DIGITAL IMAGE

PROCESSING
CONTENT
➢ What is a digital Image?
➢ What is digital image processing?
➢ The history of DIP
➢ Examples of fields that use DIP
➢ Key stages in DIP

➢ MODULE 1: Digital Image Fundamentals

➢ MODULE 2: Spatial Domain and Frequency Domain

➢ MODULE 3: Restoration

➢ MODULE 1: Color image processing, pseudo color, wavelets,

morphological image processing

➢ MODULE 5: Segmentation, representation and description

 What is a digital Image?

IMAGE ACQUISITION USING SENSOR ARRAYS:

Image:

Image is the projection of 3D scene on 2D plane

➢ Digital image is a two dimensional function f(x,y)

➢ where (x,y) are the spatial (plane) coordinates, and the amplitude of f at any
particular coordinates (x,y) is called the intensity of gray level of the image at
that point.
Digital image is composed of a finite number of elements, each of which has a
particular location and value. These elements are called Picture elements,
image elements, Pels and Pixels
What is Digital Image Processing?
Manipulation of digital images by means of a digital computer for
representation in suitable form is known as digital signal processing.

Digital image Processing focuses on two major tasks:

1. Improvement of pictorial information for human perception (Enhance the

quality of image)

2. Processing of Image data for efficient storage and transmission (to make it
efficient for transmitting over low bandwidth communication channel)
Typical Operations Include:

1. Contrast Enhancement

2. Remove blur from an image

3. Smooth out graininess, Speckle or noise

4. Magnify, minify or rotate an image(image wraping)

5. Geometric Correction

6. Image compression for efficient storage and transmission

The Image processing can be broken up to
Low- Mid – High Level Processes:

Pre-processing
operations
HISTORY OF DIGITAL IMAGE POCESSING:

In 1920s, submarine cables were used to transmit digitized newspaper pictures

between London and New York named as “Bartlane Systems” (less than three
hours).
Transmitter Receiver
(Digitized Submarine (Reproduction of
newspaper Cables pictures by
pictures) telegraphic printers)
London Bartlane cable picture transmission system New York

FIGURE 1.1 A digital picture produced in 1921 from a coded tape by a telegraph
printer with special typefaces.
Reproduction of pictures by telegraphic
printers Reproduction of pictures by photographic
printers

In 1921, printing procedure was changed to photographic reproductions from tapes

perforated at telegraph receiving terminals. This improved both in tonal quality and
in resolution.

It had five discrete intensity levels – 5 tone quality

After 1929, Bartlane systems was capable of coding 15 level

Figure. Unretouched cable picture of Generals Pershing (right) and Foch,

transmitted in 1929 from London to New York by 15-tone equipment.
Though this bartlane system used digital images, these images were not processed
because the computers were not involved as they were not invented by that time.

So the history of digital image processing is intimately tied to development of digital

computer.

So now let us see how these digital computer were developed over the decades.
History of DIP is intimately tied to the development of Digital
Computer:

In 1940, Introduction of John von Neumann’s of two key concepts.

In 1948, Introduction of Transistor at Bell Lab

In 1950- 1960, Development of High-level programming languages like COBOL

and FORTRAN.

In 1958, Introduction of ICs at Texas Instruments.

Early1960, Development of OS

Early1970, Development of the Microprocessor

1981, Introduction of personal computer by IBM

Late 1970s- Today: Progressive miniaturization of components LSI - VLSI -

ULSI.
1960: Improvements of computing technology and the onset of the space race led
to a surge of work in digital image processing

In 1964, computer processing techniques were used, when pictures of the moon
transmitted by Ranger 7 (a U.S. spacecraft) were processed by a computer to
correct various types of image distortion inherent in the on-board television
camera. This was the basis of modern image processing techniques.

A picture of the moon taken

by the Ranger 7 probe 17
minutes before landing (Jet
propulsion Lab by Calfornia)
In 1970s, Digital image processing begins to be used in medical imaging

Typical Head slice CAT image

1979: Sir Godfrey and Porf.

Allan share the Nobel prize in
medicine for the invention of
tomography, the technology
behind Computerized Axial
Tomography (CAT) scans).

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, to be used in medical imaging, remote sensing,
industries, Earth resources observations, and astronomy.
1980s – Today: The use of digital image processing has exploded and they are
now used for all kinds of tasks in all kinds of areas.

Image enhancement/ restoration

Artistic effects

Medical Visualization

Industrial Inspection

Law Enforcement

Human computer interfaces

Examples of Fields That Use DIP
The extent of image processing applications can be better understood by
categorizing images based on their sources.

The principal energy source for images is the electromagnetic

energy spectrum

EM waves = stream of massless particles, each travelling in a wavelike pattern at

the speed of light.

Spectral bands are grouped by energy/photon

Gamma rays, X-rays, UV, Visible, Infrared, Microwaves, radio waves.

Electromagnetic (EM) spectrum
Gamma Rays Imaging:
Used in Nuclear Medicine
and astronomical
observations

Nuclear medicine: The approach is to

inject a patient with a radioactive isotope
that emits gamma rays as it decays.
Images are produced from the emissions
collected by gamma-ray detectors .
Positron emission tomography (PET):
The patient is given a radioactive isotope
that emits positrons as it decays. When a
pos itron meets an electron, both are
annihilated and two gamma rays are
given off. These are detected and a
(a) Bone Scan (b) white spot
tomographic image is created using the
indicates: Tumor in brain and
basic principles of tomography.
lungs
X-Rays Imaging:

Oldest source of EM radiation for

imaging

Identify fracture present in the bone

Angiography (identify the

irregularities/blockages present in the
blood vessels)

Used for CAT scans

Astronomy

Used for

Industrial inspection (X-ray image of an

electronic circuit board missing
component or broken traces)
Ultraviolet Imaging:

Used for lithography industrial

inspection fluorescence
microscopy, lasers, biological
imaging, and astronomy

Mostly used fluorescence Fluorescence Smut con: A disease of

microscopy. microscopy image of a cereals, corn, onions
normal corn
Photon of UV light collides with
electron of fluorescent material to
elevate its energy. Then its
energy falls and it emits red light.
Visible and Infrared
Imaging:

Used for light microscopy,

astronomy, remote sensing,
industry and law enforcement.

Examples of light microscopy images. (a) Taxol (anti cancer agent),

magnified (b) Cholesterol (c) electronic circuit board (d) Nickel oxide thin film
(e) Surface of audio CD (f) Organic super conductor
Visible and Infrared Imaging: Remote Sensing. Satellite image of
Washington DC, Building, Road, Vegetation and River flowing in the city.
Visible and Infrared Imaging: Industrial Applications

Inspect for missing parts, missing pills,

unacceptable bottle fill, unacceptable air pockets,
anomalies in cereal color
incorrectly manufactured replacement lens for eys
Microwave Imaging:
Radar is dominant application

Spaceborne radar image of mountainous region in

southeast Tibet.
Radio Band Imaging:
Widely used in medicine and astronomy

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI):

➢ Places patient in powerful magnet
➢ Passes radio waves through body in short pulses
➢ Each pulse causes a responding pulse of radio waves to be emitted by
patients tissues.
➢ Location and strength of signal is recorded to from image

MRI can produce images in any plane.

MRI images of a human knee and spinal cord.

Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:
Fundamentals steps in Digital Image
Processing:
Image Acquisition: First stage is image acquisition. It has some pre processing
operation like scaling of image rotting an image etc..
Image Enhancement: Manipulating the image. Various enhancement techniques
are available

(a) Original Image (b) Enhanced Image

(a) Full body PET scan. (b) Image enhanced using homomorphic filtering.
Image Restoration: Improving the quality of image by removing noises. Objective
approach. It uses mathematical and probabilistic model for representing the images

(a) Original Image (b) Restore Image

Morphological processing is a tool used to extract the components for
representation and description of shapes of the object. Different algorithms are
available.
Image segmentation is a process of partitioning of an image into its constituent
parts and objects. Region-based segmentation and object-based segmentation.
Object Recognition is assigning a label to the object which is being recognized or
which has been identified. Mostly used to law enforcement to recognize the vehicle
or vehicle number.
Representation: two types, boundary and region representation
Boundary: if the raw pixel data constitutes the boundary of object we say it is a
boundary representation. Focus is towards the shape of object.
Region: if raw pixel data is inside the region of object. Focus on internal properties
of object like texture of obect etc..

Description: extracting the attributes from the images in order to identify the
features.
Image Compression: As we know, high quality images require high memory to
store the data. So image compression is used to minimize the data storage for a
particular image. Different image compression are available like jpeg, png, tiff, gis
etc.
Also used to reduce the bandwidth while transmitting the images.
Color image processing: used to identify the object present in the image
Components of an Image Processing
System
Image Sensor: First thing we need is an image, so for the basic
component required is an image sensor. Based on the problem we are
going to capture an image.
Image Sensor has two elements:
1. Physical Device is very sensitive to the energy radiated by the object which we
wish to capture or wish which we wish to image

2. Digitizer is a device which converts the output of this physical device into digital
form

A good example for this is a digital video camera, the sensor produce electrical
output corresponding to the light intensity received, and these electrical outputs are
converted to digital form by this digitizer

Physical
Device

Digitizer
Device
So in order to perform image processing operation like digitization and all that we
require some hardware components so the next basic component require is the
hardware. So some specialized image processing hardware are used here.

Specialized Hardware components: In this component

1. digitizer
2. ALU: which perform some primitive operations, arithmetic and logical
operations are performed on the entire end image, here the ALU performs
averaging operation on the digitized image. This component is also called as
front end subsystem.
Ex: Digital Video Camera: Digitizing and averaging of the video images at 30
frames per second is made by the ALU present in this hardware component.
Specialized
Hardware
Components
Physical
Device

Digitizer
Device
So in order to process an image, we require image, sensor and hardware devices. In
order to control this we require a computer.
Computer:
1. General purpose computers: Computer can be any well equipped PC machine that
is used that is suitable for performing off-line image processing operations

2. Dedicated computers: For some dedicated applications, Custom computers are

used in order to achieve higher level of performance.

Computers

Specialized
Hardware
Components
Physical
Device

Digitizer
Device
Next in order to process an image. The image processing system should contain
software as well. Computers are not sufficient without software so software or
required in order to process an image.
Software: Software used in image processing applications are contains special
specialized modules which perform specific tasks

A well designed package allow those users to write the program to minimum and
utilize the specialized modules to the maximum as well. Some more sophisticated
packages allows uses to integrate these specialized modules, so software is also an
important component in order to process an image.

Software

Computers

Specialized
Hardware
Components
Physical
Device

Digitizer
Device
when once the image is processed and the results are obtained so now we require
storage. So the next basic component is the mass storage.
Mass Storage: The mass storage is an important consideration in image
processing operations

For an image of 1024 x 1024 size, having 8 bit intensity level = 1MB memory

Software Mass Storage

Computers

Specialized
Hardware
Components
Physical
Device

Digitizer
Device
Mass Storage three types:
1. Short term storage: short-term storage is used to store the data temporarily which
is used during processing and is needed and a good example for short-term
storage. Ex: Frame Buffers.

2. Online storage: online storage is used for relatively fast recall of the data. Ex:
Magnetic disk and optic media storage.

3. Archival storage: Archival storage is used where in frequent access is needed.

Ex: Magnetic tapes and optic disk.
Displays: Color monitors, preferably flat TV screen monitors and these displays are
driven by the images and graphic display cards which are the integral part of this
computer. So the process images can be displayed by using this place display.

Displays Software Mass Storage

Computers

Specialized
Hardware
Components
Physical
Device

Digitizer
Device
Hard Copy Devices: These soft copy images should be recorded and it should be
represented in the hard copy form so for that we require hard copy devices

usually laser printers, film cameras, low sensitive devices, inkjet units digital units
such as optic disk and CD rom disk.

Displays Software Mass Storage

Hard copy devices Computers

Specialized
Hardware
Components
Physical
Device

Digitizer
Device
once the images are processed, stored, recorded and produced in the form of
hardcopy, after all that we need to transmit the images so for that we required
networking

Networking is almost a default function in almost all computers in used today. so

the key consideration in transmission of images is its bandwidth so at dedicated
network would be a best choice for transmission of these images efficiently. So
these are all the basic components comprise comprising general purpose
system used in digital image process.