Image processing

2017200603035刘播瑞

Image processing

Introduction about image processing

Image processing, the technique of using a computer to analyze images to achieve desired results. Also known as image processing. Image processing general exponential word image processing. Digital image refers to a large two-dimensional array captured by industrial cameras, cameras, scanners and other equipment. The elements of the array are called pixels, and their values are called grayscale values. Image processing technology generally includes three parts: image compression, enhancement and restoration, matching, description and recognition.
The 21st century is an era full of information. As the visual basis for human perception of the world, image is an important means for human to obtain information, express information and transmit information. Digital image processing, that is, computer image processing, its development history is not long. Digital image processing technology originated in the 1920s, when digital compression technology was used to transmit a picture from London to New York by submarine cable. First digital image processing technology can help people more objectively and accurately know the world, people can help the human visual system from the outside world for more than three quarters of the information, and images, graphics, is the carrier of all the visual information, in spite of the high flair of the human eye can identify thousands of colors, but in many cases, the image is blurred even invisible to the human eye, through the image enhancement technology, can make the fuzzy even invisible image is clear and bright.
In the computer, the image can be divided into binary image, gray image, index image and true color RGB image according to the amount of color and gray. Most image processing software supports these four types of images.

Common methods of image processing

1. Image transformation: Because the image array is very large, it is directly processed in the spatial domain, involving a large amount of computation. Therefore, various image transformation methods, such as Fourier transform, Walsh transform, discrete cosine transform and other indirect processing techniques, are often used to transform spatial domain processing into transform domain processing, which can not only reduce the amount of calculation, but also obtain more effective processing (e.g., Fourier transform can be used in digital filtering in frequency domain). Rationale. At present, the newly developed wavelet transform has good localization characteristics in both time domain and frequency domain, and it also has a wide and effective application in image processing.
2. Image coding compression: Image coding compression technology can reduce the amount of data describing the image (that is, the number of bits), in order to save image transmission, processing time and reduce the memory capacity occupied. Compression can be achieved without distortion or under permissible distortion conditions. Coding is the most important method in compression technology. It is the earliest and more mature technology in image processing technology.
3. Image enhancement and restoration: The purpose of image enhancement and restoration is to improve the quality of the image, such as removing noise and improving the clarity of the image. Image enhancement does not consider the reason of image degradation, highlighting the part of interest in the image. If the high frequency component of the image is strengthened, the contour of the object in the image can be clear and the details are obvious; if the low frequency component is strengthened, the influence of noise in the image can be reduced. Image restoration requires a certain understanding of the causes of image degradation. Generally speaking, “degradation model” should be established according to the degradation process, and then some filtering method should be used to restore or reconstruct the original image.
4. Image segmentation: Image segmentation is one of the key technologies in digital image processing. Image segmentation is to extract meaningful features from images, such as edges and regions, which is the basis for further image recognition, analysis and understanding. Although many methods of edge extraction and region segmentation have been developed, there is still no effective method which is generally applicable to all kinds of images. Therefore, the research on image segmentation is still in-depth, and it is one of the hotspots in image processing.
5. Image description: Image description is a necessary prerequisite for image recognition and understanding. As the simplest binary image, its geometric characteristics can be used to describe the characteristics of objects. The general image description method uses two-dimensional shape description. It has two kinds of methods: boundary description and region description. Two-dimensional texture features can be used to describe special texture images. With the further development of image processing research, the research of three-dimensional object description has begun, and the methods of volume description, surface description and generalized cylinder description have been proposed.
6. Image Classification (Recognition): Image classification (recognition) belongs to the category of pattern recognition. Its main content is image segmentation and feature extraction after some pre-processing (enhancement, restoration, compression) for decision classification. Classical pattern recognition methods are often used in image classification, including statistical pattern classification and syntactic (structural) pattern classification. In recent years, the newly developed fuzzy pattern recognition and artificial neural network pattern classification have been paid more and more attention in image recognition.

Problems solved by image processing

1. Aerospace and Aeronautical Technology
   The application of digital image processing technology in aerospace and Aeronautics technology. In addition to JPL’s processing of lunar and Mars photos, the application of digital image processing technology in aerospace and aeronautics technology is also in airplane remote sensing and satellite remote sensing technology. Many countries send many reconnaissance planes every day to take aerial photographs of areas of interest on Earth. It used to employ thousands of people to process and analyze the resulting photos, but now the image processing system equipped with advanced computers is used to judge and analyze them, which not only saves manpower, but also speeds up the process, and can also extract a lot of useful information from the photos that can not be found by human. Since the end of the 1960s, the United States and some international organizations have launched resource remote sensing satellites (such as LANDSAT series) and sky laboratories (such as SKYLAB). Because the imaging conditions are affected by the position, attitude and environmental conditions of aircraft, the image quality is not very high. Therefore, it is not economical to acquire images by simple and intuitive interpretation at such a high cost, and digital image processing technology must be adopted. For example, LANDSAT series land satellites use multi-band scanners (MSS) to scan every region of the earth at 900 km altitude for 18 days. The image resolution is roughly equivalent to that of about 10 meters or 100 meters above the ground (such as LANDSAT-4 launched in 1983, with a resolution of 30 meters). These images are processed (digitized, coded) into digital signals and stored on tape in the air. When the satellite passes over the ground station, they are transmitted at high speed, and then interpreted by the processing center. Whether in the process of imaging, storage, transmission or interpretation and analysis, these images must adopt many digital image processing methods. Nowadays, all countries in the world are using the images acquired by Landsat to carry out resource survey (such as forest survey, marine sediment and fishery survey, water resources survey, etc.), disaster detection (such as pest and disease detection, water and fire detection, environmental pollution detection, etc.), and resource exploration (such as oil exploration, mineral exploration, large-scale engineering sites). Geographical location exploration and analysis, agricultural planning (such as soil nutrition, water and crop growth, yield estimation, etc.), urban planning (such as geological structure, water source and environmental analysis, etc.). China has also carried out some practical applications in the above areas, and achieved good results. Digital image processing technology has also played a considerable role in meteorological forecasting and Research on other planets in space.
2. Communication Engineering
   At present, the main development direction of communication is multimedia communication which combines voice, text, image and data. Specifically speaking, the telephone, television and computer are transmitted on the digital communication network in a three-in-one way. Among them, image communication is the most complex and difficult because of the huge amount of image data, such as the transmission rate of color TV signals up to 100 Mbit/s. In order to transmit such high-speed data in real time, coding technology must be used to compress the bits of information. In a sense, coding compression is the key to the success of these technologies. In addition to the widely used entropy coding, DPCM coding and transform coding, new coding methods, such as line-by-line coding, adaptive network coding and wavelet transform image compression coding, are being developed and studied vigorously at home and abroad.
3. Industrial and engineering aspects
   Image processing technology is widely used in industrial and engineering fields, such as quality detection and classification of parts in automatic assembly line, defect inspection of printed circuit boards, stress analysis of elasticity photographs, resistance and lift analysis of fluid mechanics photographs, automatic sorting of postal letters, and some toxicity. Identifying the shape and arrangement of workpieces and objects in the radioactive environment, using industrial vision in advanced design and manufacturing technology, etc. It is worth mentioning that the development of intelligent robots with visual, auditory and tactile functions will bring new incentives to industrial and agricultural production, which has been effectively used in industrial production of spray painting, welding and assembly.
4. Military Public Security
   In military field, image processing and recognition are mainly used for accurate terminal guidance of missiles, interpretation of various reconnaissance photographs, military automatic command system for image transmission, storage and display, aircraft, tank and warship simulation training system, etc., interpretation and analysis of public security business pictures, fingerprint recognition, face identification, incomplete. Image restoration, traffic monitoring, accident analysis, etc. At present, the automatic recognition of vehicles and license plates in the non-stop toll collection system of expressway which has been put into operation is an example of successful application of image processing technology.