Introduction to Grayscale and Color Images

Image acquisition
o Light and electromagnetic spectrum
Radio (wider, slower cycles) to Gamma Ray (smaller, faster
cycles)
Voice frequency: 300Hz to 3000Hz
Hearing range: 20Hz to 2000Hz
Radio frequency: AM radio (535Hz to 1605Hz), FM radio
Bandwidth: subtract highest usable and lowest usable
bandwidth
Visible light: 400THz to 790THz; in terms of wavelength: 390nm
to 750nm
Sending information through visible light

o
Light:
o
o
o

o
o

c=lambda f

o Lambda wavelength (distance in m)

o f frequency (in 1/s)
o c = 3 x 10^8 m/s
increase wavelength, lower frequency, lower energy
energy and frequency are directly proportional, both are
indirectly proportional to wavelength
thats why X-ray and gamma rays (higher frequencies) are
dangerous
Charge coupled device (CCD) imaging and Bayer pattern
Attraction of electrons that represent light that form image data;
electron to voltage conversion
CCD was supposed to be memory for light
Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) Image sensor
Several electron to voltage converters that send their data down
to column amps; the transfer isnt as much as CCD
CCD image quality > CMOS, but CMOS is cheaper to produce
and is attractive for mobile devices
(analog to digital) Sampling and quantization
the visible spectrum
Visible range: 0.43 micrometers (violet) 0.78 micrometers (red)
Six bands: red, orange, yellow, blue, green, violet
The color of an object is determined by the nature of the light reflected
by the object
All energy is absorbed by darker colors
Monochromatic light (gray level)
Mono one, chroma color
Three measurements for chromatic light: radiance, luminance and
brightness
Radiance relative to object, good constant good color
Luminance color reflected to eyes; objective parameter
Brightness perceived luminance; subjective parameter

In the internal representation of the image in the sensor, a model is formed

(sampling)
o F(x,y) = i(x,y)r(x,y) + n(x,y)
Luminance or intensity proportional to energy radiated by a
physical source
Illumination amount of incident light
Reflectance proportion of incident light reflected from a surface
Noise: quantization noise (from digitization process)
Sampling and quantization
o The actual image is sampled inside the sensor (selection of pixels)
Better quality: higher sampling rate = more pixels/more
resolution
o Quantization levels: dependent on number of bits that can be used to
represent an image digitally
Higher # of bits = higher quality
o 3D visualization
Color Filter Array (CFA)
o 3 images are taken using a spinning disk filter (gets a red image, a
green image and a blue image)
o Prism beam splitter to simultaneously get red, green and blue images
o Bayer filter
Twice as many green filters as red or blue ones, exploiting the
human eyes higher sensitivity to green light
Demosaicing algorithm is performed upon taking a picture under
a Bayer filter
CFA interpolation (Linear interpolation, bilinear, signal to
noise ratio, nearest neighbor)
Computational Photography
o DSLR (CCD)
Shutter sampling
Aperture amount of light
Dynamic range problems
DSLRs find it hard to focus on close subjects
Greater quality and lower noise, suitable for high motion and low
light environment
Focuses better and has larger focal length
Larger and heavier, more expensive, sensor dust problem
o Motion blur problem
o High dynamic range imaging
Fusion of different LDR images together
Toner mapping (HDR display)
Thermal imaging
o Operate in infrared frequency
o Low signal-to-noise ratio behavior (signal / noise; if noise is high, signal
is low)
The noise allows different details to surface
Low SNR is undesirable for communications

Radar imaging
o Microwave frequency
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
o Protons and electrons align in the brain, and after the device turns off,
the protons and electrons return
o After inverse Fourier transform, the brain scan image is revealed
Image representation
o Spatial resolution: sampling
Linear dimension per pixel
How many pixels are needed to represent a certain real-world
distance (e.g., 1 cm)
Larger image: low spatial resolution, i.e., more pixels are needed
for some fixed linear dimension
Lower spatial resolution -> higher quality
Image resampling a large image is resampled when it is
resized; get every other pixel during sampling
The problem: aliasing
o When sampling, the sampling rate should be faster
than the waveform so the waveform can be
reconstructed better
o The problem lies in how an incorrect sampling rate
can lead to the reconstruction of a different
waveform
o Bit depth resolution: quantization
Number of bits per channel level
Higher number of bits that can be represented = higher
detail

Common Terms
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Neighbors of a pixel
o

N 4 ( p )= { (i1, j ) , ( i+ 1, j ) , ( i , j1 ) , ( i , j+1 ) }

4 connected / connectivity (north, south, east, west)

4-adjacency: p, q are 4-adjacent if p is in the set N4(q)
o 8 adjacency (N, S, E, W, NW, NE, SW, SE)
Common distance definitions

( x x ) +( y y )
2

Euclidean distance: hypotenuse

City-block distance: distance from x and distance from y

D 4 [ ( x 1 , y 1 ) , ( x 2 , y 2 ) ]=|x1 x2|+| y 1 y 2|

D8 distance: checkboard distance

D 8 [ ( x 1 , y 1 ) , ( x 2 , y 2) ]=max {|x 1x 2| ,| y 1 y 2| }
Mean Square Error
Power Signal Noise Ratio (dB)
Rate of bits lost (how many bits per byte): present bits / old bytes
Project:
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Availability of data
3 mos. Feasibility

Assignment.