Image Acquisition & Image
Representation
Lecture 2
EEE429-Image and Video Communications / EME408-Image Processing
and Vision
Nuwan Vithanage
Relationship with Image Processing &
Computer Vision
Imaging
• The first digital photo came in 1957 when Russell Kirsch made a
176×176 pixel digital image by scanning a photograph of his three-
month-old son
First Digital Photo Original Photo
Digital Image Definitions
• “A digital image f [x, y] described in a 2D discrete space is derived
from an analog image f (x, y) in a 2D continuous space through a
sampling process that is frequently referred to as digitization”
• Digital image: discrete samples f [x, y] representing continuous
image f (x,y)
• Each element of the 2-d array f [x,y] is called a pixel or pel (from
“picture element“)
Digital Image Definitions
• 2-dimensional matrix of intensity (gray or color values)
Digital Image Definitions
Digital Image ?
• Remember: digitization causes a digital image to become an
approximation of a real scene
Examples of Digital Images
Digital Image
• Common image formats include:
• 1 values per point/pixel (B&W or Grayscale)
• 3 values per point/pixel (Red, Green, and Blue)
• 4 values per point/pixel (Red, Green, Blue, + “Alpha” or Opacity)
• We will start with gray‐scale images, extend to color later
What is image processing?
• Algorithms that alter an input image to create new image
• Input is image, output is image
• Improves an image for human interpretation in ways including:
• Image display and printing
• Image editing
• Image enhancement
• Image compression
Key Stages in Digital Image Processing
Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:
Image Acquisition
Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:
Image Enhancement
Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:
Image Restoration
Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:
Morphological Processing
Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:
Segmentation
Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:
Representation & Description
Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:
Object Recognition
Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:
Image Compression
Key Stages in Digital Image Processing:
Color Image Processing
Human Visual System: Structure Of The Human
Eye
• The lens focuses light from objects onto the
retina
• Retina covered with light receptors called
cones (6 ‐ 7 million) and rods (75 ‐150
million)
• Cones concentrated around fovea. Very
sensitive to color
• Rods more spread out and sensitive to low
illumination levels
Image Formation In The Eye
• Muscles in eye can change the shape of the lens allowing us focus on
near or far objects
• An image is focused onto retina exciting the rods and cones and send
signals to the brain
Imaging System
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, perceived intensity of a region is related to the light
intensities of the regions surrounding it
Brightness Adaptation & Discrimination:
Mach Band Effect
Brightness Adaptation & Discrimination
Image Acquisition
• Images typically generated by illuminating a scene and absorbing
energy reflected by scene objects
Image Sensing
• Incoming energy (e.g. light) lands on a sensor material responsive to
that type of energy, generating a voltage
• Collections of sensors are arranged to capture images
Image (Spatial) Sampling
• A digital sensor can only measure a limited number of samples at a
discrete set of energy levels
• Sampling can be thought of as: Continuous signal x comb function
Image Quantization
• Quantization: process of converting continuous analog signal into its
digital representation
• Discretize image I(u,v) values
• Limit values image can take
Image Sampling And Quantization
• Sampling and quantization generates approximation of a real world
scene
Image as Discrete Function
• After spatial sampling and quantization, an image is s discrete
function
• The image domain Ω is now discrete:
and so is the image range:
where
Image as a Function
Representing Images
• Image data structure is 2D array of pixel values
• Pixel values are gray levels in range 0‐255 or RGB colors
• Array values can be any data type (bit, byte, int, float, double, etc.)
Spatial Resolution
• The spatial resolution of an image is determined by how fine/coarse
sampling was carried out
• Spatial resolution: smallest discernable image detail
• Vision specialists talk about image resolution
• Graphic designers talk about dots per inch (DPI)
Spatial Resolution
Spatial Resolution: Stretched Images
Intensity Level Resolution
• Intensity level resolution: 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 usually given in terms of number of bits used to
store each intensity level
Intensity Level Resolution
Intensity Level Resolution
Saturation & Noise
Resolution: How Much Is Enough?
• The big question with resolution is always
how much is enough?
• Depends on what is in the image (details) and
what you would like to do with it (applications)
• Key questions:
• Does image look aesthetically pleasing?
• Can you see what you need to see in image?
• Example: Picture on right okay for counting
number of cars, but not for reading the
number plate
Image File Formats
• Hundreds of image file formats. Examples
• Tagged Image File Format (TIFF)
• Graphics Interchange Format (GIF)
• Portable Network Graphics (PNG)
• JPEG, BMP, Portable Bitmap Format (PBM), etc
• Image pixel values can be
• Grayscale: 0 – 255 range
• Binary: 0 or 1
• Color: RGB colors in 0‐255 range (or other color model)
• Application specific (e.g. floating point values in astronomy)
How many Bits Per Image Element?
Example Operations: Noise Removal
Examples: Noise Removal
Example: Contrast Adjustment
Example: Edge Detection
Example: Region Detection, Segmentation
Example: Image Compression
Example: Image Inpainting
Examples: Artistic (Movie Special )Effects
Applications of Image Processing
Applications of Image Processing: Medicine
Applications of Image Processing: GIS
Applications of Image Processing:
Law Enforcement
Applications of Image Processing: HCI
Histograms
• Histograms plots how many times (frequency) each intensity value in
image occurs
• Example:
• Image (left) has 256 distinct gray levels (8 bits)
• Histogram (right) shows frequency (how many times) each gray level occurs
Histograms
• Many cameras display real time histograms of scene
• Helps avoid taking over‐exposed pictures
• Also easier to detect types of processing previously applied to image
Histograms
• E.g. K = 16, 10 pixels have intensity value = 2
• Histograms: only statistical information
• No indication of location of pixels
Histograms
• Different images can have same histogram
• 3 images below have same histogram
• Half of pixels are gray, half are white
• Same histogram = same statistics
• Distribution of intensities could be different
• Can we reconstruct image from histogram? No!
Histograms
• So, a histogram for a grayscale image with intensity values in range
would contain exactly K entries
• E.g. 8‐bit grayscale image, K = 28 = 256
• Each histogram entry is defined as:
• h(i) = number of pixels with intensity I for all 0 < i < K.
• E.g: h(255) = number of pixels with intensity = 255
• Formal definition
Interpreting Histograms
• Log scale makes low values more visible
Histograms
• Histograms help detect image acquisition issues
• Problems with image can be identified on histogram
• Over and under exposure
• Brightness
• Contrast
• Dynamic Range
• Point operations can be used to alter histogram. E.g
• Addition
• Multiplication
• Exp and Log
• Intensity Windowing (Contrast Modification)
Summary
• We have looked at:
• What is digital image?
• How to acquire a digital image?
• What is quantization and sampling?
• What is spatial and intensity resolution?
• Next time we will continue talk more about Histograms, Image
Contrast, Intensity transform, Point Operations and intensity
windowing
