Digital image fundamentals

Chapter 2
 Structure of the Human Eye
• The eye is nearly a sphere, with an average diameter of approximately 20
mm.
• Three membranes enclose the eye:
1. cornea (transparent exterior portion of the eye covering the iris. The color
part of the eye )
2. sclera (protects the delicate structure inside) outer cover;
3. choroid (another layer found underneath the sclera); and
4. the retina (is a collection of light sensitive tissues).
• The cornea is a tough, transparent tissue that covers the anterior surface of
the eye.
• Continuous with the cornea, the sclera is an opaque membrane that encloses
the remainder of the optic globe.
• The choroid lies directly below the sclera.

2
 Structure of the Human Eye
• The lens is made up of concentric layers of fibrous cells
and is suspended by fibers that attach to the ciliary body.
• The Lens contains 60 to 70%water, about 6% fat,and
more protein than any other tissue in the eye.
• The innermost membrane of the eye is the retina, which
lines the inside of the wall’s entire posterior portion.
• When the eye is properly focused, light from an object
outside the eye is imaged on the retina. Pattern vision is
afforded by the distribution of discrete light receptors
over the surface of the retina.

3
Structure of the Human Eye

4
Structure of the Human Eye

5
 Image formation in the Eye
• The principal difference between the lens of the eye
and an ordinary optical lens is that lens of the eye is
flexible.
• The shape of the lens is controlled by tension in the
fibers of the ciliary body.
• To focus on distant objects, the controlling muscles
cause the lens to be relatively flattened.
• Similarly, these muscles allow the lens to become
thicker in order to focus on objects near the eye.

6
 Image formation in the Eye
• The distance between the center of the lens and the retina
(called the focal length) varies from approximately 17 mm to
about 14 mm, as the refractive power of the lens increases
from its minimum to its maximum.
• If h is the height in mm of that object in the retinal image, the
geometry of visualization yields 15/100=h/17 or h=2.55 mm.

7
 Human Visual Perception
• Human perception encompasses both the
physiological and psychological aspects.
• We will focus more on physiological aspects,
which are more easily quantifiable and hence,
analyzed.
 Human Visual Perception
• Why study visual perception?
– Image processing algorithms are designed based
on how our visual system works.
– In image compression, we need to know what
information is not perceptually important and can
be ignored.
– In image enhancement, we need to know what
types of operations that are likely to improve an
image visually.
 The Human Visual System
• The human visual system consists of two
primary components – the eye and the brain,
which are connected by the optic nerve.
– Eye – receiving sensor (camera, scanner).
– Brain – information processing unit (computer
system).
– Optic nerve – connection cable (physical wire).
The Human Visual System
 The Human Visual System
• This is how human visual system works:
– Light energy is focused by the lens of the eye into
sensors and retina.
– The sensors respond to the light by an
electrochemical reaction that sends an electrical
signal to the brain (through the optic nerve).
– The brain uses the signals to create neurological
patterns that we perceive as images.
 The Human Visual System
• The visible light is an electromagnetic wave
with wavelength range of about 380 to 825
nanometers.
– However, response above 700 nanometers is
minimal.
• We cannot “see” many parts of the
electromagnetic spectrum.
The Human Visual System
 The Human Visual System
• The visible spectrum can be divided into three
bands:
– Blue (400 to 500 nm).
– Green (500 to 600 nm).
– Red (600 to 700 nm).
• The sensors are distributed across retina.
The Human Visual System
 The Human Visual System
• There are two types of sensors: rods and
cones.
• Rods:
– For night vision.
– See only brightness (gray level) and not color.
– Distributed across retina.
– Medium and low level resolution.
 The Human Visual System
• Cones:
– For daylight vision.
– Sensitive to color.
– Concentrated in the central region of eye.
– High resolution capability (differentiate small
changes).
 The Human Visual System
• Blind spot:
– No sensors.
– Place for optic nerve.
– We do not perceive it as a blind spot because the
brain fills in the missing visual information.
• Why does an object should be in center field
of vision in order to perceive it in fine detail?
– This is where the cones are concentrated.
 The Human Visual System
• Cones have higher resolution than rods
because they have individual nerves tied to
each sensor.
• Rods have multiple sensors tied to each nerve.
• Rods react even in low light but see only a
single spectral band. They cannot distinguish
color.
The Human Visual System
 The Human Visual System
• There are three types of cones. Each
responding to different wavelengths of light
energy.
• The colors that we perceive are the combined
result of the response of the three cones.
The Human Visual System
 Elements of Visual Perception
• How do people perceive image?
• How are images formed in the eye?
• How do human and electronic imaging compare in
terms of resolution and ability to adapt to changes
in illumination?

24
 Issue of Contrast
• Objects appear to the eye to become darker as
the background gets lighter.
• The example below is a piece of paper that seems
white when lying on a black desk, but can appear
totally black in a lighter background

25
Issue of Illumination
Same objects and arrangement
Different angle of light

26
Image Sampling and Quantization
• to generate digital images from sensed data
• The output of most sensors is a continuous
voltage waveform whose amplitude and
spatial behavior are related to the physical
phenomenon being sensed.
• To create a digital image, we need to convert
the continuous sensed data into a digital
format.
 Cont…
• This requires two processes: sampling and
quantization.
• Digitizing the coordinate values is called
sampling.
• Digitizing the amplitude (intensity level) values
is called quantization.
 Digital Image Fundamentals
• introduce some important terminology used
when describing digital images.
• Spatial and Grey-Level Resolution
• A digital image with M rows and N columns is
represented by a function f(x,y).
• The value of x can range between 0 and M-1,
and the value of y can range between 0 and N-
1. The origin of the image is the pixel with
coordinates (0,0),
• The spatial resolution of an image is the
number of rows and columns in the image.
• A high resolution image is an image with a
large number of rows and columns, enabling it
to display fine detail, whereas a low
resolution image will have little detail in it.
• The intensity, f(x,y), at each pixel can take any
of L different values, ranging between 0 and L-
1. For practical storage reasons, the value of L
is normally a power of 2.
• L
• Processing an image to reduce the number of
possible intensities is known as grey-level
quantization.
 Fig. The effects of grey-level quantisation – the same image
viewed with (a) 256, (b) 64, (c) 16 and (d) 4 possible grey-
levels.
As the number of grey-levels is reduced, some areas of
smooth variation in grey-level display apparent edges,
where none were present in the original image. Such
false contours are present
• The range of different intensity values in a
particular image is known as the dynamic
range of the image.
• the difference here between grey-level
resolution and dynamic range.
• The grey-level resolution is the range of
possible intensities, whereas the dynamic
range is the range of intensities in a given
image.
• we can express the number of bits b required
to store a digital image as follows.
• B=MxNxK
• Example :- 1356 x 756 x 8 ?? Storage??
 Zooming and Shrinking Digital Images
• Two operations are of interest:
• zooming an image means increasing the spatial
resolution, whereas shrinking refers to
reducing the spatial resolution.
• Zooming requires the creation of new pixel
locations,
• so we need to have some way of deciding what
grey-levels to assign to these new locations.
• One solution is to look for the nearest pixel in the
original image, and assign this to the new pixel.
• This process is known as nearest neighbor
interpolation.
• A special case of nearest neighbor interpolation
is pixel replication.
• Pixel replication is applicable when we want to
increase the size of an image by an integer
number of times.
• For example, if we want to double the size of
an image we can simply duplicate each
column and each row,
• Bilinear interpolation is an alternative way of
zooming an image.
• If a pixel in the new image does not
correspond exactly with a pixel in the original
image, there will always be four possible
neighbors.
• The coordinates of the resampled pixel are
defined as( x ,,y ) and those of the four nearest
neighbors as , (x,y) , and . The intensity of
the interpolated pixel is defined by the
following equation.
f ( x, y)  (1  a)(1  b). f ( x, y)  a(1  b). f ( x  1, y)  (1  a)b. f ( x, y  1) 
• ab. f ( x  1, y  1)
• For example, using the following intensity values:
• f(x,y) = 200
• f(x+1,y) = 212
• f(x,y+1) = 166
• f(x+1,y+1) =132
• and values for a and b of 0.2 and 0.3 respectively (i.e.
the resampled pixel is close to the top-left nearest
neighbour), we compute the resampled intensity as
• Image shrinking is done in a similar way to
image zooming. For pixel replication, instead
of duplicating rows and columns we delete
rows and columns.
• Nearest neighbor and bilinear interpolation
follow the same procedure, except that a
lower resolution grid is overlaid onto a higher
resolution grid, instead of the other way
around.
 Relationships Between Pixels
• Neighbors of a Pixel
• A pixel p at coordinates (x,y) has 4 vertical and
horizontal neighbours given by
• (x+1,y), (x-1,y), (x,y+1), (x,y-1)
• These pixels are known as the 4-neighbours of p,
and are typically denoted by N4(p). Similarly, the 8-
neighbours of p include the 4-neighbours but also
those diagonally adjacent to p:
• (x+1,y), (x-1,y), (x,y+1), (x,y-1), (x+1,y+1), (x+1,y-1),
(x-1,y+1), (x-1,y-1)
• Connectivity and Adjacency
• the word adjacent has a similar, but not identical,
meaning to neighbor.
• Whereas a neighbor of a pixel p is a pixel that lies in
a particular area around p,
• an adjacent pixel to p is a neighbor that also has a
similar intensity to p.
• More formally, let V be the set of similar grey-levels
used to define adjacency (for a binary image,
containing intensities of 0 and 1 only, V ={1}).
• We now define three types of adjacency:
• 4-adjacency. Two pixels p and q with grey-levels from V
are 4-adjacent if q is in the set N4(p).
• 8-adjacency. Two pixels p and q with grey-levels from V
are 8-adjacent if q is in the set N8(p).
• m-adjacency. Two pixels p and q with grey-levels from
V are m-adjacent if
• q is in the set N4(p) or
• q is in ND(p) and the set N4(p)∩N4(q) has no pixels
whose values are from V.
 Boundaries and Regions
• Let S represent a subset of pixels in an image. Two
pixels p and q are said to be connected in S if
there exists a path between them consisting
entirely of pixels in S.
• For any pixel p in S, the set of pixels in S that are
connected to p are its connected component. For
example, a connected component may be a single
shape or object in the image. If S contains only
one connected component, then S is a connected
set.
• Now let R represent a subset of pixels in an image.
R is a region of the image is R is a connected set.
• The boundary (or border, or contour) of R is the set
of pixels in the region that have one or more
neighbors that are not in R.
• The connected set, or region, of the image is
shown shaded. The boundary of the region
(defined using 4-adjacency) is shown shaded dark.