Unit 5: Computer Vision
Computer Vision Tasks
Basics of Pixels
The word "pixel" means a picture element. Every photograph, in digital form, is made up of pixels.
They are the smallest unit of information that make up a picture. Usually round or square, they are
typically arranged in a 2-dimensional grid.
The more pixels you have, the more closely the image resembles the original.
Resolution
The number of pixels in an image is sometimes called the resolution. When the term is used to describe pixel
count, one convention is to express resolution as the width by the height, for example, a monitor resolution of
1280x1024. This means there are 1280 pixels from one side to the other, and 1024 from top to bottom.
Another convention is to express the number of pixels as a single number, like a 5 mega pixel camera (a
megapixel is a million pixels). This means the pixels along the width multiplied by the pixels along the height of
the image taken by the camera equals 5 million pixels. In the case of our 1280x1024 monitors, it could also be
expressed as 1280 x 1024 = 1,310,720, or 1.31 mega pixels.
Pixel value
Each of the pixels that represent an image stored inside a computer has a pixel value that describes how
bright that pixel is, and/or what colour it should be. The most common pixel format is the byte image, where
this number is stored as an 8-bit integer giving a range of possible values from Oto [Link], zero is to
be taken as no colour or black and 255 is taken to be full colour or white. Why do we have a value of 255?
In computer systems, computer data is in the form of ones and zeros,
which we call the binary system. Each bit in a computer system can
have either a zero or a one. Since each pixel uses 1 byte of an image,
which is equivalent to 8 bits of data. Since each bit can have two
possible values which tell us that the 8 bits can have 255
possibilities of values that starts from 0 and ends at 255.
Grayscale Images
Grayscale images are images that have a range of shades of gray without apparent colour. The darkest possible
shade is black, which is the total absence of colour or zero value of pixel. The lightest possible shade is white,
which is the total presence of colour or 255 value of a pixel. Intermediate shades of gray are represented by
equal brightness levels of the three primary colours.
RGB Images
All the images that we see around us are coloured images. These images are made up of three
primary colours Red, Green, and Blue.
All the colours that are present can be made by combining different intensities of red, green, and
blue.
Each plane separately has many pixels with each pixel value varying from Oto 255. All the three planes
when combined form a colour image. This means that in an RGB image, each pixel has a set of three
different values which together give colour to that particular pixel.