Pixel Operations

4c8

Dr. David Corrigan

Pixel Operations
This handout looks at the most basic type of image processing applications. These are simple point-wise operations of the form: , = ((, ))
I(h,k) is the input image g(h,k) if the output (. ) is some image processing function

In a point-wise operation the output at (h,k) is dependent only on the value of the input (h,k) and not on the value of the input or output at any other location. These types of operations are used mainly for image enhancement.

Matlab
Images are represented as a matrix
I (1,1) I (1, 2) I ( 2,1) I ( 2, 2) I I ( N ,1) I ( N , 2) I (1, M ) I ( 2, M ) I ( N , M )

So G = 2.0 * I multiplies each pixel intensity by 2 and G = I + 10 increases the brightness by 2. Point wise operations are fast and easy to implement in hardware.

Image Histograms
Records the number of pixels that have a particular intensity value Typically displayed as a plot of frequency v intensity Sometimes normalised so all the frequencies sum to 1 (ie. an approximation of the pdf of image intensities) Colour images have 3D histograms but it is more common to use separate histograms for each colour channel. Summaries where most of the pixels are so is useful for designing image enhancement operations Matlab function hist() or imhist()

Image Histograms
Y

Image Histograms
It is also common to increase the bin width. Each frequency represents the number of pels in a particular range of intensities.

Bin Width = 1

Bin Width = 4

Bin Width = 20

Contrast Enhancement & Clipping

used when you want to alter contrast or brightness of an image. 0 , = , + 255 , < min min < , < max , > max

m defines the alteration to the contrast. c defines a global brightness change. min and max define the range for clipping.

Clipping is necessary to ensure that all intensities in the output stay inside the valid range (ie. when min = 0 and max = 255) but can also be used to eliminate contrast in very bright and dark regions. (ie. when min > 0 and max < 255)

Contrast Enhancement & Clipping

min intensity = 12 intensities fit full range

max intensity = 191

Gamma Correction
Gamma Correction is a non-linear modification of image contrast. , = ,

If < 1 the contrast in the dark regions is increased and the contrast in the bright areas is increased The opposite occurs if > 1 Gamma Correction avoids the need for clipping so some contrast can be maintained in the dark/bright regions.

Histogram Equalisation
An automatic technique for image enhancement (no parameter choice required). However, results are unpredictable and may look worse. The idea is to alter the intensities so that the histogram is as flat as possible. If the histogram contains a lot of pixels in a narrow range, it should be stretched out along the intensity range.

Histogram Equalisation
Levels i H(i)
1 1 16 2 7 16 3 21 16 4 35 16 5 35 16 6 21 16 7 7 16 8 1 16

Target H(i) m

To have 16 pels at intensity 1, take all from I=1,2 and 8 from I = 3 and map onto intensity 1 because H(1) + H(2)+ 8 = 16 To have 16 pels at intensity 2 Take remainder (21-8)=13 at level 3, add to 3 from level 4 So intensity mapping is 1,2,3 -> 1; 3,4 ->2 etc etc

Histogram Equalisation
Cumulative Histogram (scaled to fit axes)

Histogram

Histogram Equalisation
A problem arises because most bins will mapped onto more than one output bins. It is difficult to do this consistently. Instead the cumulative histogram is used to design the mapping. Again the idea is to match the cumulative histogram to a target cumulative histogram. The target cumulative histogram is a straight line, having a slope of 1/255, a max of 1 and a min of 0. This corresponds to a flat histogram. Matlab function histeq()

Hist. Equalisation with CuF

Levels i H(i)
1 1 1 2 7 8 3 21 29 4 35 64 5 35 99 6 21 120 7 7 127 8 1 128

CuF(i)
Target H(i) m Target CuF(i) m

16
16

16
32

16
48

16
64

16
80

16
96

16
112

16
128

Match Bins of Cumulative Histogram to the closest bin in the target.

Hist. Equalisation with CuF

Levels i H(i)
1 1 1 2 7 8 3 21 29 4 35 64 5 35 99 6 21 120 7 7 127 8 1 128

CuF(i)
Target H(i) m Target CuF(i) m Resulting transformation

16
16 1 1

16
32 2 1

16
48 3 2

16
64 4 4

16
80 5 6

16
96 6 7

16
112 7 8

16
128 8 8

Hist. Equalisation with CuF

Levels i H(i)
1 1 1 2 7 8 3 21 29 4 35 64 5 35 99 6 21 120 7 7 127 8 1 128

CuF(i)
Target H(i) Target CuF(i) Output H(i) Output CuF(i)

16
16 8 8

16
32 21 29

16
48 0 29

16
64 35 64

16
80 0 64

16
96 35 99

16
112 21 120

16
128 8 128

Histogram Equalisation

Matlab imadjdemo Try it

Histogram Equalisation
Notice how the transformation between input and output relates to the cumulative histogram of the input.

Basic Segmentation (Thresholding)

Sometimes it is required to extract a part of an image which contains all the relevant in formation. If the information is contained in a limited band we can define a simple thresholding operation to segment the image in two.
0 , < 1 , = 255 1 < , < 2 0 , > 2
Eg. We might want to isolate the table to do some further analysis.

We choose 1 and 2 so that the part of the image he want fits inside this range.

Intensity Based Segmentation

Peak Corresponding to Table

Histogram of Hue

Segmented Table 1 = 100, 2 = 110

Extracted Table

Intensity Based Segmentation

The previous result can be improved by also incorporating a threshold on saturation The condition for the table is now > 100 & < 110 & > 128

Histogram of Saturation

Grayscale Representation of Saturation

Segmented Table

Intensity Based Segmentation

Segmentation with Hue alone
Segmentation using Hue and Saturation

Matlab Implementation
Read the picture from file (eg. pic = imread(pool.jpg);)
pic is a 3 array storing the image in rgb format pic(:,:,1) stores the red channel, pic(:,:,2) stores the green channel and pic(:,:,3) stores the blue channel.

Convert the image to the hsv and extract the hue and saturation channels colour space
hsv = rgb2hsv(pic); hue = hsv(:,:,1); sat = hsv(:,:,2);

Matlab Implementation
Now we can define the segmentation operation mask = ((hue>100)&(hue<110)&(sat>128)); To see the part of the image that has been segmented we create a new images as follows new_pic(:,:,1) = pic(:,:,1).*mask; new_pic(:,:,2) = pic(:,:,2).*mask; new_pic(:,:,3) = pic(:,:,3).*mask; These lines create an image that is the same as the original image in the area of the table and is black in the background.

Matlab Implementation
People unfamiliar with Matlab get confused by the last part. In C++ it would be an if/else statement inside a for loop
for(int x = 0; x<width; x++){ for(int y = 0; y<height; y++){ for(int chan = 0; chan < 3; chan++){ if(mask[x][y]!=0) new_pic[x][y][chan]= pic[x][y][chan]; else new_pic[x][y][chan]= 0; } } }

Lab 1
The first lab will get you to perform some of these pixel ops inside matlab. The segmentation code will help, however it is not complete! In particular pay particular attention to the scaling of each colour channel
above we assumed that the hue channel was scaled between 0 and 360 and the saturation channel was scaled between 0 and 255. This will not be the case by default.

You will also have to learn what the best data type to use is int, float etc. You will also have to display your results as images and perhaps write them as files.