What is Image Processing?

Explain fundamental steps in

Digital Image Processing.
Image Processing:
Image processing is a method to convert an image into digital form and perform some
operations on it, in order to get an enhanced image or to extract some useful
information from it.
It is a type of signal dispensation in which input is an image, like video frame or
photograph and output may be image or characteristics associated with that image.
Usually Image Processing system includes treating images as two dimensional signals
while applying already set signal processing methods to them.

Purpose of Image processing

The purpose of image processing is divided into 5 groups. They are :
Visualization - Observe the objects that are not visible.
Image sharpening and restoration - To create a better image.
Image retrieval - Seek for the image of interest.
Measurement of pattern – Measures various objects in an image.
Image Recognition – Distinguish the objects in an image.

Fundamental steps in Digital Image Processing :

1. Image Acquisition
This is the first step or process of the fundamental steps of digital image processing.
Image acquisition could be as simple as being given an image that is already in digital
form. Generally, the image acquisition stage involves preprocessing, such as scaling
etc.
2. Image Enhancement
Image enhancement is among the simplest and most appealing areas of digital image
processing. Basically, the idea behind enhancement techniques is to bring out detail
that is obscured, or simply to highlight certain features of interest in an image. Such as,
changing brightness & contrast etc.
3. Image Restoration
Image restoration is an area that also deals with improving the appearance of an image.
However, unlike enhancement, which is subjective, image restoration is objective, in the
sense that restoration techniques tend to be based on mathematical or probabilistic
models of image degradation.
4. Color Image Processing
Color image processing is an area that has been gaining its importance because of the
significant increase in the use of digital images over the Internet. This may include color
modeling and processing in a digital domain etc.
5. Wavelets and Multiresolution Processing
Wavelets are the foundation for representing images in various degrees of resolution.
Images subdivision successively into smaller regions for data compression and for
pyramidal representation.
6. Compression
Compression deals with techniques for reducing the storage required to save an image
or the bandwidth to transmit it. Particularly in the uses of internet it is very much
necessary to compress data.
7. Morphological Processing
Morphological processing deals with tools for extracting image components that are
useful in the representation and description of shape.
8. Segmentation
Segmentation procedures partition an image into its constituent parts or objects. In
general, autonomous segmentation is one of the most difficult tasks in digital image
processing. A rugged segmentation procedure brings the process a long way toward
successful solution of imaging problems that require objects to be identified individually.
9. Representation and Description
Representation and description almost always follow the output of a segmentation
stage, which usually is raw pixel data, constituting either the boundary of a region or all
the points in the region itself. Choosing a representation is only part of the solution for
transforming raw data into a form suitable for subsequent computer processing.
Description deals with extracting attributes that result in some quantitative information of
interest or are basic for differentiating one class of objects from another.
10. Object recognition
Recognition is the process that assigns a label, such as, “vehicle” to an object based on
its descriptors.
11. Knowledge Base:
Knowledge may be as simple as detailing regions of an image where the information of
interest is known to be located, thus limiting the search that has to be conducted in
seeking that information. The knowledge base also can be quite complex, such as an
interrelated list of all major possible defects in a materials inspection problem or an
image database containing high-resolution satellite images of a region in connection
with change-detection applications.
Explain the components of image processing.

In sensing, two elements are required to acquire digital images.

The first is physical device that is sensitive to the energy radiated by the object we wish
to image.
The second called a digitizer, is a device for converting the output of the physical
sensing device into digital form.
Specialized image processing hardware usually consists of the digitizer plus hardware
that performs other primitive operations such as arithmetic and logical operations (ALU).
Eg. Noise reduction. This type of hardware sometimes is called a front end subsystem.
The computer is an image processing system is a general purpose to supercomputer
Software which include image processing specialized modules that performs specific
tasks Mass storage capability is a must in image processing applications.
Image displays in use today are mainly color TV monitors.
Hardcopy devices for recording images include laser printers, film cameras, inkjet units
and CD-ROM.

Sampling and quantization

An image may be continuous w.r.t x and y co-ordinate and also in amplitude. To convert
it to digital form, we have to sample the function in both co-ordinate and amplitude.
Sampling :

 The process of digitizing the co-ordinate values is called Sampling.

 A continuous image f(x, y) is normally approximated by equally spaced samples
arranged in the form of a NxM array where each elements of the array is a
discrete quantity.

 The sampling rate of digitizer determines the spatial resolution of digitized image.
 Finer the sampling (i.e. increasing M and N), the better the approximation of
continuous image function f(x, y).

Quantization :

 The process of digitizing the amplitude values is called Quantization.

 Magnitude of sampled image is expressed as the digital values in Image
processing.
 No of quantization levels should be high enough for human perception of the fine
details in the image.
 Most digital IP devices uses quantization into k equal intervals.
 If b-bits are used,

No. of quantization levels = k = 2b2b

 8 bits/pixels are used commonly.

Obtain the digital negative of the following 8 bits per pixel
image.

121 205 217 156 151

139 127 157 117 125

252 117 236 138 142

227 182 178 197 242

201 106 119 251 240

The digital negative of an image can be given as, s = (L-1)-r

Where s is output pixel value, r is input pixel value and L-1 is maximum pixel value.
For 8 bits per pixel image maximum pixel value is 255.
Thus the digital negative of the image is,

134 50 38 99 104

116 128 98 138 130

3 138 19 117 113

28 73 77 58 13

54 149 136 4 15

Justify/Contradict: Brightness discrimination is poor at

low levels of illumination.

1. The ability of the eye to discriminate between changes in light intensity at any
specific adaptation level is different.
2. The brightness discrimination of the eye can be given by Weber ratio ΔI/I where
ΔI is the increment of illumination discrimination 50% of the time with background
illumination I.
3. mSmall ΔI/I indicate good brightness discrimination and large ΔI/I indicate poor
brightness discrimination.
4. Brightness discrimination is poor at low levels of illumination because vision is
carried out by activity of rods and at high levels it is by cones in the eye.
What is Spatial Domain? What are the methods of Spatial
Domain?

Spatial Domain

 The term spatial domain means working in. the given, space, in this case, the
image. It implies working with the pixel values are in other words, working directly
with the raw data.
 Let f(x, y) be the original image where f is the grey level value and (x, y) are the
image coordinates. For a 8-bit image, f can take values from 0 - 255 where 0
represents black, 255 represents white and all the intermediate values represent
shades grey.

 In image of size , x and y can take values from (0, 0) to (255, 255) as shown in
the Figure.6
 The modified image can be expressed as
g(x,y)=T[f(x,y)]g(x,y)=T[f(x,y)]
 Here f(x, y) is the original image and T is the transformation applied to it to get a
new modified image g(x, y). For all spatial domain techniques it is simply T that
changes. The general equation remains the same.
S=T(r)S=T(r)
Where S = output gray level; T = Transformation Function; r =input gray level

 To summarize, spatial domain techniques are those, which directly work with the
pixel values to get a new image based on Equation above.
 Spatial domain enhancement can be carried out in two different ways
(1) Point processing
(2) Neighborhood processing
Explain filtering in spatial domain.
Explain various image enhancement techniques in spatial
domain.
Justify, Entropy of an image is maximized by histogram
equalization.
Perform the Histogram Equalization for the following
image. Plot the original and the Equalized Histograms.
Given Histogram A and B. Modify histogram of A as given
by histogram of B
Histogram Equalization.
Obtain a plot of original as well as Equalized Histogram
Grey levels 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

No of pixels 100 90 50 20 0 0 0 0