TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF CRETE

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONIC AND COMPUTER

ENGINEERING

MACHINE VISION
Euripides G.M. Petrakis
Michalis Zervakis
http://www.intelligence.tuc/~petrakis
http://courses.ece.tuc.gr
Chania 2010

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 1

 Machine Vision

The goal of Machine Vision is to create a

model of the real world from images
A machine vision system recovers useful
information about a scene from its two
dimensional projections
The world is three dimensional
Two dimensional digitized images

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 2

 Machine Vision (2)

Knowledge about the objects (regions) in a

scene and projection geometry is required.
The information which is recovered differs
depending on the application
Satellite, medical images etc.
Processing takes place in stages:
Enhancement, segmentation, image analysis
and matching (pattern recognition).

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 3

Illumination

Image Machine
Acquisition Vision System

2D Image
Scene
Digital Image Description

Feedback

The goal of a machine vision system is to compute a

meaningful description of the scene (e.g., object)
 Machine Vision Stages
Image Acquisition Analog to digital
(by cameras, scanners etc) conversion
Remove noise/patterns,
Image Processing improve contrast
Image Enhancement
Image Restoration Find regions (objects) in
the image
Image Segmentation Take measurements of
objects/relationships
Image Analysis Match the above
(Binary Image Processing) description with similar
description of known
Model Matching objects (models)
Pattern Recognition
E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 5
 Image Processing
Image Processing

Input Image Output Image

Image transformation
image enhancement (filtering, edge detection, surface detection,
computation of depth).
Image restoration (remove point/pattern degradation: there exist a
mathematical expression of the type of degradation like e.g. Added
multiplicative noise, sin/cos pattern degradation etc).

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 6

 Image Segmentation
Image Segmentation

Input Image Regions/Objects

Classify pixels into groups (regions/objects of interest)

sharing common characteristics.
Intensity/Color, texture, motion etc.
Two types of techniques:
Region segmentation: find the pixels of a region.
Edge segmentation: find the pixels of its outline contour.
E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 7
 Image Analysis
Image Analysis

Input Image
Segmented Image Measurements
(regions, objects)

Take useful measurements from pixels, regions, spatial

relationships, motion etc.
Grey scale / color intensity values;
Size, distance;
Velocity;

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 8

 Pattern Recognition
Model Matching
Pattern Recognition

Image/regions

Measurements, or Class identifier
Structural description

Classify an image (region) into one of a number of known

classes
Statistical pattern recognition (the measurements form vectors
which are classified into classes);
Structural pattern recognition (decompose the image into primitive
structures).
E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 9
 Digital Image Representation

Image: 2D array of gray level or color values

Pixel: array element;
Pixel value: arithmetic value of gray level or color
intensity.
Gray level image: f = f(x,y)
- 3D image f=f(x,y,z)
Color image (multi-spectral)
f = {Rred(x,y), Ggreen(x,y), Bblue(x,y)}
E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 10
 What a computer sees is very different from what
a human sees. A computer sees pixels (arithmetic values)
while a human sees shapes, structures etc.

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 11

 Relationships to other fields

Image Processing (IP)

Pattern Recognition (PR)
Computer Graphics (CG)
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Neural Networks (NN)
Psychophysics

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 12

 Image Processing (IP)

IP transforms images to images

Image filtering, compression, restoration
IP is applied at the early stages of machine
vision.
IP is usually used to enhance particular
information and to suppress noise.

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 13

 Pattern Recognition (PR)

PR classifies numerical and symbolic data.

Statistical: classify feature vectors.
Structural: represent the composition of an
object in terms of primitives and parse this
description.
PR is usually used to classify objects but
object recognition in machine vision usually
requires many other techniques.
E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 14
 Statistical Pattern Recognition

Pattern: the description of an an object

Feature vector
(size, roundness, color, texture)
Pattern class: set of patterns with similar
characteristics.
Take measurements from a population of
patterns.
Classification: Map each pattern to a class.
E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 15
 Structure of PR Systems
input
Sensor

Processing

Measurements

Classification
class
E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 16
 Example of Statistical PR
Two classes:
I. W1 Basketball players
II. W2 jockeys
Description: X = (X1, X2) = (height, weight)
X1 W1 ..
W2 + . ..
.. ..
. ..
. . .. . D(X) = AX1 + BX2 + C = 0
- Decision function
X2
E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 17
 Syntactic Pattern Recognition

The structure is important

Identify primitives
E.g., Shape primitives
Break down an image (shape) into a sequence of
such primitives.
The way the primitives are related to each other to
form a shape is unique.
Use a grammar/algorithm
Parse the shape

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 18

Primitives

G1,L(G1) : submedian Grammar

G2,L(G2) : telocentric Grammar
E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 19
 Each digit is represented by a waveform representing
black/white, white/black transitions (scan the image from
Left to right.

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 20

 Computer Graphics (CG)

Machine vision is the analysis of images

while CG is the decomposition of images:
CG generates images from geometric primitives
(lines, circles, surfaces).
Machine vision is the inverse: estimate the
geometric primitives from an image.
Visualization and virtual reality bring these
two fields closer.
E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 21
 Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Machine vision is considered to be sub-field of AI.

AI studies the computational aspects of
intelligence.
CV is used to analyze scenes and compute
symbolic representations from them.
AI: perception, cognition, action
Perception translates signals to symbols;
Cognition manipulates symbols;
Action translates symbols to signals that effect the
world.

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 22

 Psychophysics

Psychophysics and cognitive science have

studied human vision for a long time.
Many techniques in machine vision are
related to what is known about human
vision.

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 23

 Neural Networks (NN)

NNs are being increasingly applied to solve

many machine vision problems.
NN techniques are usually applied to solve
PR tasks.
Image recognition/classification.
They have also applied to segmentation and
other machine vision tasks.

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 24

 Machine Vision Applications

Robotics
Medicine
Remote Sensing
Cartography
Meteorology
Quality inspection
Reconnaissance

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 25

 Robot Vision

Machine vision can make a robot manipulator

much more versatile.
Allow it to deal with variations in parts position and
orientation.

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 26

 Remote Sensing

Take images from

high altitudes (from
aircrafts, satellites).
Find ships in the aerial
image of the dock.
Find if new ships have
arrived.
What kind of ships?

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 27

 Remote Sensing (2)

Analyze the image

Generate a description
Match this descriptions
with the descriptions of
empty docs
There are four ships
Marked by +

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 28

 Medical Applications

Assist a physician to
reach a diagnosis.
Construct 2D, 3D
anatomy models of the
human body.
CG geometric models.
Analyze the image to
extract useful features.

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 29

 Machine Vision Systems

There is no universal machine vision system

One system for each application
Assumptions:
Good lighting;
Low noise;
2D images
Passive - Active environment
Changes in the environment call for different actions
(e.g., turn left, push the break etc).
E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 30
 Vision by Man and Machine

What is the mechanism of human vision?

Can a machine do the same thing?
There are many studies;
Most are empirical.
Humans and machines have different
Software
Hardware

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 31

 Human Hardware

Photoreceptors take measurements of light signals.

About 106 Photoreceptors.
Retinal ganglion cells transmit electric and
chemical signals to the brain
Complex 3D interconnections;
What the neurons do? In what sequence?
Algorithms?

Heavy Parallelism.

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 32

 Machine Vision Hardware

PCs, workstations etc.

Signals: 2D image arrays gray level/color values.
Modules: low level processing, shape from
texture, motion, contours etc.
Simple interconnections.
No parallelism.

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 33

 Course Outline

Introduction to machine vision, applications,

Image formation, color, reflectance, depth,
stereopsis.
Basic image processing techniques (filtering,
digitization, restoration), Fourier transform.
Binary image processing and analysis, Distance
transform, morphological operators.

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 34

 Course Outline (2)

Image segmentation (region segmentation, edge

segmentation).
Edge detection, edge enhancement and
linking. Thresholding, region growing, region
merging/splitting.
Relaxation labeling, Hough transform.
Image analysis, shape analysis. Polygonal
approximation, splines, skeletons. Shape features,
multi-resolution representations.

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 35

 Course Outline (3)

Image representation, image - shape recognition

and classification. Attributed relational graphs,
semantic nets.
Image - shape matching (Fourier descriptors,
moments, matching in scale space).
Texture representation and recognition, statistical
and structural methods.
Motion, motion detection, optical flow.
Video
E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 36
 Bibliography

Machine Vision, Ramesh Jain, Rangachar

Kasturi, Brian G. Schunck, Mc Graw-Hill, 1995
(highly recommended!).
"Image Processing, Analysis and Machine
Vision", Milan Sonka, Vaclav Hlavac,
Roger Boyle, PWS Publishing, Second
Edition.
"Machine Vision, Theory, Algorithms,
Practicalities'', E. R. Davies, Academic Press,
1997.
E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 37
 "Practical Computer Vision Using C'', J.
R. Parker, John Wiley & Sons Inc., 1994.
Selected articles from the literature.
Lecture notes
(http://www.intelligence.tuc/~petrakis)
Webcourses (http://courses.ece.tuc.gr)

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 38

 Grading Scheme

Final Exam (F): 40%, min 5

Assignments (): 40%
Two assignments
Obligatory

E.G.M. Petrakis Machine Vision (Introduction) 39