which is used for cancer and other
disorder identifications.
UV imaging
● In the field of remote sensing , the area of the earth is scanned by a satellite
or from a very high ground and then it is analyzed to obtain information
about it.
● One particular application of digital image processing in the field of remote
sensing is to detect infrastructure damages caused by an earthquake.
● As it takes longer time to grasp damage, even if serious damages are focused
on.
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● Since the area effected by the earthquake is sometimes so wide , that it not
possible to examine it with human eye in order to estimate damages.
● Even if it is , then it is very hectic and time consuming procedure.
● So a solution to this is found in digital image processing.
● An image of the effected area is captured from the above ground and then it
is analyzed to detect the various types of damage done by the earthquake
Transmission and encoding
● The very first image that has been transmitted over the wire was from
London to NewYork via a submarine cable.
● The picture that was sent is shown below.
● The picture that was sent took three hours to reach from one place to
another.
● Now just imagine , that today we are able to see live video feed , or live cctv
footage from one continent to another with just a delay of seconds.
● It means that a lot of work has been done in this field too.
● This field doesnot only focus on transmission , but also on encoding.
● Many different formats have been developed for high or low bandwidth to
encode photos and then stream it over the internet or e.t.c.
Machine/Robot vision
● Apart form the many challenges that a robot face today , one of the biggest
challenge still is to increase the vision of the robot.
● Make robot able to see things , identify them , identify the hurdles e.t.c
Hurdle detection
● Hurdle detection is one of the common task that has been done through
image processing, by identifying different type of objects in the image and
then calculating the distance between robot and hurdles.
Color processing
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● Color processing includes processing of colored images and different color
spaces that are used. For example RGB color model ,YCbCr, HSV.
● It also involves studying transmission , storage , and encoding of these color
images.
Pattern recognition
● Pattern recognition involves study from image processing and from various
other fields that includes machine learning(a branch of artificial
intelligence).
● In pattern recognition , image processing is used for identifying the objects
in an images and then machine learning is used to train the system for the
change in pattern.
● Pattern recognition is used in computer aided diagnosis , recognition of
handwriting , recognition of images e.t.c
Video processing
● A video is nothing but just the very fast movement of pictures.
● The quality of the video depends on the number of frames/pictures per
minute and the quality of each frame being used.
● Video processing involves noise reduction , detail enhancement , motion
detection, frame rate conversion , aspect ratio conversion , color space
conversion e.t.c.
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Fundamental Steps in Digital Image Processing
Step 1 : Image Acquisition
The image is captured by a sensor (eg. Camera), and digitized if the output of the
camera or sensor is not already in digital form, using analogue-to-digital convertor.
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Step 2 : 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 simply to highlight certain features of interest in an image.
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Step 3: Image Restoration
● Improving the appearance of an image.
● It is the process of taking an image with some known, or estimated
degradation, and restoring it to its original appearance.
● Restoration techniques tend to be based on mathematical or probabilistic
models of image degradation.
● Enhancement, on the other hand, is based on human subjective preferences
regarding what constitutes a “good” enhancement result.
Step 4 : Colour Image Processing
● Use the colour of the image to extract features of interest in an image
Step 5: Wavelets
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● A wavelet is a mathematical function useful in digital signal processing and
image compression.
● Wavelets are the foundation of representing images in various degrees of
resolution.
Step 6 : Compression
● Techniques for reducing the storage required to save an image or the
bandwidth required to transmit it.
● Image compression is familiar to most users of computers in the form of
image file extensions, such as the jpg file extension used in the JPEG (Joint
Photographic Experts Group) image compression standard.
Step 7: Morphological Processing
● Morphological processing is a collection of shape-based image processing
operations used to extract meaningful structures from an image.
● Tools for extracting image components that are useful in the representation
and description of shape.
● In this step, there would be a transition from processes that output images, to
processes that output image attributes.
Step 8 : Image Segmentation
● Segmentation procedures partition an image into its constituent parts or
objects.
Step 9 : Representation and Description
● Representation: Make a decision whether the data should be represented as
a boundary or as a complete region. It almost always follows the output of a
segmentation stage.
● Boundary Representation: Focus on external shape characteristics, such as
corners
● Region Representation: Focus on internal properties, such as texture
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● Choosing a representation is only part of the solution for transforming raw
data into a form suitable for subsequent computer processing (mainly
recognition).
● Description: also called, feature selection, deals with extracting attributes
that result in some information of interest.
Step 10: Object Recognition
● Recognition: the process that assigns label to an object based on the
information provided by its description.
Step 11: Knowledge Base
● Knowledge about a problem domain is coded into an image processing
system in the form of a knowledge database.
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