Introductory Computer Vision and Image Processing

Citation

(1998), "Introductory Computer Vision and Image Processing", Sensor Review, Vol. 18 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/sr.1998.08718cae.001

Introductory Computer Vision and Image Processing

Introductory Computer Vision and Image Processing

A. LowMcGraw-Hill1991244 pp.ISBN 0-07-707403-3£19.99

Keywords Image processing, Machine vision

A conventional introductory text to the subject of computer vision and image processing techniques and systems by an established educator in the field. The author uses a mix of qualitative prose, mathematics, structured descriptions and actual C code to introduce the reader to the most prevalent areas of image processing.

The subject is placed in context via real world industrial and medical applications, which later provide a number of the illustrative photographs for the text. The essentials of image acquisition via camera or scanner are presented and compared to human visual perception, and the basic elements of image display are explored. Statistical and spatial operations are introduced, specifically grey level transformations and histogram operations, in addition to the most common window and convolution functions. The essentials of segmentation and edge detection, though primarily based on the work of the previous chapters, are pulled out into prominence before the description of the morphological operations that might then be applied to any regions identified. The text then moves onto the extraction of information from the processed images, introducing the concept of the Hough transform and using interest points in the classification of images. Labelling, elemental reasoning and pattern recognition, particularly involving decision functions are all discussed in subsequent chapters, before the text reverts to more advanced processing techniques, including frequency domain analysis, compression algorithms and texture. Although the latter topics are welcome additions to what is an introductory text, their coverage is brief and the interested reader might look at more specialised texts for more thorough explanations of the methods involved. The book is rounded off with an applications chapter which briefly covers some typical real world image processing examples, a glossary and bibliography.

The author's style is brief almost to the point of abruptness at times, though this is welcome in the earlier chapters covering the more basic material. Many of the methods are presented in a standardised format, explicitly titled after the fashion of "use ­ theory ­ application", and some are shown coded into C. The material is well illustrated with line drawings and there are a number of photographs of images demonstrating the processing operations explained, in particular some excellent colour images of human skull cross sections undergoing an assortment of processes to extract the maximum information. Not a very long book, but easily read and digested giving a good flavour of the subject.