Digital Image Processing

Dr. Mohannad K. Sabir

Biomedical Engineering Department
Fifth Class
 Digital Image Processing
1- Intensity Transformations and Spatial Filtering
• Two principal categories of spatial processing are:
1- Intensity transformations : operate on single
pixels of an image for tasks such as contrast
manipulation and image thresholding.
2- spatial filtering: performs operations on the
neighborhood of every pixel in an image.
Examples of spatial filtering include image
smoothing and sharpening.
 Digital Image Processing
The Basics of Intensity Transformations
• The spatial domain processes are based on the
expression:
g(x,y)=T[f(x,y)] ---- 1
• where f(x, y) is an input image, g(x, y) is the
output image, and T is an operator on f defined
over a neighborhood of point (x, y).
• The operator can be applied to the pixels of a
single image (our principal focus here) or to the
pixels of a set of images, such as performing the
element wise sum of a sequence of images for
noise reduction.
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• The figure above shows the basic implementation
of eq. 1 on a single image.
• The point (x0,y0) shown is an arbitrary location in
the image, and the small region shown is a
neighborhood of (x0,y0). Typically, the
neighborhood is rectangular, centered on (x0,y0),
and much smaller in size than the image.
• Thus, for any specific location the value of the
output image g at those coordinates is equal to
the result of applying T to the neighborhood with
origin at (x0,y0) in f.
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• For example, suppose that the neighborhood is a
square of size 3x3 and that operator T is defined
as “compute the average intensity of the pixels in
the neighborhood.” Consider an arbitrary location
in an image, say (100,150). The result at that
location in the output image, g(100,150), is the
sum of f(100,150) and its 8-neighbors, divided by
9.
• The center of the neighborhood is then moved to
the next adjacent location and the procedure is
repeated to generate the next value of the output
image g.
 Digital Image Processing
• Depending on the size of a neighborhood and its
location, part of the neighborhood may lie
outside the image.
• There are two solutions to this:
(1) to ignore the values outside the image, or
(2) to pad image,
• The smallest possible neighborhood is of size 1x1
In this case, g depends only on the value of f at a
single point (x, y) and T in Eq. (1) becomes an
intensity (also called a gray-level, or mapping)
transformation function of the form
 Digital Image Processing
s=T(r) ------- 2
• where, for simplicity in notation, we use s
and r to denote, respectively, the intensity of
g and f at any point (x, y).
• Approaches whose results depend only on
the intensity at a point sometimes are called
point processing techniques, as opposed to
the neighborhood processing techniques
discussed in the previous paragraph.
 Digital Image Processing
• For example, if T(r) has the form in
Fig. the result of applying the
transformation to every pixel in f to
generate the corresponding pixels in
g would be to produce an image of
higher contrast than the original, by
darkening the intensity levels below
k and brightening the levels above k.
In this technique, sometimes called
contrast stretching, values of r lower
than k reduce (darken) the values of
s, toward black. The opposite is true
for values of r higher than k.
Contrast stretching function
 Digital Image Processing
• In the limiting case shown in Fig.
T(r) produces a two-level (binary)
image. A mapping of this form is
called a thresholding function.
• Some fairly simple yet powerful
processing approaches can be
formulated with intensity
transformation functions.
Thresholding function.
 Digital Image Processing
• Although intensity transformation and spatial filtering
methods span a broad range of applications, most of
the examples here are applications to image
enhancement.
• Enhancement is the process of manipulating an image
so that the result is more suitable than the original for
a specific application.
• There is no general “theory” of image enhancement.
• Thus, for example, a method that is quite useful for
enhancing X-ray images may not be the best approach
for enhancing infrared images.
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• When an image is processed for visual
interpretation, the viewer is the ultimate
judge of how well a particular method works.
• When dealing with machine perception,
enhancement is easier to quantify.
 Digital Image Processing
2- Some Basic Intensity Transformation Functions
• Intensity transformations are among the simplest
of all image processing techniques. As noted in
the previous section, we denote the values of
pixels, before and after processing, by r and s,
respectively. These values are related by a
transformation T, as given in Eq. (2) , that maps a
pixel value r into a pixel value s.
 Digital Image Processing
• Because we deal with digital quantities, values
of an intensity transformation function
typically are stored in a table, and the
mappings from r to s are implemented via
table lookups. For an 8-bit image, a lookup
table containing the values of T will have 256
entries.
 Digital Image Processing
• As an introduction to
intensity transformations,
consider Fig. , which
shows three basic types of
functions used frequently in
image processing:
1. linear (negative and
identity transformations),
2. logarithmic (log and
inverse-log
transformations), and
3. power-law (nth power and
nth root transformations).
 Digital Image Processing
1. Image Negatives:
• The negative of an image with
intensity levels in the range is
obtained by using the
negative transformation
function shown in Fig. above , (r) A digital mammogram
which has the form:
s=L-1-r ------ 3
• Reversing the intensity levels
of a digital image in this
manner produces the
equivalent of a photographic
negative. (s) Negative image obtained using Eq. (3)
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2. Log Transformations:
• The general form of the
log transformation is
s=c log(1+r) ----- 4
• where c is a constant and
Fourier spectrum displayed as a grayscale image.
it is assumed that r >= 0.
• The shape of the log curve
shows that this
transformation maps a
narrow range of low
intensity values in the
input into a wider range of
output levels. Result of applying the log transformation
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3. Power-Law (Gamma)
Transformations
• Power-law transformations have
the form:
s=c rɣ ------ 5
• where c and ɣ are positive
constants.
• Figure shows plots of s as a
function of r for various values of
ɣ
• As with log transformations,
power-law curves with fractional
values of map a narrow range of
dark input values into a wider
range of output values, with the
opposite being true for higher
values of input levels.
• Curves generated with values of
ɣ>1 have exactly the opposite
effect as those generated with
values of ɣ<1.
 Digital Image Processing
(a) Image of a human retina.
(b) Image as it appears on a
monitor with a gamma setting
of 2.5 (note the darkness).
(c) Gamma- corrected image
(d) Corrected image, as it appears
on the same monitor (compare
with the original image).
• gamma correction consists of
using the transformation s=r0.4
to preprocess the image before
inputting it into the monitor.
• Sometimes, a higher gamma
makes the displayed image look
better to viewers than the
original because of an increase
in contrast. However, the
objective of gamma correction
is to produce a faithful display
of an input image
 Digital Image Processing
a) Magnetic
resonance image
(MRI) of a
fractured human
spine (the region
of the fracture is
enclosed by the
circle).
(b)–(d) Results of
applying the
transformation
with c=1 and
ɣ=0.6, 0.4 and 0.3,
respectively.
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(a) Aerial image.
(b)–(d) Results of
applying the
transformation with
ɣ=3.0, 4,0 and 5.0,
respectively. ( in all )
• The latter result has
a slightly more
appealing
appearance because
it has higher
contrast.
• The airport runways
near the middle of
the image appears
clearer
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Piecewise Linear Transformation Functions
• An approach complementary to the methods
discussed in the previous three sections is to use
piecewise linear functions.
• The advantage of these functions over those
discussed thus far is that the form of piecewise
functions can be arbitrarily complex.
• The main disadvantage of these functions is that
their specification requires considerable user
input.
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1- Contrast Stretching
• Low-contrast images can result from poor
illumination, lack of dynamic range in the
imaging sensor, or even the wrong setting of a
lens aperture during image acquisition.
• Contrast stretching expands the range of
intensity levels in an image so that it spans the
ideal full intensity range of the recording
medium or display device.
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(b) shows an 8-bit image with low
contrast.
(c) shows the result of contrast
stretching, obtained by setting
(r1,s1)=(rmin,0) and
(r2,s2)=(rmax,L-1), where rmin
and rmax denote the minimum
and maximum intensity levels
in the input image,
respectively. The
transformation stretched the
intensity levels linearly to the
full intensity range, [0, L-1].
(d) shows the result of using the
thresholding function, with
(r1,s1)=(m,0) and (r2,s2)=(m,L-1)
where m is the mean intensity
level in the image.
(a) Piecewise linear
transformation function.
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2- Intensity-Level Slicing:
• There are applications in which it is of interest to
highlight a specific range of intensities in an
image.
• Some of these applications include enhancing
features in satellite imagery, such as masses of
water, and enhancing flaws in X-ray images.
• The method, called intensity level slicing, can be
implemented in several ways, but most are
variations of two basic themes.
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1. One approach is to display in
one value (say, white) all the
values in the range of interest
and in another (say, black) all
other intensities. This
produces a binary image. In
the image the range of
intensities of interest selected
in the upper end of the gray
scale.
2. The second approach, based
on the transformation
brightens (or darkens) the
desired range of intensities,
but leaves all other intensity
levels in the image unchanged.
In the image the selected
range set near black, so that
the grays in the area of the
blood vessels and kidneys
were preserved.
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3-Bit-Plane Slicing:
• Pixel values are integers
composed of bits. For example,
values in a 256-level gray-scale
image are composed of 8 bits
(one byte).
• Instead of highlighting intensity-
level ranges, we could highlight
the contribution made to total
image appearance by specific
bits.
• As Fig. illustrates, an 8-bit
image may be considered as
being composed of eight one-bit
planes, with plane 1 containing
the lowest-order bit of all pixels
in the image, and plane 8 all the
highest-order bits.
 Digital Image Processing
(a) An 8-bit gray-
scale image of
size 837x988
pixels.
(b) through (i) Bit
planes 8 through
1, respectively,
where plane 1
contains the
least significant
bit. Each bit
plane is a binary
image.
 Digital Image Processing
• Decomposing an image into its bit planes
is useful for analyzing the relative Image
importance of each bit in the image, a reconstructed from
process that aids in determining the bit planes: 8 and 7
adequacy of the number of bits used to
quantize the image. Also, this type of
decomposition is useful for image
compression in which fewer than all Image
planes are used in reconstructing an reconstructed
image. from bit planes:8,
• The reconstruction is done by 7, and 6
multiplying the pixels of the nth plane by
the constant 2n-1,
• This converts the nth significant binary Image
bit to decimal. Each bit plane is reconstructed
multiplied by the corresponding from bit planes:8,
constant, and all resulting planes are
7,6, and 5.
added to obtain the grayscale image.