Geometric Transformation in Image Processing
Priyam Das
Introduction
Image processing is performed using transformations one of the most common
among them is geometric transformation. This method allows us to alter the
spatial arrangement of pixels in an image which is important for tasks such as
alignment, correction, enhancement and visualization.
Understanding Geometric Transformation
Geometric transformation modifies the location of pixels in an image. It consists
of two main steps:
• Spatial transformation of pixels or coordinates and intensity interpolation.
• Intensity interpolation is used to assign the intensity value of pixels after
spatial transformation.
In a geometric transformation a pixel at coordinate (x, y) will be moved to
coordinate (x’, y’). That is the coordinate (x’, y’) of the output image which
will have the intensity value of the coordinate (x, y) in the input image. The
geometric transformation is given by the equation in matrix form:
where:
• (x, y) is the input coordinate
• (x’, y’) is the output coordinate
• T is the geometric transformation matrix
These transformations are useful for operations like rotation, scaling, trans-
lation and shearing.
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Different Types of Image Transformation Using Geometric
Transformation
Lets see some of the commonly used Image Transformation done using Geomet-
ric Transformation
Translation
Translation displaces an image by a certain amount of pixels about the x and y
axis. This operation translates the image in a way such that every pixel in the
image will be shifted to a new position maintaining the shape and size of the
image. Its equation is:
Rotation
Rotation is a process in which a image is simply rotated around the origin or an
image center by a given angle. This rotates the image or changes the orientation
of an image depending on the angle it has been set to. Its equation is:
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Scaling
Scaling enables one to make the image larger or smaller in size. Most scaling
methods preserve aspect ratio but general scaling is achieved by changing the
dimension on different axes unlike other methods. Its equation is:
Reflection
Reflection transformation in image processing is a geometric operation that
involves flipping an image across a specific axis. The reflection can be done hor-
izontally, vertically, or diagonally, resulting in a mirrored version of the original
image.
Horizontal Reflection
In horizontal reflection, each row of pixels is reversed, creating a mirror image
along the horizontal axis. Let I represent the original image and Ish represent
the horizontally reflected image. This is the equation of this transformation:
where i and j are row and column indices, and h is the height of the image.
Here’s the code implementation of horizontal reflection.
Vertical Reflection
In vertical reflection, each column of pixels is reversed,creating a mirror image
along the vertical axis. Let I represent the original image and Irv represent the
vertically reflected image. The equation of this transformation is given by:
where i and j are row and column indices, and w is the width of the image.
Here’s the code implementation of vertical reflection.
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Applications of Geometric Transformation in Image Pro-
cessing
• Image Registration: Registering images from various views or from
multiple sensors.
• Computer Vision: Improving media related to computer vision.
• Medical Imaging: Understanding and comparing images of MRI, X ray
or CT scan.
• Remote Sensing: Geographical information system analyse satellite or
aerial images using this.
• Robotics: Navigation of robots is done using image analysis of images
captured by their camera sensor.