Chapter 2

Digital ImageFundamentals

Elements of Visual Perception

Structure of the Human Eye

Image Formation in the Eye

Brightness Adaptation and Discrimination


Light and the Electromagnetic Spectrum ()

Image Sensing and Acquisition

A Simple Image Formation Model

where

 is called the illumination component

 is called the reflectance component

( for a chest X-ray case, we use a transmissivity function instead of reflectivity function)

Some typical values for :

On a clear day, the sun may produce in excess of 90,000 lm/m2 of illumination on the surface of the Earth.

This figure decreases to less than 10,000 lm/m2 on a cloudy day.

On a clear evening, a full moon yields about 0.1 lm/m2 of illumination.

The typical illumination level in a commercial office is about 1000 lm/m2.

Some typical values of :

0.01 for black velvet,

0.65 for stainless steel,

0.80 for flat-white wall paint,

0.90 for silver-plated metal, and

0.93 for snow.

the gray level of the image at the point

 lies in the range

The interval is called the gray scale

Image Sampling and Quantization

Basic Concepts in Sampling and Quantization

Representing Digital Images

Each element of this matrix array is called an image element, picture element, pixel, or pel.

It is advantageous to use a more traditional matrix notation to denote a digital image and its elements

A digital image can be described by a 2-D function whose coordinates and amplitude values are integers

This digitization process requires decisions about values for M,N, and for the number,L, of discrete gray levels allowed for each pixel

The number of bits required to store a digitized image is

When M=N

Spatial Resolution and Gray-Level Resolution

Aliasing and Moiré Patterns

Sampling Rate

Undersampled

Band-limited functions

Aliased frequencies

Zooming and Shrinking Digital Images

Nearest neighbor interpolation

Pixel replication

Bilinear interpolation

,

where the four coefficients are determined from the four equations in four unknowns that can be written using the four nearest neighbors of point (x', y').

Image shrinking

Expand the grid to fit over the original image, do gray-level nearest neighbor or bilinear interpolation, and then shrink the grid back to its original specified size.

Some Basic Relationships Between Pixels

Neighbors of a Pixel

A pixel p at coordinates (x, y)

 has four horizontal and vertical neighbors,

four diagonal neighbors of p,

Adjacency, Connectivity, Regions, and Boundaries

Let V be the set of gray-level values used to define adjacency.

4-adjacency: Two pixels p and q with values from V are 4-adjacent if q is in the set.

8-adjacency: Two pixels p and q with values from V are 8-adjacent if q is in the set .

m-adjacency (mixed adjacency). Two pixels p and q with values from Vare m-adjacent if

q is in , or

q is in and the set has no pixels whose values are from V.

A (digital) path (or curve) from pixel p with coordinates to pixel q with coordinates is a sequence of distinct pixels with coordinates

where , and pixels and are adjacent for In this case,

n is the length of the path

connected set:

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 that are connected to it in S is called a connected component of S. If it only has one connected component, then set S is called a connected set.

region:

Let R be a subset of pixels in an image. We call R a region of the image if R is a connected set.

boundary :

The boundary (also called border or contour) of a region R is the set of pixels in the region that have one or more neighbors that are not in R.

Distance Measures

For pixels p,q, and z, with coordinates , , and , respectively, D is a distance function or metric if

(a) ( iff )

(b),and

(c).

Euclidean distance between p and q:

(2.5-1)

distance (also called city-block distance) between p and q:

(2.5-2)

distance (also called chessboard distance) between p and q:

(2.5-3)

Image Operations on a Pixel Basis

Linear and Nonlinear Operations