Digital Image Processing

Image Enhancement
(Spatial Filtering 1)

Course Website: http://www.comp.dit.ie/bmacnamee

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Contents
In this lecture we will look at spatial filtering
techniques:
– Neighbourhood operations
– What is spatial filtering?
– Smoothing operations
– What happens at the edges?
– Correlation and convolution
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What is a Filter?
• Capabilities of point operations are limited
• Filters: combine pixel’s value + values of neighbours
• E.g. blurring: Compute average intensity of block of
pixels

• Combining multiple pixels needed for certain operations:

- Blurring, Smoothing
- Sharpening
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What Point Operations Can’t Do

• Example: sharpening
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What Point Operations Can’t Do

• Other cool artistic patterns by combining pixels

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Neighbourhood Operations
- Neighbourhood operations simply operate
on a larger neighbourhood of pixels than
point operations, Origin x

- Neighbourhoods are
mostly a rectangle
(x, y)
around a central pixel. Neighbourhood

y Image f (x, y)
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Filter Parameters
 Many possible filter parameters (size,
weights, function, etc)
• Filter size (size of neighbourhood):
3x3, 5x5, 7x7, …,21x21,..
• Filter shape: not necessarily square. Can be
rectangle, circle, etc
• Filter weights: May apply unequal weighting
to different pixels
• Filters function: can be linear (a weighted
summation) or nonlinear
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Simple Neighbourhood Operations
Some simple neighbourhood operations
include:
– Min: Set the pixel value to the minimum in
the neighbourhood
– Max: Set the pixel value to the maximum in
the neighbourhood
– Median: The median value of a set of
numbers is the midpoint value in that set (e.g.
from the set [1, 7, 15, 18, 24] 15 is the
median). Sometimes the median works better
than the average
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Simple Neighbourhood Operations
45 Example

Original Image x Enhanced Image x

123 127 128 119 115 130

140 145 148 153 167 172

133 154 183 192 194 191

194 199 207 210 198 195

164 170 175 162 173 151

y y
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The Spatial Filtering Process
Origin x
a b c r s t
d
g
e
h
f
i
* u
x
v
y
w
z
Original Image Filter
Simple 3*3 Pixels
e 3*3 Filter
Neighbourhood
eprocessed = v*e +
r*a + s*b + t*c +
u*d + w*f +
y Image f (x, y) x*g + y*h + z*i

The above is repeated for every pixel in the

original image to generate the filtered image
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Spatial Filtering: Equation Form
a b

  w(s, t ) f ( x  s, y  t )
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

g ( x, y ) 
s   at   b

Filtering can be given

in equation form as
shown above
Notations are based
on the image shown
to the left
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Smoothing Spatial Filters
One of the simplest spatial filtering
operations we can perform is a smoothing
operation
– Simply average all of the pixels in a
neighbourhood around a central value
– Especially useful
1/ 1/ 1/
in removing noise 9 9 9
from images Simple
1/ 1/ 1/
– Also useful for 9 9 9 averaging
highlighting gross filter
1/ 1/ 1/
detail 9 9 9
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Smoothing Spatial Filtering
Origin x
104 100 108 1/ 1/ 1/
9 9 9

99 106 98

95 90 85
* 1/

1/
9
1/

1/
9
1/

1/
9

9 9 9

1/ 100
104
9
1/ 108
9
1/
9
Original Image Filter
Simple 3*3 1/ 1/ 1/
3*3 Smoothing Pixels
999 106
9 989
Neighbourhood 195
/9 190
/9 185
/9
Filter
e = 1/9*106 +
1/ *104 + 1/ *100 + 1/ *108 +
9 9 9
1/ *99 + 1/ *98 +
9 9
y Image f (x, y) 1/ *95 + 1/ *90 + 1/ *85
9 9 9
= 98.3333
The above is repeated for every pixel in the
original image to generate the smoothed image
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Image Smoothing Example
The image at the top left
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

is an original image of
size 500*500 pixels
The subsequent images
show the image after
filtering with an averaging
filter of increasing sizes
– 3, 5, 9, 15 and 35
Notice how detail begins
to disappear
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Image Smoothing Example
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Image Smoothing Example
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Image Smoothing Example
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Image Smoothing Example
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Image Smoothing Example
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Image Smoothing Example
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Image Smoothing Example
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Weighted Smoothing Filters
More effective smoothing filters can be
generated by allowing different pixels in the
neighbourhood different weights in the
averaging function
1/ 2/ 1/
– Pixels closer to the 16 16 16
central pixel are more
2/ 4/ 2/
important 16 16 16

– Often referred to as a 1/ 2/ 1/
weighted averaging 16 16 16

Weighted
averaging filter
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Another Smoothing Example
By smoothing the original image we get rid
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

of lots of the finer detail which leaves only

the gross features for thresholding

Original Image Smoothed Image Thresholded Image

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The Filter Matrix
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Filter operation can be

expressed as a matrix
Example: averaging filter

Filter matrix also

called
filter mask H(i,j)
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Example: What does this Filter Do?
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Identity function ( leaves image alone)

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Example: What does this Filter Do?
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Mean (averages neighbourhood)

Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Mean Filters: Effect of Filter Size
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Averaging Filter Vs. Median Filter
45 Example
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Original Image Image After Image After

With Noise Averaging Filter Median Filter

Filtering is often used to remove noise from

images
Sometimes a median filter works better than
an averaging filter
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Example
Averaging Filter Vs. Median Filter
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Example
Averaging Filter Vs. Median Filter
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Example
Averaging Filter Vs. Median Filter
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Simple Neighbourhood Operations
45 Example

x
123 127 128 119 115 130

140 145 148 153 167 172

133 154 183 192 194 191

194 199 207 210 198 195

164 170 175 162 173 151

y
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Strange Things Happen At The Edges!

At the edges of an image we are missing

pixels to form a neighbourhood
Origin x
e e

e e e
y Image f (x, y)
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Strange Things Happen At The Edges!
45 (cont…)
There are a few approaches to dealing with
missing edge pixels:
– Omit missing pixels
• Only works with some filters
• Can add extra code and slow down processing
– Pad the image
• Typically with either all white or all black pixels
– Replicate border pixels (Extend)
– Truncate the image (crop)
– Allow pixels wrap around the image
• Can cause some strange image artefacts
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What to do at image boundaries?

Crop
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What to do at image boundaries?

Pad
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What to do at image boundaries?

Extend
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What to do at image boundaries?

Wrap
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Simple Neighbourhood Operations
45 Example

x
123 127 128 119 115 130

140 145 148 153 167 172

133 154 183 192 194 191

194 199 207 210 198 195

164 170 175 162 173 151

y
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Strange Things Happen At The Edges!
45 (cont…)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Filtered Image:
Zero Padding

Original Filtered Image:

Image Replicate Edge Pixels

Filtered Image:
Wrap Around Edge Pixels
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Strange Things Happen At The Edges!
(cont…)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Strange Things Happen At The Edges!
(cont…)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Strange Things Happen At The Edges!
(cont…)
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Correlation & Convolution
The filtering we have been talking about so
far is referred to as correlation with the filter
itself referred to as the correlation kernel
Convolution is a similar operation, with just
one subtle difference
a b c r s t eprocessed = v*e +
z*a + y*b + x*c +
d
f
e
g h
e
* u
x
v
y
w
z
w*d + u*e +
t*f + s*g + r*h
Original Image Filter
Pixels

For symmetric filters it makes no difference

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Summary
In this lecture we have looked at the idea of
spatial filtering and in particular:
– Neighbourhood operations
– The filtering process
– Smoothing filters
– Dealing with problems at image edges when
using filtering
– Correlation and convolution
Next time we will looking at sharpening
filters and more on filtering and image
enhancement