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why spatial processing

http://flickr.com/photos/alliwalk/3284897415/
 -5-

roadmap for today

„ Application

„ Method
f ⎯T⎯
⎯→ g = TΝ ( f )
N (.)

f ( x, y ) , 1 ≤ x ≤ M ,1 ≤ y ≤ N g ( x, y ) , 1 ≤ x ≤ M ,1 ≤ y ≤ N
TN (.) : Spatial operator defined on a neighborhood N of a given pixel

N 0 ( x, y ) N 4 ( x, y ) N 8 ( x, y )

point processing mask/kernel

processing
 -6-

outline
„ What and why
„ Spatial domain processing for image
enhancement

„ Intensity Transformation
„ Spatial Filtering
 -7-

intensity transformation / point operation

„ Map a given gray or color level u to a
new level v

v
„ Memory-less, direction-less operation

output gray level

„ output at (x, y) only depend on the input
intensity at the same point
„ Pixels of the same intensity gets the same
transformation
„ Does not bring in new information, may
cause loss of information input gray level u

„ But can improve visual appearance or

make features easier to detect
 -8-

intensity transformation / point operation

„ Two examples we already saw
Color space transformation
Scalar quantization
 -9-

image negatives

the appearance of
photographic
negatives

„ Enhance white or
gray detail on dark
regions, esp. when
black areas are
dominant in size
 -10-

basic intensity transform functions

„ monotonic, reversible
„ compress or stretch certain range of gray-levels
 -11-

log transform

lena

stretch:
FFT(lena) u ∈ [0, .5] Æ
v ∈ [0, .59]
compress:
im = imread(‘lena.png’) u ∈ [.5, 1] Æ
a = abs(fftshift(fft2(double(im)))); v ∈ [.59, 1]
c = log(1+double(im)); c = range_normalize(c);
b = log(1+a); b=b/max(b(:));
-12-
 -13-

power-law transformation

„ power-law response
functions in practice
„ CRT Intensity-to-voltage
function has
γ ≈ 1.8~2.5
„ Camera capturing distortion
with γc = 1.0-1.7
„ Similar device curves in
scanners, printers, …

„ power-law transformations are also useful for

general purpose contrast manipulation
 -14-

gamma correction
„ make linear input appear linear on displays
„ method: calibration pattern + interactive adjustment

example calibration chart

 -15-

effect of gamma on consumer photos

2.2 1/2.2
L0 L0 L0
 -16-

what gamma to use?

γ >1
γ <1
?
 -17-

more intensity transform

„ log, gamma … closed-form functions on [0,1]
„ can be more flexible

contrast stretching
 -18-

intensity slicing
 -19-

image bit-planes
 -20-

slicing bitplanes
„ Depend on relative importance of bits
„ How much to slice depend on image content
„ Useful in image compression, e.g. JPEG2000
 -21-

outline
„ What and why
„ Image enhancement
„ Spatial domain processing
„ Intensity Transformation
„ Intensity transformation functions (negative, log,
gamma), intensity and bit-place slicing, contrast
stretching
„ Histograms: equalization, matching, local
processing
„ Spatial Filtering
„ Filtering basics, smoothing filters, sharpening
filters, unsharp masking, laplacian
„ Combining spatial operations
 -22-

gray-level image histogram

„ Represents the relative frequency of occurrence of the
various gray levels in the image
„ For each gray level, count the number of pixels having that level
„ Can group nearby levels to form a big bin & count #pixels in it
 -23-

interpretations of histogram
„ if pixel values are i.i.d random
variables Æ histogram is an
estimate of the probability
distribution of the r.v.
„ “unbalanced” histograms do
not fully utilize the dynamic
range
„ Low contrast image: narrow
luminance range
„ Under-exposed image:
concentrating on the dark side
„ Over-exposed image:
concentrating on the bright
side
„ “balanced” histogram gives
more pleasant look and reveals
rich details
 -24-

contrast stretching
Stretch the over-concentrated gray-levels
Piece-wise linear function, where the slope in the
stretching region is greater than 1.

β = T (α )

L-1
β2 s3

s2

β1 s1

0 α1 α 2 L-1 α
 -25-

… in practice

„ intuition about a “good” image:

„ a “uniform” histogram spanning a large variety of gray tones
„ can we figure out a stretching function automatically?
 -26-

histogram equalization
„ goal: map the each luminance level to a new value such that the
output image has approximately uniform distribution of gray levels
„ two desired properties
„ monotonic (non-decreasing) function: no value reversals
„ [0,1]Æ[0,1] : the output range being the same as the input range

pdf

1 1
cdf

o 1 o 1
 -27-

histogram equalization
„ make
1

„ show that v follows uniform distribution, i.e.

o 1
 -28-

implementing histogram equalization

u v v’
v = ∑ pu ( xi ) Rounding or
xi ≤u Uniform
quantization
pu(xi)

compute n( xi )
pu ( xi ) = L −1
for i = 0, ..., L - 1
histogram
∑ n( x )
i =0
i

u „ Only depend on the input

equalize v = ( L − 1) ∑ pu ( xi ) image histogram
xi = 0
L −1 u „ Fast to implement
or v= ∑ n( xi ) „ For u in discrete prob.
MN xi =0 distribution, the output v
round the will be approximately
output v' = round (v) uniform
 -29-

a toy example
u
v = ( L − 1) ∑ pu ( xi )
xi = 0
 -30-

a toy example

1.33 1.33 1
1.75 3.08 3
1.47 4.55 5
1.02 5.67 6
0.56 6.23 6
0.42 6.65 7
0.21 6.86 7
0.14 7.00 7
 -31-

histogram equalization example

 -32-

contrast-stretching vs. histogram equalization

v
γ
output gray level

α
a b
o input gray level u

„ function form
„ reversible? loss of information?
„ input/output?
„ automatic/interactive?
 -33-

histogram matching
„ Histogram matching/specification
„ Want output v with specified p.d.f. pV(v)

„ Use a uniformly distributed random vairable

W as an intermediate step
„ W = FU(u) = FV(v) Æ V = F-1V (FU(u) )
„ Approximation in the intermediate step
needed for discrete r.v.
„ W1 = FU(u) , W2 = FV(v) Æ
take v s.t. its w2 is equal to or just above w1
 -34-

histogram matching example

Histogram
equalized
 -35-

local histogram processing

„ problem: global spatial processing not always desirable
„ solution: apply point-operations to a pixel
neighborhood with a sliding window
 -36-

histogram equalization not always desirable

 -37-

outline
„ What and why
„ Image enhancement
„ Spatial domain processing
„ Intensity Transformation
„ Intensity transformation functions (negative, log,
gamma), intensity and bit-place slicing, contrast
stretching
„ Histograms: equalization, matching, local
processing
„ Spatial Filtering
„ Filtering basics, smoothing filters, sharpening
filters, unsharp masking, laplacian
„ Combining spatial operations (sec. 3.7)
 -38-

spatial filtering in image neighborhoods

 -39-

kernel operator / filter masks

TN (.) = w(.)

f Spatial g
Filtering

kernel
a b
g (m, n) = ∑ ∑ w(i, j ) f (m + i, n + j )
i =− a j =−b

1≤ m ≤ M
1≤ n ≤ N
 -40-

smoothing: image averaging

smoothing
operator

Low-pass filter, leads to

softened edges
 -41-

spatial averaging can suppress noise

image with iid noise y(m,n) = x(m,n) + N(m,n)
UMCP ENEE408G Slides (created by M.Wu & R.Liu © 2002)

„ averaging
v(m,n) = (1/Nw) Σ x(m-k, n-l) + (1/Nw) Σ N(m-k, n-l)
„ Nw: number of pixels in the averaging window
„ Noise variance reduced by a factor of Nw
„ SNR improved by a factor of Nw
„ Window size is limited to avoid excessive blurring
 -42-
smoothing operator of different sizes

original 3x3

5x5 9x9

15x15 35x35
 -43-

directional smoothing
Problems with simple spatial averaging mask
UMCP ENEE408G Slides (created by M.Wu & R.Liu © 2002)

„
„ Edges get blurred
„ Improvement θ
„ Restrict smoothing to along edge direction
„ Avoid filtering across edges Wθ

„ Directional smoothing
„ Compute spatial average along several directions
„ Take the result from the direction giving the smallest changes
before & after filtering

„ Other solutions
„ Use more explicit edge detection and adapt filtering accordingly
 -44-

non-linear smoothing operator

„ Median filtering
„ median value ξ over a small window of size Nw

„ nonlinear
„ median{ x(m) + y(m) } ≠ median{x(m)} + median{y(m)}
„ odd window size is commonly used
„ 3x3, 5x5, 7x7
„ 5-pixel “+”-shaped window
„ for even-sized windows take the average of two
middle values as output
„ Other order statistics: min, max, x-percentile …
 -45-

median filter example

„ Median filtering
„ resilient to statistical outliers
„ incurs less blurring
„ simple to implement

iid noise
more at lecture 7, “image restoration”
 -46-

image derivative and sharpening

 -47-

edge and the first derivative

„ Edge: pixel locations of abrupt luminance
change

„ Spatial luminance gradient vector

„ a vector consists of partial derivatives along two
orthogonal directions
„ gradient gives the direction with highest rate of
luminance changes
„ Representing edge: edge intensity + directions
„ Detection Methods
„ prepare edge examples (templates) of different
intensities and directions, then find the best match
„ measure transitions along 2 orthogonal directions
 -48-

edge detection operators

Image gradient:

⎡ ∂f ⎤
⎡Gx ⎤ ⎢ ∂x ⎥
∇f = ⎢ ⎥ = ⎢ ∂f ⎥
⎣G y ⎦ ⎢ ⎥
⎢⎣ ∂y ⎥⎦
∇f ≈ G x + G y

Robert’s
operator

Sobel’s
operator
 -49-

edge detection examples

Roberts

Sobel

http://flickr.com/photos/reneemarie11/97326485
http://flickr.com/photos/valkyrie2112/2829322895
 -50-

second derivative in 2D

Image Laplacian:
 -51-

laplacian of roman ruins

http://flickr.com/photos/starfish235/388557119/
 -52-

unsharp masking
„ Unsharp masking is an image manipulation technique for
increasing the apparent sharpness of photographic images.
„ The "unsharp" of the name derives from the fact that the technique
uses a blurred, or "unsharp", positive to create a "mask" of the
original image. The unsharped mask is then combined with the
negative, creating a resulting image sharper than the original.

„ Steps
„ Blur the image
„ Subtract the blurred
version from the original
(this is called the mask)
„ Add the “mask” to the
original
 -53-
high-boost filtering

Avg.

-
+

+ f hb ( x, y ) = Af ( x, y ) − f lp ( x, y )
Unsharp mask:
high-boost with A=1
 -54-

unsharp mask example

 -55-

unsharp mask example

http://flickr.com/photos/dpgnashua/2274968238/
 -56-

summary
„ Spatial transformation and filtering are popular
methods for image enhancement
„ Intensity Transformation
„ Intensity transformation functions (negative, log,
gamma), intensity and bit-place slicing, contrast
stretching
„ Histograms: equalization, matching, local processing
„ Spatial Filtering
„ smoothing filters, sharpening filters, unsharp masking,
laplacian
„ Combining spatial operations (sec. 3.7)
 -57-

sharpen !

http://flickr.com/photos/t_schnitzlein/87607390/
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