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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 IMAGE PROCESSING

Image processing is any form of signal processing that gives the input as an
image, such as a photograph or video frame, the output of image processing may be
either an image, set of characteristics, parameters related to the image. Most image
processing techniques involve treating the image as a two-dimensional function f(x, y)
where x and y are spatial coordinates.

Image processing usually refers to digital image processing. Digital image

processing is used in computer algorithms for performing image processing on digital
images. As a subcategory or field of digital signal processing allows a much wider
range of algorithms to be applied to the input data and can avoid problems such as
build up of noise and signal distortion during processing.

This is characterized by the representation of discrete time, discrete frequency,

and discrete domain signals by a sequence of numbers, symbols and the processing of
these signals.

1.2 COMPUTER VISION

Computer vision is concerned with modeling and replicating human vision
using computer software and hardware. It combines knowledge in computer science,
electrical engineering, mathematics, physiology, biology and cognitive science. It
needs knowledge from all these fields to understand and simulate the operation of
human vision system. Machine vision refers to a process of combining automated
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image analysis with other methods and technologies to provide automated inspection
and robot guidance in industrial applications. Typical functions in computer vision are
image acquisition, pre processing, feature extraction Kim et al (1997), detection,
segmentation, high level processing and decision making. Computer vision overlaps
significantly with the following fields. Image Processing, Pattern Recognition and
Photogrammetry.

Some of computer vision applications include systems for

1. Robotics
2. Navigation
3. Face detection and recognition
4. Human Computer Interface
5. Modeling objects or environments
6. Interaction
7. Automatic inspection

Classical problem in computer vision, image processing Datta et al (2008),

machine vision is determining the image data containing some specific object, feature
and activity. Different varieties of recognition problem are:

Object recognition Several pre specified, learned objects and object classes
Merler et al (2007) can be recognized usually together with 2D positions in the image
or 3D poses in the scene.

Identification An individual instance of an object is recognized. Examples

include identification of a specific person's face, fingerprint, handwritten digits and
specific vehicle.

Detection The image data are scanned for a specific condition. Detection based
on relatively simple and fast computations Luo et al (2006) is used for finding smaller
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regions of interesting image data that can be analyzed by more computationally

demanding techniques to produce a correct interpretation.

1.3 IMAGE SEGMENTATION

Image segmentation is the process of partitioning a digital image into multiple

segments. The goal of segmentation is to simplify and change the representation of an
image into something that is more meaningful and easier to analyze the image.
Image segmentation is typically used to locate objects and boundaries are lines
and curves in images. More precisely, image segmentation is the process of assigning a
label to every pixel in an image such that pixels with the same label share certain
characteristics.

The result of image segmentation is a set of segments that collectively cover the
entire image, a set of contours extracted from the image. Each of the pixels in a region
is similar with respect to some characteristic or computed property such as
color, intensity and texture.

Image segmentation is the first step in image analysis and pattern recognition. It
is a critical and essential component of image analysis system is one of the most
difficult tasks in image processing and determines the quality of the final result
analysis. Image segmentation is the process of dividing an image into different regions
such that each region is homogeneous.

Image segmentation methods can be categorized as follows

1. Histogram thresholding assumes that images are composed of regions with

different gray images, color ranges and separates it into a number of peaks,
each corresponding to one region.

2. Edge based approaches use edge detection operators such as Sobel, Laplacian
for example. Resulting regions may not be connected, hence edges need to be
joined.
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3. Region based approaches based on similarity of regional image data. Some of

the more widely used approaches in this category are: Thresholding, Clustering,
Region growing, Splitting and merging.

4. Hybrid consider both edges and regions.

1.4 COLOR IMAGE SEGMENTATION

Color images are usually captured stored and displayed using elementary R, G,
and B component images. The color attributes of a color image pixel can be
represented as a 3-D vector in the color space as shown in Figure 1.1.

Blue(0, 0, 1) Cyan (0,1, 1)

Magenta (1, 0, 1) White (1, 1, 1)

Black(0,0,0)
Green (1, 0, 1)

Red(1,0, 0)
Yellow (1,1,0)

Figure 1.1 3-D color spaces.

Color segmentation comprises two stages, coarse segmentation and refinement.

It is interesting to look these algorithms and finding the number of colors C. Ohta et al
(1980) and Shafarenko et al (1998) decide C by major histogram peaks. Healey (1992)
extracts the spatial region to determine the number of colors. Lim and Lee (1990),
Huang et al (1992) and Liu and Yang (1994) decide C by using Scale Space Filter
(SSF) in coarse segmentation. Xie and Beni (1991) uses compactness and separation
validity measure. Chang et al (1994) divides the color space into 8 cubes then
eliminates unpopulated cubes resulting a C < 8. Wu et al (1994) and Littman and
Ritter (1997) use only two clusters. Uchiyama and Arbib (1994) pre selects C to be 8.
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The color space distribution h (R, G, B) of a color image can be spread and can
also be condensed. Its diversity and complexity are well acknowledged. The only
constraint is that the visible color space volume is limited. For simple colors it tends to
be condensed on a few locations but the condensation itself may still be broadly
spread. Because of its 3-D nature, it is not easy to visualize a color space distribution
and analyze the colors.

1.5 FEATURE EXTRACTION

In image segmentation and image processing, feature extraction is a special

form of dimensionality reduction. For any object in an image interesting points on
object can be extracted to provide a feature description. Transforming input data into
set of features is called feature extraction. Features extracted from a training image are
used to identify object of an input image. Features extracted from training image Sivic
et al (2009) are detectable even under changes in image scale, noise and illumination to
perform efficient segmentation. Interesting points lie on high contrast region such as
object edges of the image.

Feature extraction Wu et al (2009) involves simplifying the amount of resources

required to describe a large set of data accurately. Feature extraction techniques
include Principle Component Analysis (PCA), semi definite embedding, multifactor
dimensionality reduction, multi-linear subspace learning, non linear dimensionality
reduction, kernel PCA, multi-linear PCA, latent semantic analysis and partial least
squares.

1.6 FEATURE DETECTION

Feature detection Ballan et al (2008) refers to methods that aim at computing

abstractions of image information and making local decisions at every image point if
there is an image feature of a given type at that point. Resulting features will be
subsets of image domain in the form of isolated points, continuous curves and
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connected regions. The desirable property for a feature detector is repeatability to find
same feature in two or more different images of same scene.

Feature detection is a low level image processing operation. It is performed as

the first operation on an image and examines every pixel to check if the feature is
present at that pixel. If it is part of a larger algorithm it will examine image in the
region of features. The prerequisite to feature detection is that input image is usually
smoothed by a Gaussian kernel in a scale space representation and several feature
images are computed expressed in terms of local derivative operations.

1.7 NEED FOR IMAGE SEGMENTATION

Segmentation subdivides an image into its constituent regions or objects. That

is, it partitions an image into distinct regions that are meant to correlate strongly with
objects or features of interest in the image. Segmentation can also be regarded as a
process of grouping together pixels that have similar attributes.

The subdivision is carried depends on the problem and segmentation should

stop once it reaches the object of interest in an application that have been isolated.
There is no point in carrying segmentation past details are required to identify those
elements.

Segmentation is generally the first stage in any attempt to analyze or interpret an

image automatically. Segmentation bridges the gap between low-level image
processing and high level image processing. Some kinds of segmentation technique
will be found in any application involving the detection, recognition, and measurement
of objects in images.

The role of segmentation is crucial in most tasks requiring image analysis. The
success or failure of the task is often a direct consequence of the success or failure of
segmentation. Reliable and accurate segmentation of an image is very difficult to
achieve pure automation.
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1.8 ORGANISATION OF THESIS