CHAPTER 2

DIGITAL IMAGE
FUNDAMENTALS
 CHAPTER 2: DIGITAL IMAGE FUNDAMENTALS

Cornea: tough, transparent

Structure of the human eye
tissue that covers the
anterior surface of the eye.

Sclera: opaque membrane.

Iris diaphragm:
Lens: suspended by contracts or
fibers attached to the expands to control
ciliary body. the amount of light.

Absorbs ~8% of the

visible light spectrum.
Retina: innermost membrane.
Infrared and ultraviolet
light are also absorbed. Two types of receptors: cones and rods.

Cones: 6-7 million. Each connected to its own

nerve end. Highly sensitive to color.
Cone vision is called photopic vision.

Rods: 75-150 million. Several are connected to a

Choroid: contains single nerve end. Serve to give an overall picture
a network of blood of the field of view. Not involved in color vision.
vessels. Rod vision is called scotopic vision.

Blind spot: the area on the retina without

receptors that respond to light.

Fovea: Circular indentation in the retina (~1.5mm

in diameter)

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 CONE AND ROD CELLS

cone cell rod cell

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DISTRIBUTION OF RODS AND CONES

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IMAGE FORMATION IN THE EYE

The receptors transform radiant

energy into electrical impulses that
are decoded by the brain. What is the
height of
the image?

Focal length varies

from 14mm to 17mm.

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 BRIGHTNESS ADAPTATION

The range of light intensity levels to which the HVS can adapt is
enormous – on the order of 1010!

Experimental evidence indicates that subjective brightness is a

logarithmic function of the light intensity.

However, the HVS cannot operate over such a range simultaneously.

Brightness adaptation: the total range of distinct intensity levels that

can be discriminated is rather small.
Brightness adaptation level:
the current sensitivity level
of the HVS for any given set
of conditions.

Short curve represents the

range of subjective
brightness the eye can
perceive at this level.

The transition from scotopic to

photopic vision is gradual (-3 to
-1 mL in log scale).

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 BRIGHTNESS DISCRIMINATION

How does the eye discriminate between changes in light intensity at a

specific adaptation level?

A classical experiment:
A subject looks at a flat, uniformly illuminated area (large enough to occupy the
entire field of view).
The intensity I can be varied.
ΔI is added in the form of a short-duration flash that appears as a circle in the
middle.
If ΔI is not bright enough, the subject says “no.”
As ΔI gets stronger, the subject may say “yes.”
When ΔI is stronger enough, the subject will say “yes” all the time.
Weber ratio: ΔIc/ I, ΔIc: increment of illumination discriminable 50% of the time with
background illumination I.

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 WEBER RATIO AS FUNCTION OF INTENSITY

Poor brightness Good brightness

discrimination: A large discrimination: A small value
value of ΔIc/ I means a of ΔIc/ I means a small
large percentage change percentage change in
in intensity is intensity is discriminable.
discriminable.

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PERCEIVED BRIGHTNESS: NOT A SIMPLE FUNCTION
OF INTENSITY – MACH BANDS

The HVS tends to

undershoot or
overshoot around
the boundary of
regions of
different
intensities.

The intensities of the stripes is

constant but we perceive a
brightness pattern that is
strongly scalloped, especially
near the boundaries.

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PERCEIVED BRIGHTNESS: NOT A SIMPLE FUNCTION
OF INTENSITY – SIMULTANEOUS CONTRAST

A region’s perceived brightness does not simply depend on its

intensity.

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 OPTICAL ILLUSIONS: OTHER EXAMPLES OF HUMAN
PERCEPTION PHENOMENA

A few lines
The outline of are sufficient
a square is to give the
seen clearly illusion of a
although complete
there are no circle.
lines defining
such a figure.

All lines that

Two are oriented at
horizontal line 450 are
segments equidistant
have the same and parallel.
length but
one appears
shorther than
the other.

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 LIGHT AND ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM

 Electromagnetic spectrum
 The range of colors we perceive in visible light represents a
very small portion of the spectrum.
 Radio waves with wavelengths billions of times longer.
 Gamma rays with wavelengths billions of smaller.
 Wavelength, frequency and energy
 λ = c/v, c: speed of light (2.998x108 m/s)
 E = hv, h: Planck’s constant
 Electromagnetic waves can be visualized as
 propagating sinusoidal waves with wavelength λ.
 a stream of massless particles, each traveling in a wavelike
pattern and moving at the speed of light.
 Each massless particle contains a bundle of energy called a photon.
 Higher frequency electromagnetic phenomena carry more energy
per photon.
 The visible band: 0.43 μm (violet) – 0.79 μm (red)
 Six broad color regions: violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, red.

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ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM

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 COLOR PERCEPTION

 The colors perceived in an object are determined by the

nature of light reflected from the object.
 A body that reflects light and is relatively balanced in all
visible wavelengths appears white.
 A green object reflects light with wavelengths primarily in
[500-570] nm range, and absorb most of the energy at other
wavelengths.
 Achromatic or monochromatic light: light that is void of
color.
 Three basic quantities to describe the quality of a chromatic
light source
 Radiance: total amount of energy that flows from the light
source (usually measured in watts)
 Luminance: a measure of the amount of energy an observer
perceives from a light source.
 Brightness: a subjective descriptor of light perception that is
impossible to measure.

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 IMAGE SENSING AND ACQUISITION

 If a sensor can be developed with the capability of detecting

energy radiated by a band of the EM spectrum, we can image
events in that band!
 The wavelength of am EM wave required to see an object <=
the size of the object!
 A water molecule’s diameter ~10-10.
 To study molecules, we need a source capable of emitting in the
far ultraviolet or soft X-ray region!
 Illumination
 Visible light
 Radar, infrared, X-ray, etc.
 Scene elements
 Familiar 3-D objects
 Molecules, buried rock formations, human brain
 Illumination energy
 Reflected from objects: light reflected from a planar object
 Transmitted through objects: X-ray through a patient’s body
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 SENSORS

3 principal
sensor
arrangements

Illumination energy is
transformed into
digital images.

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 SINGLE SENSOR

Arrangement used in
high-precision scanning

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 SENSOR STRIPS

Typical arrangement in
most flat bed scanners

Basis for
medical and
industrial CAT

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 SENSOR ARRAYS

The energy from

an illumination
source is reflected
from a scene
element. The lens projects
the viewed scene
onto the focal
plane.

The sensor array The digitized

The incoming produces outputs image is obtained.
energy is proportional to
collected and the integral of the
focused onto an light received at
image plane. each sensor.

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 A SIMPLE IMAGE FORMATION MODEL

 When an image is generated from a physical process, its

values are proportional to energy radiated by a physical
source.
 Hence, 0 < f(x,y) < ∞
 f(x,y) may be characterized by 2 components:
 Amount of source illumination incident on the scene being
viewed – illumination i(x,y)
 Amount of illumination reflected by the objects in the scene –
reflectance r(x,y)
 The 2 functions combine as a product: f(x,y) = i(x,y)r(x,y)
 0 < i(x,y) < ∞(theoretical bound)
 Typical values of i(x,y)
 On a clear day: 90,000 lm/m2
 On a cloudy day: 10,000 lm/m2
 On a clear evening: 0.1 lm/m2

 0 < r(x,y) < 1 (theoretical bound)

 Typical values of r(x,y)
 0.01 for black velvet
 0.65 for stainless steel
 0.80 for flat-white wall paint

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 GRAY-SCALE IMAGES

 (x0,y0) => l = f(x0,y0)

 Lmin , Lmax

 Lmin: positive, Lmax: finite

 Lmin= iminrmin

 Lmax= imaxrmax

 Lmin = 10, Lmax = 1000: typical limits for indoor values

 [Lmin, Lmax]: gray scale

 [0,L-1], l =0 is black and l = L-1 is white.

 Intermediate values: shades of gray

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 SAMPLING AND QUANTIZATION

 The output of most sensors is continuous voltage

waveform.
 To create a digital image, continuous sensed data should
be converted into digital form.
 Two processes: sampling and quantization.
 Consider a function f(x,y) representing an image.
 f(x,y) is continuous w.r.t.
 x and y coordinates
 Amplitude
 Sampling: digitizing the coordinate values
 Quantization: digitizing the amplitude values

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GENERATING A DIGITAL IMAGE

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IMAGE ACQUISITION WITH A SENSING ARRAY

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 DIGITAL IMAGE REPRESENTATION

f(0,0)

f(0,N-1)

L: # of discrete gray levels

L = 2k
b=MxNxk

f(M-1,0)

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STORAGE REQUIREMENTS

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SPATIAL AND GRAY LEVEL RESOLUTION

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RESAMPLING INTO 1024X1024 PIXELS

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256/128/64/32 GRAY LEVELS

False contouring

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16/8/4/2 GRAY LEVELS

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 ISOPREFERENCE CURVES

Huang (1965) varied N

and k simultaneously,
and attempted to quantify
the effects on image
quality.
Conclusions?

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ZOOMING AND SHRINKING DIGITAL IMAGES

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 NEIGHBORS OF A PIXEL

4 diagonal neighbors
of p, ND(p)

8-neighbors of p, N8(p) 4-neighbors of p,

N4(p)

pixel p at (x,y)

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 ADJACENCY, CONNECTIVITY

 3 types of adjacency
 4- adjacency: 2 pixels p and q with values from V are 4-
adjacent if q is in the set N4(p)
 8- adjacency: 2 pixels p and q with values from V are 8-
adjacent if q is in the set N8(p)
 m- adjacency: 2 pixels p and q with values from V are m-
adjacent if q is in the set N4(p) if
 q is in N4(p)
 q is in ND(p) and the set N4(p)  N4(q) has no pixels whose values
are from V
 A digital path from pixel p with coordinates (x,y) to pixel q
with coordinates (s,t) is a sequence of distinct pixels with
coordinates (x0,y0), (x1,y1), …, (xn,yn), where (x0,y0)= (x,y) and
(xn,yn)=(s,t), and pixels (xi,yi) and (xi-1,yi-1) are adjacent for 1
 i  n.

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 REGIONS, BOUNDARIES

 S: 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 S has only one connected component, it is called a connected
set.
 R: a subset of pixels in an image. R is a region of the
image if R is a connected set.
 The boundary of a region R is the set of pixels in the region
that have one or more neighbors that are not in R.

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 DISTANCE MEASURES

 p with (x,y) D(p,q) = 0 iff p = q

 q with (s,t) D(p,q) = D(q,p)
 z with (v,w) D(p,z)  D(p,q) + D(q,z)

 Euclidean distance between p and q: De(p,q) = [(x-s)2 + (y-t)2]1/2

 D4 distance: D4(p,q) = |x-s| + |y-t|

 D8 distance: D8(p,q) = max (|x-s| + |y-t|)

 D4 and D8 distances between p and q are independent of any

paths that might exist between the points.
 For m-adjacency, Dm distance between two points is defined as
the shortest m-path between the points.

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 LINEAR AND NONLINEAR OPERATIONS

 H: an operator whose I and O are images.

 f and g: any two images
 a and b: two scalars
 H is a linear operator if H(af + bg) = aH(f) + bH(g).
 Examples
 Sum of K images: operator is linear.
 Absolute value of the difference of 2 images: operator is not
linear.
 Linear operations are very important in image processing
because the theory is well-established.
 Nonlinear operations sometimes offer better performance
but the theory is not understood well!

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