Digital Image Fundamentals

Dr. Navjot Singh

Image and Video Processing
Acknowledgements
⚫ Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson, 4th
edition, 2018.
⚫ Jain, Anil K. Fundamentals of digital image processing. Prentice-
Hall, Inc., 1989.
⚫ Digital Image Processing course by Brian Mac Namee, Dublin
Institute of Technology
⚫ Digital Image Processing course by Christophoros Nikou,
University of Ioannina

2
Contents
This lecture will cover:
⚫ The human visual system
⚫ Light and the electromagnetic spectrum
⚫ Image representation
⚫ Image sensing and acquisition
⚫ Sampling, quantisation and resolution

3
Human Visual System
The best vision model we have!
Knowledge of how images form in the eye can help us with
processing digital images
We will take just a whirlwind tour of the human visual system

4
 Structure Of The Human Eye
⚫ The lens focuses light from objects onto
the retina
⚫ The retina is covered with light receptors
called cones (6-7 million) and rods (75-150
million)
⚫ Cones are concentrated around the fovea
and are very sensitive to colour
⚫ Rods are more spread out and are
sensitive to low levels of illumination

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
Blind-Spot Experiment
⚫ Draw an image similar to that below on a piece of paper (the dot
and cross are about 6 inches apart)

⚫ Close your right eye and focus on the cross with your left eye
⚫ Hold the image about 20 inches away from your face and move it
slowly towards you
⚫ The dot should disappear!
6
 Image Formation In The Eye
⚫ Muscles within the eye can be used to change the shape of
the lens allowing us focus on objects that are near or far away
⚫ An image is focused onto the retina causing rods and cones
to become excited which ultimately send signals to the brain

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
Brightness Adaptation & Discrimination
⚫ The human visual system can perceive approximately 1010
different light intensity levels.
⚫ However, at any one time we can only discriminate between a
much smaller number – brightness adaptation.
⚫ Similarly, the perceived intensity of a region is related to the
light intensities of the regions surrounding it.

8
 Brightness Adaptation & Discrimination
(cont…)
Weber ratio
• ∆Ic / I where I is the light
source intensity and ∆Ic
is increment in
illumination.
• A small value of Weber
ratio means Good
brightness
discrimination.
• A large value of Weber
ratio means Poor
brightness
discrimination.
9

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Brightness Adaptation & Discrimination
(cont…)

An example of Mach bands

10

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Brightness Adaptation & Discrimination
(cont…)

11

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Brightness Adaptation & Discrimination
(cont…)

An example of simultaneous contrast

12

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Optical Illusions
Our visual systems play
lots of interesting tricks on
us

13

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Optical Illusions (cont…)

14

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Optical Illusions (cont…)

Stare at the cross in the

middle of the image and
think circles

15

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Light And The Electromagnetic Spectrum
⚫ Light is just a particular part of the electromagnetic spectrum
that can be sensed by the human eye
⚫ The electromagnetic spectrum is split up according to the
wavelengths of different forms of energy

16

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Reflected Light
⚫ The colours that we perceive are
determined by the nature of the light
reflected from an object
⚫ For example, if white light is shone
onto a green object most wavelengths Colours
Absorbed
are absorbed, while green light is
reflected from the object

17

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
Sampling, Quantisation And Resolution
In the following slides we will consider what is involved in
capturing a digital image of a real-world scene
⚫ Image sensing and representation
⚫ Sampling and quantisation
⚫ Resolution

18
 Image Representation
⚫ Before we discuss image acquisition
recall that a digital image is composed col

of M rows and N columns of pixels

each storing a value
⚫ Pixel values are most often grey
levels in the range 0-255 (black-white)
⚫ We will see later on that images can
easily be represented as matrices
f (row, col)
row

19

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Colour images

20

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Colour images

21

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Image Acquisition
Images are typically generated by illuminating a scene and
absorbing the energy reflected by the objects in that scene
– Typical notions of
illumination and
scene can be way off:
• X-rays of a skeleton
• Ultrasound of an
unborn baby
• Electro-microscopic
images of molecules
22

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Image Sensing
Incoming energy lands on a sensor material responsive to that
type of energy and this generates a voltage
Collections of sensors are arranged to capture images

Imaging Sensor

23
Line of Image Sensors Array of Image Sensors
Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Image Sensing

Using Sensor Strips and Rings

24

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Image Sampling And Quantisation
⚫ A digital sensor can only measure a limited number of
samples at a discrete set of energy levels
⚫ Quantisation is the process of converting a continuous
analogue signal into a digital representation of this signal

25

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Image Sampling And Quantisation

26

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Image Sampling And Quantisation

27

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Image Sampling And Quantisation (cont…)
Remember that a digital image is always only an approximation
of a real world scene

28

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Image Representation

29

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Image Representation

30

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Image Representation

31

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Image Representation

32

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Spatial Resolution
The spatial resolution of an image is
determined by how sampling was carried out
Spatial resolution simply refers to the
smallest discernable detail in an image
⚫ Vision specialists will often talk about pixel
size
⚫ Graphic designers will talk about dots per
inch (DPI)

33

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Spatial Resolution (cont…)

34

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Spatial Resolution (cont…)
1024 * 1024 512 * 512 256 * 256

35
128 * 128 64 * 64 32 * 32
Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Spatial Resolution (cont…)

36

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
Intensity Level Resolution
Intensity level resolution refers to the number of intensity levels
used to represent the image
⚫ The more intensity levels used, the finer the level of detail discernable in
an image
⚫ Intensity level resolution is usually given in terms of the number of bits
used to store each intensity level
Number of Intensity
Number of Bits Examples
Levels
1 2 0, 1
2 4 00, 01, 10, 11
4 16 0000, 0101, 1111
8 256 00110011, 01010101
37
16 65,536 1010101010101010
 Intensity Level Resolution (cont…)
256 grey levels (8 bits per pixel) 128 grey levels (7 bpp) 64 grey levels (6 bpp) 32 grey levels (5 bpp)

38
16 grey levels (4 bpp) 8 grey levels (3 bpp) 4 grey levels (2 bpp) 2 grey levels (1 bpp)
Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Saturation & Noise

39

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
Resolution: How Much Is Enough?
The big question with resolution is always how much is enough?
⚫ This all depends on what is in the image and what you would like to
do with it
⚫ Key questions include
⚫ Does the image look aesthetically pleasing?
⚫ Can you see what you need to see within the image?

40
 Resolution: How Much Is Enough? (cont…)

The picture on the right is fine for counting the number of cars,
but not for reading the number plate

41

Image credit: Google images

 Intensity Level Resolution (cont…)

Low Detail Medium Detail High Detail

42

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Intensity Level Resolution (cont…)

43

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Intensity Level Resolution (cont…)

44

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Intensity Level Resolution (cont…)

45

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Intensity Level Resolution (cont…)
Isopreference curves.
Represent the dependence between intensity
and spatial resolutions.
Points lying on a curve represent images of
“equal” quality as described by observers.
They become more vertical as the degree of
detail increases (a lot of detail need less
intensity levels), e.g. in the Crowd image, for a
given value of N, k is almost constant.
46

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Interpolation (cont...)

47

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
 Interpolation (cont...)

48

Adapted from Gonzalez, Rafael C. Digital image processing. Pearson education India, 2009.
Distances between pixels
For pixels p(x,y), q(s,t) and z(v,w), D is a distance function or metric if:

a) D( p, q)  0 ( D( p, q) = 0 iff p = q),
b) D( p, q) = D(q, p),
c) D( p, z )  D( p, q) + D(q, z ).

The Euclidean distance between p and q is defined as:

1

De ( p, q) = ( x − s) + ( y − t ) 
2 2 2

49
Distances between pixels
The city-block or D4 distance between p and q is defined as:

D4 ( p, q ) =| x − s | + | y − t |
Pixels having the city-block distance from a pixel (x,y) less than or equal to
some value T form a diamond centered at (x,y). For example, for T=2:

2
2 1 2
2 1 0 1 2
2 1 2
2

50
Distances between pixels
The chessboard or D8 distance between p and q is defined as:

D8 ( p, q) = max(| x − s |,| y − t |)
Pixels having the city-block distance from a pixel (x,y) less than or equal to
some value T form a square centered at (x,y). For example, for T=2:

2 2 2 2 2
2 1 1 1 2
2 1 0 1 2
2 1 1 1 2
2 2 2 2 2

51
Summary
We have looked at:
⚫ Human visual system
⚫ Light and the electromagnetic spectrum
⚫ Image representation
⚫ Image sensing and acquisition
⚫ Sampling, quantisation and resolution
⚫ Interpolation
Next time we start to look at techniques for image enhancement

52