Digital Image Processing

Introduction

Image Enhancement ?
• enhance otherwise hidden information
• Filter important image features
• Discard unimportant image features

Spatial Domain ?
• Refers to the image plane (the ‘natural’
image)
• Direct image manipulation
Remember ?

A 2D grayvalue - image is a 2D -> 1D

function,

v = f(x,y)
Remember ?

As we have a function, we can apply

operators to this function, e.g.

T(f(x,y)) = f(x,y) / 2

Operator Image (= function !)

Remember ?

T transforms the given image f(x,y)

into another image g(x,y)

T
f(x,y) g(x,y)
Spatial Domain

The operator T can be defined over

• The set of pixels (x,y) of the image

• The set of ‘neighborhoods’ N(x,y) of
each pixel
• A set of images f1,f2,f3,…
Spatial Domain

Operation on the set of image-pixels

6 8 2 0 3 4 1 0

12 200 20 10 6 100 10 5

(Operator: Div. by 2)
Spatial Domain

Operation on the set of ‘neighborhoods’

N(x,y) of each pixel
6 8 (Operator: sum)
12 200

6 8 2 0 226

12 200 20 10
Spatial Domain

Operation on a set of images f1,f2,…

6 8 2 0

12 200 20 10

(Operator: sum) 11 13 3 0

14 220 23 14

5 5 1 0

2 20 3 4
Spatial Domain

Operation on the set of image-pixels

Remark: these operations can also be seen as operations on the
neighborhood of a pixel (x,y), by defining the neighborhood as the
pixel itself.

• The simplest case of operators

• g(x,y) = T(f(x,y)) depends only on the value
of f at (x,y)
• T is called a

gray-level or intensity transformation

function
Transformations

Basic Gray Level Transformations

• Image Negatives
• Log Transformations
• Power Law Transformations
• Piecewise-Linear Transformation
Functions
For the following slides L denotes the max. possible gray value of the
image, i.e. f(x,y)  [0,L]
Transformations

Image Negatives: T(f)= L-f

T(f)=L-f
Output gray level

Input gray level

Transformations

Log Transformations:
T(f) = c * log (1+ f)
Transformations

Log Transformations

InvLog Log
Transformations

Log Transformations
Transformations

Power Law Transformations

T(f) = c*f 
Transformations

• varying gamma () obtains family

of possible transformation curves
• >0
• Compresses dark values
• Expands bright values
• <0
• Expands dark values
• Compresses bright values
Transformations

• Used for gamma-correction

Transformations

• Used for general purpose contrast manipulation

Transformations

Piecewise Linear Transformations

Piecewise Linear Transformations

Thresholding Function

g(x,y) = L if f(x,y) > t,

0 else
t = ‘threshold level’
Output gray level

Input gray level

Piecewise Linear Transformations

Gray Level Slicing

Purpose: Highlight a specific range of grayvalues

Two approaches:

1. Display high value for range of interest, low value

else (‘discard background’)

2. Display high value for range of interest, original

value else (‘preserve background’)
Piecewise Linear Transformations

Gray Level Slicing

Piecewise Linear Transformations

Bitplane Slicing

Extracts the information of a

single bitplane
Piecewise Linear Transformations

BP 0

BP 5

BP 7
Piecewise Linear Transformations

Exercise:

• How does the

transformation function look
for bitplanes 0,1,… ?

• What is the easiest way to filter a single bitplane

(e.g. in MATLAB) ?
Histograms

Histogram Processing
1 4 5 0

3 1 5 1
Number of Pixels

gray level
Histograms

Histogram Equalization:

• Preprocessing technique to
enhance contrast in ‘natural’
images
• Target: find gray level
transformation function T to
transform image f such that the
histogram of T(f) is ‘equalized’
Histogram Equalization

Equalized Histogram:

The image consists of an equal

number of pixels for every gray-
value, the histogram is constant !
 Histogram Equalization

Example:

We are looking for

this transformation !
Histogram Equalization

Target:
Find a transformation T to transform the
grayvalues g1[0..1] of an image I to
grayvalues g2 = T(g1) such that the
histogram is equalized, i.e. there’s an equal
amount of pixels for each grayvalue.

Observation (continous model !):

Assumption: Total image area = 1 (normalized). Then:
The area(!) of pixels of the transformed
image in the gray-value range 0..g2 equals
the gray-value g2.
Histogram Equalization

The area(!) of pixels of the transformed image in the gray-

value range 0..g2 equals the gray-value g2.

 Every g1 is transformed to a grayvalue

that equals the area (discrete: number of
pixels) in the image covered by pixels
having gray-values from 0 to g1.

 The transformation T function t is the

area- integral: T: g2 =  0..g1 I da
Histogram Equalization

Discrete:

g1 is mapped to the (normalized)

number of pixels having
grayvalues 0..g1 .
Histogram Equalization

Mathematically the transformation

is deducted by theorems in
continous (not discrete) spaces.

The results achieved do NOT hold

for discrete spaces !
(Why ?)

However, it’s visually close.

Histogram Equalization

Conclusion:

• The transformation function that yields an image

having an equalized histogram is the integral of
the histogram of the source-image
• The discrete integral is given by the cumulative sum,
MATLAB function: cumsum()
• The function transforms an image into an image,
NOT a histogram into a histogram ! The
histogram is just a control tool !
• In general the transformation does not create an
image with an equalized histogram in the
discrete case !
Operations on a set of images

Operation on a set of images f1,f2,…

6 8 2 0

12 200 20 10

(Operator: sum) 11 13 3 0

14 220 23 14

5 5 1 0

2 20 3 4
Operations on a set of images

Logic (Bitwise) Operations

AND
OR
NOT
Operations on a set of images

The operators AND,OR,NOT are

functionally complete:

Any logic operator can be implemented

using only these 3 operators
Operations on a set of images

Any logic operator can be implemented

using only these 3 operators:

A B Op

0 0 1 Op=
NOT(A) AND NOT(B)
0 1 1
OR
1 0 0
NOT(A) AND B
1 1 0
Operations on a set of images

Image 1 AND Image 2

1 2 3 9

7 3 6 4

(Operator: AND) 1 0 1 1

2 2 2 0

1 1 1 1

2 2 2 2
SOLUTION

7 0111
AND
2 0010

0010 2

9 1011
AND
1 0001

0001 1
Operations on a set of images

Image 1 AND Image 2:

Used for Bitplane-Slicing and
Masking
Operations on a set of images

Exercise: Define the mask-image, that

transforms image1 into image2 using
the OR operand
1 2 3 9
7 3 6 4

(Operator: OR) 255 2 7 255

255 3 7 255
Operations

Arithmetic Operations on a set of images

1 2 3 9

7 3 6 4

(Operator: +) 2 3 4 10

9 5 8 6

1 1 1 1

2 2 2 2
Operations

Exercise:

What could the operators +

and – be used for ?
Operations

(MATLAB) Example: Operator –

Foreground-Extraction
Operations

(MATLAB)
Example: Operator +
Image Averaging