Document Image Processing

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya

DoS in Computer Science, UoM,

Mysore

10/10/10

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Vision

Definition
Vision ?

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Vision

Definition
Vision ?

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Understanding / Perception / Sight

The process of receiving and analyzing visual information by

the human species is referred to as sight, perception or
understanding

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Computer Vision ?

Definition
Computer Vision aims to duplicate the effect of human vision by
electronically perceiving and understanding an image.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Computer Vision ?

Definition
Computer Vision aims to duplicate the effect of human vision by
electronically perceiving and understanding an image.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Physical Image and Digital Image?

Figure: A physical image and a corresponding digital image

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Image?

Definition
An Image may be defined as a 2D function, f (x, y ), where x and y
are spatial (plane) coordinates and the amplitude of f at any pair
of coordinates is called intensity or gray level of the image at that
point.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Image?

Definition
An Image may be defined as a 2D function, f (x, y ), where x and y
are spatial (plane) coordinates and the amplitude of f at any pair
of coordinates is called intensity or gray level of the image at that
point.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Processing

Preparing or putting through a prescribed procedure

Deal with in a routine way (process a loan, process the
applicants)
Perform mathematical and logical operations on (data)
according to programmed instructions in order to obtain the
required information

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Processing

Preparing or putting through a prescribed procedure

Deal with in a routine way (process a loan, process the
applicants)
Perform mathematical and logical operations on (data)
according to programmed instructions in order to obtain the
required information

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Processing

Preparing or putting through a prescribed procedure

Deal with in a routine way (process a loan, process the
applicants)
Perform mathematical and logical operations on (data)
according to programmed instructions in order to obtain the
required information

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Why Image Processing?

Interest in Image Processing methods stems from two principal

application areas:
1 Improvement of Pictorial Information for Human interpretation
2 Processing of image data for storage, transmission and
representation for autonomous machine perception

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Digital Image Processing?

Manipulation of an image by means of a processor

The process of receiving and analyzing visual information by
digital computer
When x, y and amplitude values of f are all finite, discrete
quantities, we call Digital Image. Processing Digital Images
by means of digital computer

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Examples: Contrast Enhancement

Figure: (a) Car with unreadable Number Plate (b)Result of Contrast

Stretching

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Examples: Removal Motion Blur

Figure: (a) Image of jet degraded with motion blur (b) Undegraded Image

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Examples: Image Warping

Figure: (a) Input Image (b) Output Image

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Applications I

The following are the major application areas:

Office Automation: OCR; Document Processing; Cursive
Script Recognition; Logo and Icon Recognition; Identification
of address area on envelop; etc.
Industrial Automation: Automatic Inspection System;
Automatic Assembling; Process related to VLSI
manufacturing; PCB checking; Robotics; Oil and Natural Gas
Exploration; Process Control Applications; etc.
Bio-Medical: ECG, EEG, EMG Analysis; Cytological,
Histological and Sterological Applications; Automated
Radiology and Pathology, X-ray image Analysis, Mass
screening of medical images such as mammograms, cancer
smears, CAT, MRI, PET, SPECT, and other tomographic
images, Routine screening of plant samples; 3-D
reconstruction and analysis; etc.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Applications II
Remote Sensing: Natural Resources survey and management;
estimation related to agriculture, hydrology, forestry,
mineralogy; urban planning; environment and pollution
control; Registration of satellite images; Monitoring traffic
along roads, docks and airfields; etc.
Scientific Applications: High energy physics; other forms of
track analysis; etc.
Criminology: Fingerprint Identification; Human face
registration and matching; forensic investigation; etc.
Astronomy and Space Applications: Restoration of images
suffering from geometric and photometric distortions;
computing close up picture of planetary surfaces; etc.
Meteorology: Short term weather forecasting; long term
climatic change; change detection from satellite and other
remote sensing data; cloud pattern analysis; etc.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Applications III

Information Technology: Facsimile image transmission,

videotex; video-conferencing and videophones; etc.
Entertainment and Consumer Electronics: HDTV; multimedia
and video-editing; etc.
Military Applications: Missile guidance and detection; target
identification; navigation of pilotless vehicle; etc.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Fundamental Steps in DIP

Figure: Fundamental Steps in DIP

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Contd... I

Image Acquisition: is the first process in DIP. Ex of Image

Sensor could be Scanner and Camera.
Image Enhancement: is among the simplest and most
appealing areas of DIP. Basically the idea behind
enhancement technique is to bring out detail that is obscured
or simply to highlight certain features of interest in an image.
Image Restoration: is an area that also deals with improving
the appearance of an image. However, unlike enhancement,
which is subjective, image restoration is objective, in the sense
that restoration technique tend to be based on mathematical
/ probabilistic models of image degradation.
Color Image Processing: Gaining more importance because of
the significant increase in the use of digital images over the
Internet.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Contd... II

Wavelets: are the foundation for representing images in

various degrees of resolution.
Compression: as the name implies, deals with techniques for
reducing the storage required to save an image.
Morphological Processing: deals with tools for extracting
image components that are useful in the representation and
description of shape.
Segmentation: procedures partition an image into its
constituent parts or objects.
Representation and Description: almost always follow the
output of a segmentation stage, which is raw pixel data.
Recognition: is the process that assigns a label to an object
based on its descriptors.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Basic Concepts

Mathematical models are often used to describe images and

other signals. A signal is a function depending on some
variable with physical meaning;
1 it can be one-dimensional (e.g., dependent on time),
2 two-dimensional (e.g., an image dependent on two
co-ordinates in a plane),
3 three-dimensional (e.g., describing a volumetric object in
space), or higher-dimensional.
Functions may be categorized as continuous, discrete, or
digital. A continuous function has continuous domain and
range; if the domain set is discrete, then we have a discrete
function; if the range set is also discrete, then we have a
digital function.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

The Continuous Image Function

The (gray-scale) image function values correspond to

brightness at image points.
The image on the human eye retina or on a TV camera sensor
is intrinsically two-dimensional (2D).
The 2D image on the imaging sensor is commonly the result
of projection of a three-dimensional (3D) scene. The simplest
mathematical model for this is a pin-hole camera.
The 2D intensity image is the result of a perspective
projection of the 3D scene, which is modeled by the image
captured by a pin-hole camera illustrated in Figure.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

 Figure: Perspective Projection Geometry

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Contd...

The image plane has been reflected with respect to the XY

plane in order not to get a mirrored image with negative
co-ordinates.
The quantities X, Y, and Z are co-ordinates of the point X in
a 3D scene, and f is the distance from the pinhole to the
image plane.
The projected point has co-ordinates (X 1 , Y 1 ) in the 2D
image plane, which can easily be derived from similar
triangles: X 1 = Xf /Z and Y 1 = Yf /Z .

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Contd...

When 3D objects are mapped into the camera plane by

perspective projection, a lot of information disappears because
such a transform is not one-to-one.
Recovering information lost by perspective projection is only
one, mainly geometric, problem of computer visiona second
problem is understanding image brightness.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Contd...

Computerized image processing uses digital image functions

which are usually represented by matrices, so co-ordinates are
natural numbers.
The domain of the image function is a region R in the plane

R = (x, y ), 1 ≤ x ≤ xm , 1 ≤ y ≤ yn (1)

where xm , yn represent the maximal image co-ordinates.

The range of image function values is also limited; by
convention, in monochromatic images the lowest value
corresponds to black and the highest to white. Brightness
values bounded by these limits are gray-levels.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

The Fourier Transform I

An image is a function of two parameters in plane. One

possible way to investigate its properties is to decompose the
image function using a linear combination of orthonormal
functions.
The Fourier Transform uses harmonic functions for the
decomposition. The 2D FT is defined by the integral
Z ∞Z ∞
F (u, v ) = f (x, y )e −2Πi(xu+yu) dxdy (2)
−∞ −∞

An inverse FT is defined by
Z ∞Z ∞
f (x, y ) = F (u, v )e 2Πi(xu+yu) dvdu (3)
−∞ −∞

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

The Fourier Transform II

Parameters (x,y) denote image co-ordinates and co-ordinates

(u,v) are called spatial frequencies. The function f(x,y) on the
left hand side of equation 3 can be interpreted as a linear
combination of simple periodic patterns e 2Πi(xu+yu) .
The real and imaginary components of the pattern are sine
and cosine functions and the function F(u,v) is a weight
function.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Image Digitization

An image to be processed by computer must be represented

using an appropriate discrete data structure, for example, a
matrix.
An image captured by a sensor is expressed as a continuous
function f(x,y) of two co-ordinates in the plane.
To create digital image, we need to convert the continuous
sensed data into digital form. This involves two process:
Sampling and Quantization.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Contd...

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Contd...

Figure shows a continuous image, f(x,y), that we want to

convert to digital image. To convert it to digital form, we have
to sample the function in both coordinates and in amplitude.
Digitizing coordinate values is called sampling
Digitizing amplitude values is called quantization

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Contd... I

The one dimensional function shown in figure (b) is a plot of

amplitude values of the continuous image along the line
segment.
To Sample this function we have to take equally spaced
samples along line AB as shown in Figure (c).
The location of each sample is given by a vertical tick mark in
the bottom part of the figure. The samples are shown as
small white squares superimposed on the function.
The set of these discrete locations gives the samples functions.
In order to form a digital function, the gray level values also
must be converted into discrete quantities.
The right side of figure (c) shows the gray level scale divided
into 8 discrete levels ranging from black to white.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Contd... II

The continuous gray levels are quantized simply by assigning

one of the eight discrete gray levels to each sample.
The digital samples resulting from both sampling and
quantization are shown in figure (d).
Carrying out this procedure line by line produces a 2D digital
image.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Color Images

Color is a property of enormous importance to human visual

perception.
Color display is of course the default in most computer
systems. Since monochromatic image may not contain enough
information for many applications, while color can often help
Hardware will generally deliver or display color via an RGB
model; thusa particular pixel may have associated with it a
three dimensional vector (r,g,b)
(0,0,0) is black, (k,k,k,) is white, (k,0,0) is pure red, and so
on....

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing

Contd...

Other color models turn out to be equally important, the

simplest is CMY - Cyan, Magenta and Yellow
The YIQ Model is useful in color TV broadcasting. Y
components provide all that is necessary for a monochrome
display and exploit advantage to luminance, the perceived
energy of a light source.
The alternative model of most relevance to image processing
is HSI - Hue, Saturation and Intensity. Ex: Image
Enhancement Algorithms.

Dr. V.N Manjunath Aradhya Document Image Processing