Digital Image Processing

Hongjun Xu
August 1, 2007
 Lecture 1
Introduction and Digital Image
Fundamentals
• What is an Image?
Picture, photograph
Visual data
Usually two or three dimensional

What is a digital image?

An image which is “discretized,”, i.e., defined on a
discrete grid
Two-dimensional collection of light values (or gray values)
What is digital image processing?
Digital image processing is the study of representation and
manipulation of pictorial information by a computer.
Improve pictorial information for better clarity (human
interpretation)
Examples:
1 Enhancing the edges of an image to make it appear
sharper
2 Remove “noise” from an image

3 Remove motion blur from an image

 Automatic machine processing of scene data (interpretation
by a machine/non-human, storage, transmission)
Examples:
1 Obtain the edges of an image

2 Remove detail from an image

What is image interpretation?

Assign meaning to an ensemble of recognized objects
Important steps in a typical image processing system
Step 1: Image acquisition
Capturing visual data by an image sensor

Step 2: Discretization / digitalization; Quantization ; Compression

Convert data into discrete form; compress for
efficient storage/transmission

Step 3: Image enhancement and restoration

Improving image quality (low contrast, blur noise)

Step 4: Image segmentation

Partition image into objects or constituent parts
Step 5: Feature selection
Extracting pertinent features from an image that are important for
differentiating one class of objects from another
Step 6: Image representation
Assigning labels to an object based on information provided by
descriptors
Step 7: Image interpretation
Assigning meaning to an ensemble of recognized objects
Imaging: Step 1: Image acquisition and

Step 2: digitalization; Quantization ; Compression

Image processing:
Step 2: Compression
Step 3: Image enhancement and restoration
Step 4: Image segmentation

Image analysis:
Step 4: Image segmentation
Step 5: Feature selection
Step 6: Image representation
Image understanding:
Step 6: Image representation
Step 7: Image interpretation
 Image processing and analysis transformations

Level 0: Image representation

Acquisition; sampling; quantization; compression

Level 1: Image to image transformations

Enhancement; restoration; segmentation

Level 2: Image to parameter transformation

Feature selection
Level 3: Image to decision transformation

Recognition and interpretation

 Image Acquisition and Sampling
Sampling refers to the process of digitizing a continuous function
1
For Example: y  sin( x)  sin(3 x)
3
Sampling an image requires that we consider the Nyquist
criterion, when we consider an image as a continuous function of
two variables, we wish to sample it to produce a digital image.

Using light

Light is the predominant energy source for image because it is the

energy source which human beings can observe directly.

For example, photographs are pictorial record of visible scene.

Many digital images are captured using visible light as the

energy source.
Light spectrum
Types of sensors:

• Optical (camera)

• Infrared (senses heat changes)

• X-ray (CT Scan)

• Magnetic (MRI)

• Ultrasound (acoustic energy)

• Electron Microscopy (Electron beam)

• Computer generated images (fractals, animation)

 Create an image
To create a digital image, we need to convert the continuously
sensed data into digital form.

This involves:
Sampling:

Digitizing the coordinate values (resolution)

Depends on density of sensor in an array
Limited by optical resolution

Quantization (bits/pixel)
Digitizing the amplitude values

Pixel: short for picture element

Image Representation
 Spatial Resolution
Sampling determines resolution
Resolution is the smallest discernible detail in an image
Common unit – 480 x 640 pixels
Need to know size of image also
 Quantization
Gray: generally integer values, ranging from 0 to some
maximum value

• 1 bit /pixel
–2 possible values
–2 gray levels -> 0 or 1 (binary image)
• B bits/pixel
–2B gray levels
–1 byte = 8 bits –> 256 levels
Coordinate Convention
 Digital Image Representation
 f (0,0) f (0,1) ... f (0, M − 1) 
 f (1,0) ... ... f (1, M − 1) 
f ( x, y ) = 
 ... ... ... ... 
 
 f ( N − 1,0) f ( N − 1,1) ... f ( N − 1, M − 1)

Digital Image Image Elements

(Pixels)
Pixel Notation
Reading Images
MATLAB syntax: imread(‘filename’)
Format name Description Recognized Extensions
TIFF Tagged Image File Format .tif, .tiff
JPEG Joint photographic experts group .jpg, .jpeg
GIF Graphics Interchange format .gif
BMP Windows Bitmap .bmp
PNG Portable Network Graphics .png
XWD X Window Dump .xwd

Note: GIF is supported by imread, but not by imwrite.

 Applications
• BIOLOGICAL: automated systems for analysis of samples.
•DEFENSE/INTELLIGENCE: enhancement and interpretation of
images to find and track targets.
•DOCUMENT PROCESSING: scanning, archiving, transmission.
•FACTORY AUTOMATION: visual inspection of products.

•LAW ENFORCEMENT/FORENSICS: fingerprint analysis.

•MATERIALS TESTING: detection and quantification of cracks,

impurities, etc.

•MEDICAL: disease detection and monitoring, therapy/surgery

planning
•...
 Image processing with MATLAB
What is the Image Processing Toolbox?
• The Image Processing Toolbox is a collection of functions
that extend the capability of the MATLAB ® numeric
computing environment. The toolbox supports a wide
range of image processing operations, including:
– Geometric operations
– Neighborhood and block operations
– Linear filtering and filter design
– Transforms
– Image analysis and enhancement
– Binary image operations
– Region of interest operations (RIO)

>> help images

Data Classes
Double -double precision, range: [-10^308, +10^308]
Uint8 -unsigned 8-bit integer, range:[0,255]
Unit16 -unsigned 16-bit integer, range:[0, 65535]
Unit32 -unsigned 32-bit integer, range:[0, 2^32-1]
Int8 -signed 8-bit integer, range:[-128,127]
Int16 -signed 16-bit integer, range:[-32768,+32767]
Int32
Single -single precision, range:[-10^38,+10^38]
Char -characters
Logical -values are 0 or 1
Converting between Image Classes

Name Convert input to

Im2uint uint8
Im2uint16 uint16
Im2double double
Im2bw logical
Mat2gray double (in range [0,1])
 Image types in MATLAB
1. White and black images
They are also called binary images, containing 1 for
white and 0 for black.
2. Grey scale images
They are also called Intensity Images, containing numbers
in the range of 0 to 255 or 0 to 1.
3. Colored image
They may be represented as RGB Image or Indexed Image.
 RGB images: m-by-n-by-3

If each of these components has a range 0-255, this gives a

total 255^3=16777216 different possible colours in the
image

Indexed images: m-by-3 color map

Most colour images only have a small subset of the more

than sixteen million possible colours. So the image has an
associated colour map. Each pixel has a value which does
not give its colour, but an index to the colour in the map.
Gray-level values can be stored as one of several data types:
–uint8: 8-bit unsigned integer; range is 0 (black) - 255
(white)
–double: double-precision floating-point number;
range is 0.0 - 1.0
–uint16
All MATLAB operations work on images of type double
Only some MATLAB operations work on intensity or binary
images of type uint8

>>x=double(x);

DOUBLE Convert to double precision.

Binary images

MATLAB code
Intensity Images
RGB images
 Indexed Images

MATLAB stores the RGB

values of an indexed image
as values of type double,
with values between 0 and 1.
Image display

• image - create and display image object

• imagesc - scale and display as image
• imshow - display image
• colorbar - display colorbar
• getimage- get image data from axes
• truesize - adjust display size of image
• zoom - zoom in and zoom out of 2D plot
• Imread - read image
Writing Images

imwrite -write images

Basic syntax: imwrite (f,’filename’)
 Image conversion

• gray2ind - intensity image to index image

• im2bw - image to binary
• im2double - image to double precision
• im2uint8 - image to 8-bit unsigned integers
• im2uint16 - image to 16-bit unsigned integers
• ind2gray - indexed image to intensity image
• mat2gray - matrix to intensity image
• rgb2gray - RGB image to grayscale
• rgb2ind - RGB image to indexed image