Image Processing and Pattern
Recognition (IPPR):
         (Lecture 3)
           Sanjeeb Prasad Panday
           sanjeeb77@hotmail.com
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                                Image Histograms
     The histogram of an image shows us the
     distribution of grey levels in the image
     Massively useful in image processing,
     especially in segmentation
          Frequencies
                        Grey Levels
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                                        Image Histograms
     • The histogram of a digital image, f, (with intensities [0,L-1])
     is a discrete function
     h(rk) = nk
     •   Where rk is the kth intensity value and nk is the number of
     pixels in f with intensity rk
     • Normalizing the histogram is common practice – Divide the
     components by the total number of pixels in the image –
     Assuming an MxN image, this yields
     p(rk) = nk/MN for k=0,1,2,....,L-1 – p(rk) is, basically, an estimate
     of the probability of occurrence of intensity level rk in an image
     Σ p(rk) = 1
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         Uses for Histogram Processing
     •   Image enhancements
     •   Image statistics
     •   Image compression
     •   Image segmentation
     •   Simple to calculate in software
     •   Economic hardware implementations
           – Popular tool in real-time image processing
     • A plot of this function for all values of k provides a global
     description of the appearance of the image (gives useful information
     for contrast enhancement)
     • Histograms commonly viewed in plots as
     h(rk) = nk versus rk
     p(rk) = nk /MN versus rk
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
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                                                                      Histogram Examples
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
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                                                                      Histogram Examples (cont…)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
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                                                                      Histogram Examples (cont…)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
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                                                                      Histogram Examples (cont…)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
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                                                                      Histogram Examples (cont…)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
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                                                                      Histogram Examples (cont…)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
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                                                                      Histogram Examples (cont…)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
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                                                                      Histogram Examples (cont…)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
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                                                                      Histogram Examples (cont…)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
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                                                                      Histogram Examples (cont…)
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                                                                                Histogram Examples (cont…)
                                                                      A selection of images and
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
                                                                      their histograms
                                                                      Notice the relationships
                                                                      between the images and
                                                                      their histograms
                                                                      Note that the high contrast
                                                                      image has the most
                                                                      evenly spaced histogram
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                           Contrast Stretching
     We can fix images that have poor contrast
     by applying a pretty simple contrast
     specification
     The interesting part is how do we decide on
     this transformation function?
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                             Histogram Equalisation
     • Histogram equalization is a process for increasing the
     contrast in an image by spreading the histogram out to be
     approximately uniformly distributed
     • The gray levels of an image that has been subjected to
     histogram equalization are spread out and always reach
     white
     – The increase of dynamic range produces an increase in
     contrast
     • For images with low contrast, histogram equalization has
     the adverse effect of increasing visual graininess
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                              Histogram Equalisation
     • The intensity transformation function we are constructing
     is of the form
              s=T(r)     0 ≤ r ≤ L−1
     • An output intensity level s is produced for every pixel in
     the input image having intensity r
     • We assume
     – T(r) is monotonically increasing in the interval 0≤ r ≤ L-1
                – 0 ≤ Τ(r) ≤ L-1      for 0 ≤ r ≤ L-1
     • If we define the inverse
                  r=T^−1(s)      0 ≤ s ≤ L−1
     • Then T(r) should be strictly monotonically increasing
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     Histogram Equalisation
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                              Histogram Equalisation
     • Histogram equalization requires construction of a
     transformation function sk
     • where rk is the kth gray level, nk is the number of pixels
     with that gray level, MxN is the number of pixels in the
     image, and k=0,1,...,L-1
     • This yields an s with as many elements as the original
     image’s histogram (normally 256 for our test images)
     • The values of s will be in the range [0,1]. For
     constructing a new image, s would be scaled to the range
     [1,256]
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     Histogram Equalisation
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                                  Histogram Equalisation
     Spreading out the frequencies in an image (or equalising the image) is
     a simple way to improve dark or washed out images
     The formula for histogram equalisation is given where
          – rk: input intensity
          – sk: processed intensity
          – k: the intensity range
              (e.g 0.0 – 1.0)
                                                        s  T (r )
                                                         k           k
          – nj: the frequency of intensity j                     k
          – n: the sum of all frequencies                      p (r )r    j
                                                                j 1
     The transformation function in the next slide is
                                                                  k     n
                                                             
     Obtained by applying the RHS formula to the                        j
     Original image in the next side.
                                                                 j 1   n
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
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                                                                      Equalisation Transformation Function
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
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                                                                          Equalisation Examples
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                                                                         Equalisation Transformation Functions
                                                                      The functions used to equalise the images in
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
                                                                      the previous example
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
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                                                                      Equalisation Examples
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                                                                         Equalisation Transformation Functions
                                                                      The functions used to equalise the images in
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
                                                                      the previous example
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
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                                                                      Equalisation Examples (cont…)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
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                                                                      Equalisation Examples (cont…)
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                                                                         Equalisation Transformation Functions
                                                                      The functions used to equalise the images in
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
                                                                      the previous examples