Color And Shading: High Cost Of Image Processing

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1. INTRODUCTION

Image processing is a physical process used to convert an image signal into a physical image. The image signal can be either digital or analog. The actual output itself can be actual physical image or the characteristics of an image. The most common type of image processing is photography. In this process, an image is captured using a camera to create a digital or analog image. In order to produce a physical picture, the image is processed using the appropriate technology based on the input source type.

In digital photography, the image is stored as a computer file. This file is translated using photographic software to generate an actual image. The colors and shading are all captured at the time

The main focus of the work is to develop medical imaging, character recognition and create high quality images at the microscopic level. During this period, equipment and processing costs were prohibitively high. The financial constraints had a serious impact on the depth and breadth of technology development that could be done. By the 1970s, computing equipment costs had dropped substantially making image processing more realistic. Film and software Companies invested significant funds into the development and enhancement of image processing, creating a new industry. There are three major benefits to image processing. The consistent high quality of the image, the low cost of processing and the ability to manipulate all aspects of the process are all great benefits. As long as computer processing speed continues to increase while the cost of storage memory continues to drop, the field of image processing will

1.1.3 APPLICATIONS OF IMAGE PROCESSING

The common steps in image processing are image scanning, storing, enhancing and Interpretation. The schematic diagram of image scanner -digitizer diagram is shown in figure 1.

The following application is used in the image processing.

 Optical imaging (cameras, microscopes)

 Medical imaging (CT, MRI, ultrasound, diffuse optical, advanced microscopes)

 Astronomical Imaging (telescopes)

 Geophysical Imaging(seismic, electromagnetic)

 Radar and hyper spectral imaging (surveillance and remote sensing)

 Printing (color, dot matrix)

 Video and Imaging Compression and Transmission (JPEG,MPEG,HDTV)

 Computer vision (robots, license plate reader, tracking human motion)

 Computer graphics rendering and shading, representation

 Commercial software (Photoshop)

 Hardware (FPGA, DSP, cell processor implementation of compute intensive algorithms)

 Security and Diwital Rights Management( watermarking. biometrics)

1.1.4 METHODS OF IMAGE PROCLSSING

There are two methods available in Image Processing,

ANALOG IMAGE