Digital Images and Human Vision


Book Description

These fifteen contributions by distinguished vision and imaging scientists explore the role of human vision in the design of modem image communication systems. A dominant theme in the book is image compression—how compression algorithms can be designed to make best use of what we know about human vision. Electronic image communications, which encompass television, high-definition television, teleconferencing, multimedia, digital photography, desktop publishing, and digital movies, is a rapidly growing segment of technology and business. Because these products and technologies are designed for human viewing, knowledge of human perception is essential to optimal design. This book provides a timely compendium of important ideas and perspectives on such subjects as the key aspects of human visual sensitivity that are relevant to image communications and, conversely, the major problems in image communications that vision science can address; the mathematical models of human vision that are useful in the design of image comunications systems; reliable and efficient methods of evaluating visual quality; and aspects of human vision that can be exploited to provide substantial improvements in coding efficiency. Andrew B. Watson is Senior Scientist for Vision Research at NASA. Contributors: Albert J. Ahumada, Jr. E. Barth. V. Michael Bove, Jr. Gershon Buchsbaum. Phillipe Cassereau. Pamela C. Cosman. Scott J. Daly. Michael Eckert. Bernd Girod. William E. Glenn. Robert M. Gray. Paul J. Hearty. Bradley Horowitz. Stanley Klein. Jeffrey Lubin, Cynthia Null. Karen L. Oehler. Alex Pentland. Todd Reed. Andrew B. Watson. B. Wegmann. Christof Zetsche.




Visual Information Representation, Communication, and Image Processing


Book Description

Discusses recent advances in the related technologies of multimedia computers, videophones, video-over-Internet, HDTV, digital satellite TV and interactive computer games. The text analyzes ways of achieving more effective navigation techniques, data management functions, and higher throughout networking. It synthesizes data on visual information venues, tracking the enormous commercial potential for new components and compatible systems.




Digital Video Image Quality and Perceptual Coding


Book Description

The hand is quicker than the eye. In many cases, so is digital video. Maintaining image quality in bandwidth- and memory-restricted environments is quickly becoming a reality as thriving research delves ever deeper into perceptual coding techniques, which discard superfluous data that humans cannot process or detect. Surveying the topic from a Human Visual System (HVS)-based approach, Digital Video Image Quality and Perceptual Coding outlines the principles, metrics, and standards associated with perceptual coding, as well as the latest techniques and applications. This book is divided broadly into three parts. First, it introduces the fundamental theory, concepts, principles, and techniques underlying the field, such as the basics of compression, HVS modeling, and coding artifacts associated with current well-known techniques. The next section focuses on picture quality assessment criteria; subjective and objective methods and metrics, including vision model based digital video impairment metrics; testing procedures; and international standards regarding image quality. Finally, practical applications come into focus, including digital image and video coder designs based on the HVS as well as post-filtering, restoration, error correction, and concealment techniques. The permeation of digital images and video throughout the world cannot be understated. Nor can the importance of preserving quality while using minimal storage space, and Digital Video Image Quality and Perceptual Coding provides the tools necessary to accomplish this goal. Instructors and lecturers wishing to make use of this work as a textbook can download a presentation of 786 slides in PDF format organized to augment the text. accompany our book (H.R. Wu and K.R. Rao, Digital Video Image Quality and Perceptual Coding, CRC Press (ISBN: 0-8247-2777-0), Nov. 2005) for lecturers or instructor to use for their classes if they use the book.




Handbook of Image and Video Processing


Book Description

55% new material in the latest edition of this "must-have for students and practitioners of image & video processing!This Handbook is intended to serve as the basic reference point on image and video processing, in the field, in the research laboratory, and in the classroom. Each chapter has been written by carefully selected, distinguished experts specializing in that topic and carefully reviewed by the Editor, Al Bovik, ensuring that the greatest depth of understanding be communicated to the reader. Coverage includes introductory, intermediate and advanced topics and as such, this book serves equally well as classroom textbook as reference resource. • Provides practicing engineers and students with a highly accessible resource for learning and using image/video processing theory and algorithms • Includes a new chapter on image processing education, which should prove invaluable for those developing or modifying their curricula • Covers the various image and video processing standards that exist and are emerging, driving today's explosive industry • Offers an understanding of what images are, how they are modeled, and gives an introduction to how they are perceived • Introduces the necessary, practical background to allow engineering students to acquire and process their own digital image or video data • Culminates with a diverse set of applications chapters, covered in sufficient depth to serve as extensible models to the reader's own potential applications About the Editor... Al Bovik is the Cullen Trust for Higher Education Endowed Professor at The University of Texas at Austin, where he is the Director of the Laboratory for Image and Video Engineering (LIVE). He has published over 400 technical articles in the general area of image and video processing and holds two U.S. patents. Dr. Bovik was Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (2000), received the IEEE Signal Processing Society Meritorious Service Award (1998), the IEEE Third Millennium Medal (2000), and twice was a two-time Honorable Mention winner of the international Pattern Recognition Society Award. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, was Editor-in-Chief, of the IEEE Transactions on Image Processing (1996-2002), has served on and continues to serve on many other professional boards and panels, and was the Founding General Chairman of the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing which was held in Austin, Texas in 1994.* No other resource for image and video processing contains the same breadth of up-to-date coverage* Each chapter written by one or several of the top experts working in that area* Includes all essential mathematics, techniques, and algorithms for every type of image and video processing used by electrical engineers, computer scientists, internet developers, bioengineers, and scientists in various, image-intensive disciplines




Vision


Book Description

Available again, an influential book that offers a framework for understanding visual perception and considers fundamental questions about the brain and its functions. David Marr's posthumously published Vision (1982) influenced a generation of brain and cognitive scientists, inspiring many to enter the field. In Vision, Marr describes a general framework for understanding visual perception and touches on broader questions about how the brain and its functions can be studied and understood. Researchers from a range of brain and cognitive sciences have long valued Marr's creativity, intellectual power, and ability to integrate insights and data from neuroscience, psychology, and computation. This MIT Press edition makes Marr's influential work available to a new generation of students and scientists. In Marr's framework, the process of vision constructs a set of representations, starting from a description of the input image and culminating with a description of three-dimensional objects in the surrounding environment. A central theme, and one that has had far-reaching influence in both neuroscience and cognitive science, is the notion of different levels of analysis—in Marr's framework, the computational level, the algorithmic level, and the hardware implementation level. Now, thirty years later, the main problems that occupied Marr remain fundamental open problems in the study of perception. Vision provides inspiration for the continuing efforts to integrate knowledge from cognition and computation to understand vision and the brain.




Contrast Sensitivity of the Human Eye and Its Effects on Image Quality


Book Description

This book examines the contrast sensitivity of the human visual system - concerning the eye's ability to distinguish objects from each other or from the background - and its effects on the imageforming process. The text provides equations for determining various aspects of contrast sensitivity, in addition to models that easily can be used for practical applications.




Modern Digital Halftoning


Book Description

The late 1980s, revolutionary advances in digital halftoning enabled inkjet printers to achieve much higher image fidelity. The rapid rate of progress has resulted in numerous breakthroughs scattered throughout the literature, rendering old technologies obsolete and renewing the need for a centralized source on the current state of the art. Entirely revised and updated, Modern Digital Halftoning, Second Edition provides an integrated and up-to-date treatment of stochastic halftoning and digital printing. Using full-color illustrations to enhance the text, this edition incorporates new topics as well as updated models, algorithms, and methods used to construct and improve the quality of green-noise, blue-noise, and multitone images. Following a review of various halftoning techniques, this edition now covers amplitude modulated dither arrays, adapting to human visual models, direct binary search, and handling stochastic moiré problems. It also presents a new chapter on lenticular printing, a means for printing color holographic images. An accompanying CD-ROM contains MATLAB® software files and illustrated examples employing algorithms, statistics, and other key concepts from the book. Documenting the development of digital printing since the first edition, Modern Digital Halftoning, Second Edition offers a well-rounded and accurate perspective on the technological capabilities of digital printing and provides all the necessary tools for continuing research in the field.




Digital Watermarking


Book Description

We are delighted to welcome the attendees of the Fourth International Wo- shop on Digital Watermarking (IWDW). Watermarking continues to generate strong academic interest. Commercialization of the technology is proceeding at a steadypace. We haveseen watermarkingadoptedfor DVD audio.Fingerpri- ing technology was successfully used to determine the source of pirated video material. Furthermore, a number of companies are using watermarking as an enabling technology for broadcast monitoring services. Watermarking of digital cinema contentis anticipated. Future applications may also come from areas- related to digital rights management. For example, the use of watermarking to enhance legacy broadcast and communication systems is now being considered. IWDW 2005 o?ers an opportunity to re?ect upon the state of the art in digital watermarking as well as discuss directions for future research and applications. This year we accepted 31 papers from 74 submissions. This 42% acceptance rate indicates our commitment to ensuring a very high quality conference. We thankthemembersoftheTechnicalProgramCommitteeformakingthispossible by their timely and insightful reviews. Thanks to their hard work this is the ?rst IWDW at which the ?nal proceedings are available to the participants at the time of the workshop as a Springer LNCS publication.




Pattern Recognition and Machine Intelligence


Book Description

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Pattern Recognition and Machine Intelligence, PReMI 2007, held in Kolkata, India in December 2007. The 82 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 241 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on pattern recognition, image analysis, soft computing and applications, data mining and knowledge discovery, bioinformatics, signal and speech processing, document analysis and text mining, biometrics, and video analysis.