关于Integral Image

今天看到一个名词integral image，查了一下，原论文中是这样介绍integral image的：

Like these authors we use a set of features which are reminiscent of Haar Basis functions(though we will also use related filters which are more complex than Haar filters). In order to compute these features very rapidly at many scales we introduce the integral image representation for images. The integral image can be computed from an image using a few operations per pixel.Once computed, any one of these Harr-like features can be computed at any scale or location in constant time.这是为什么？

Rectangle features can be computed very rapidly using an intermediate representation for the image which we call the integral image.The integral image at location x,y contains the sum of the pixels above and to the left of
x,y , inclusive:

Figure 2: The sum of the pixels within rectangle D can be computed with four array references.The value of the integral image at location 1 is the sum of the pixels in rectangle A. The value at location 4 is A+B+C+D。The sum within D can be computed as 4+1-(2+3).Where ii(x,y) is the integral image and i(x,y) is the original image. Using the following pair of recurrences:

(where s(x,y) is the cumulative row sum, s(x,-1) = 0,and ii(-1,y) = 0) the integral image can be computed one pass over the original image.

Using the integral image any rectangular sum can be computed in four array references(see Figure 2).Clearly
the difference between two rectangular sums can be computed in eight references.Since the two-rectangle features
defined above involve adjacent rectangular sums they can be computed in six array references, eight in the case of
the three-rectangle features, and nine for four-rectangle features.

  一言以蔽之，integral image中的像素点是原image中左边和上边的像素和，这样在计算Harr-like features的时候可以用到更多的像素点，真伤不起，这么简单的一个想法介绍了这么一大堆。

其他的更深奥的介绍参见另一篇博客关于积分图（Integral Image）