Project report IMAGE FILTERATION IN SPATIAL DOMAIN

Project supervisor Sir Zafar Iqbal Submitted By Sumera yasmeen 213 Adila butt
211

The Islamia University of Bahawalpur

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CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that Adila Butt (Roll no.211) and Sumera Yasmeen (Roll no 213) has worked on and completed their software project at Department of Computer Sciences, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of MCS in Computer Sciences under my guidance and supervision. In my opinion, it is satisfactory and up to mark and therefore fulfills the requirements of MCS in Computer Sciences.

SUPERVISOR/INTERNAL EXAMINER Mr.Zafar Iqbal Lecturer, Department of Computer Sciences Rahim Yar Khan Campus The Islamia University of Bahawalpur

(Signature)

Accepted

EXORDIUM
In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of Creation, The Compassionate, the Merciful, King of Judgment-day! You alone we worship, and to you alone we pray For help, Guide us to the straight path The path of those who You have favored, Not of those who have incurred Your wrath, Nor of those who have gone astray

DEDICATION

To: -Allah almighty, who is the Lord of the world. -My beloved Prophet (PBUH), who is the city of knowledge. -My loving parents, who made me what I am, whose elevating remarks Worked as a fountain of encouragement to me, -At last but not least to my highly respected supervisor, Sir Zafar iqbal, whose inspired guidance laid the foundation of my research.

ACKNOWLEDEMENT

I am grateful to almighty Allah, the merciful and the beneficent for Enabling me to accomplish this project successfully. I am very thankful to SIR ZAFAR IQBAL for supervision and Invaluable guidance throughout the project. I also thanks all our Teachers whom teaches the students with whole-heartedly and Helping us whenever needed help.

PREFACE
Digital image processing is an important research area. The techniques developed in this area so far require to be summarized in an appropriate way. In this book, the fundamental theories of these techniques will be introduced. Particularly, their applications in image filtering will be introduced. The entire book consists of chapters, which will be subsequently introduced. In Chapter 1, basic concepts in digital image processing are described. Chapter 2 will see the details of image filteration.In chapter 3 spatial domain methods will be described.

PROJECT BRIEF

Project Title Image Filtration in Spatial Domain Supervised By Sir Zafar Iqbal Submitted By Adila Butt (211) Sumera Yasmeen (213) Tools Used Visual studio.net 2008 Operating System Windows XP System Used 1 GB RAM 2.8GHZ processor 80 GB Hard Drive

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTERT NO.1 INTRODUCTIO OF IMAGE PROCESSING 1.1 WHAT IS IMAGE PROCESSING? 1.2 PURPOSE OF IMAGE PROCESSING. 1.3 BINARY IMAGES. 1.4 GREYSCALE IMAGES. 1.5

What is image processing?

Image processing is a method to convert an image into digital form and perform some operations on it, in order to get an enhanced image or to extract some useful information from it. It is a type of signal dispensation in which input is image, like video frame or photograph and output may be image or characteristics associated with that image. Usually Image Processing system includes treating images as two dimensional signals while applying already set signal processing methods to them. It is among rapidly growing technologies today, with its applications in various aspects of a business. Image Processing forms core research area within engineering and computer science disciplines too. Image processing basically includes the following three steps. Importing the image with optical scanner or by digital photography. Analyzing and manipulating the image which includes data compression and image enhancement and spotting patterns that are not to human eyes like satellite photographs. Output is the last stage in which result can be altered image or report that is based on image analysis. Purpose of Image processing: The purpose of image processing is divided into 5 groups. They are: 1. Visualization - Observe the objects that are not visible. 2. Image sharpening and restoration - To create a better image. 3. Image retrieval - Seek for the image of interest. 4. Measurement of pattern Measures various objects in an image. 5. Image Recognition Distinguish the objects in an image.

Binary Images Binary images are images whose pixels have only two possible intensity values. They are normally displayed as black and white. Numerically, the two values are often 0 for black, and either 1 or 255 for white. Binary images are often produced by thresholding a grayscale or color image, in order to separate an object in the image from the background. The color of the object (usually white) is referred to as the foreground color. The rest (usually black) is referred to as the background color. However, depending on the image which is to be thresholded, this polarity might be inverted, in which case the object is displayed with 0 and the background is with a non-zero value. Some morphological operators assume a certain polarity of the binary input image so that if we process an image with inverse polarity the operator will have the opposite effect. For example, if we apply a closing operator to a black text on white background, the text will be opened. Grayscale Images

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A grayscale (or graylevel) image is simply one in which the only colors are shades of gray. The reason for differentiating such images from any other sort of color image is that less information needs to be provided for each pixel. In fact a `gray' color is one in which the red, green and blue components all have equal intensity in RGB space, and so it is only necessary to specify a single intensity value for each pixel, as opposed to the three intensities needed to specify each pixel in a full color image. Often, the grayscale intensity is stored as an 8-bit integer giving 256 possible different shades of gray from black to white. If the levels are evenly spaced then the difference between successive graylevels is significantly better than the graylevel resolving power of the human eye. Grayscale images are very common, in part because much of today's display and image capture hardware can only support 8-bit images. In addition, grayscale images are entirely sufficient for many tasks and so there is no need to use more complicated and harder-to-process color images.

What is image filtration? A software routine that changes the appearance of an image or part of an image by altering the shades and colors of the pixels in some manner. Filters are used to increase brightness and contrast as well as to add a wide variety of textures, tones and special effects to a picture. Pixels: In order for any digital computer processing to be carried out on an image, it must first be stored within the computer in a suitable form that can be manipulated by a computer program. The most practical way of doing this is to divide the image up into a collection of discrete (and usually small) cells, which are known as pixels. Most commonly, the image is divided up into a rectangular grid of pixels, so that each pixel is itself a small rectangle. Once this has been done, each pixel is given a pixel value that represents the color of that pixel. It is assumed that the whole pixel is the same color, and so any color

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variation that did exist within the area of the pixel before the image was discretized is lost. However, if the area of each pixel is very small, then the discrete nature of the image is often not visible to the human eye. Filtering an Image Image filtering is useful for many applications, including smoothing, sharpening, removing noise, and edge detection. A filter is defined by a kernel, which is a small array applied to each pixel and its neighbors within an image. In most applications, the center of the kernel is aligned with the current pixel, and is a square with an odd number (3, 5, 7, etc.) of elements in each dimension. The process used to apply filters to an image is known as convolution, and may be applied in either the spatial or frequency domain. Within the spatial domain, the first part of the convolution process multiplies the elements of the kernel by the matching pixel values when the kernel is centered over a pixel. The elements of the resulting array (which is the same size as the kernel) are averaged, and the original pixel value is replaced with this result. The CONVOL function performs this convolution process for an entire image. Within the frequency domain, convolution can be performed by multiplying the FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) of the image by the FFT of the kernel, and then transforming back into the spatial domain. The kernel is padded with zero values to enlarge it to the same size as the image before the forward FFT is applied. These types of filters are usually specified within the frequency domain and do not need to be transformed. Overview of Transforming Between Image Domains: Some processes performed on an image in the spatial domain may be very computationally expensive. These same processes may be significantly easier to perform after transforming an image to a different domain. These transformations are the basis for many image filters, applied to remove noise, to sharpen, or extract features. Domain transformations also provide additional information about an image and can offer compression benefits. The most common representation of a pixel's value and location is spatial, where it appears in three dimensions (x, y, and z). Pixel value and location in this space is usually referred to by column (x), row (y), and value (z), and is known as the spatial domain. However, a pixel's value and location can be represented in other domains. In the frequency or Fourier domain, the value and location are represented by sinusoidal relationships that depend upon the frequency of a pixel occurring within an image. In this domain, pixel location is represented by its x- and y-frequencies and its value is represented by an amplitude. Images can be transformed into the frequency domain to determine which pixels contain more important information and whether repeating patterns occur.

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The following examples in this section will focus on some of the basic filters applied within the spatial domain using the CONVOL function: Low Pass Filtering High Pass Filtering Directional Filtering Laplacian Filtering Since filters are the building blocks of many image processing methods, these examples merely show how to apply filters, as opposed to showing how a specific filter may be used to enhance a specific image or extract a specific shape. This basic introduction provides the information necessary to accomplish more advanced image-specific processing. Low Pass Filtering A low pass filter is the basis for most smoothing methods. An image is smoothed by decreasing the disparity between pixel values by averaging nearby pixels (seeSmoothing an Image for more information). Using a low pass filter tends to retain the low frequency information within an image while reducing the high frequency information Smoothing an Image Smoothing is often used to reduce noise within an image or to produce a less pixelated image. Most smoothing methods are based on low pass filters. Smoothing is also usually based on a single value representing the image, such as the average value of the image or the middle (median) value. The following examples show how to smooth using average and middle values: Smoothing with Average Values Smoothing with Median Values High Pass Filtering A high pass filter is the basis for most sharpening methods. An image is sharpened when contrast is enhanced between adjoining areas with little variation in brightness or darkness . A high pass filter tends to retain the high frequency information within an image while reducing the low frequency information. The kernel of the high pass filter is designed to increase the brightness of the center pixel relative to neighboring pixels. The kernel array

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usually contains a single positive value at its center, which is completely surrounded by negative values. Sharpening an Image Sharpening an image increases the contrast between bright and dark regions to bring out features. The sharpening process is basically the application of a high pass filter to an image. Directional Filtering A directional filter forms the basis for some edge detection methods. An edge within an image is visible when a large change (a steep gradient) occurs between adjacent pixel values. This change in values is measured by the first derivatives (often referred to as slopes) of an image. Directional filters can be used to compute the first derivatives of an image Detecting Edges Detecting edges is another way to help extract features. Many edge detection methods use either directional or Laplacian filters. Laplacian Filtering A Laplacian filter forms another basis for edge detection methods. A Laplacian filter can be used to compute the second derivatives of an image, which measure the rate at which the first derivatives change. This helps to determine if a change in adjacent pixel values is an edge or a continuous progression. Kernels of Laplacian filters usually contain negative values in a cross pattern (similar to a plus sign), which is centered within the array. The corners are either zero or positive values. The center value can be either negative or positive Frequency Domain The frequency domain is a space in which each image value at image position F represents the amount that the intensity values in image I vary over a specific distance related to F. In the frequency domain, changes in image position correspond to changes in the spatial frequency. The spatial frequency domain is interesting because: 1) It may make explicit periodic relationships in the spatial domain, and 2) Some image processing operators are more efficient or indeed only practical when applied in the frequency domain. In most cases, the Fourier Transform is used to convert images from the spatial domain into the frequency domain and vice-versa.

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A related term used in this context is spatial frequency, which refers to the (inverse of the) periodicity with which the image intensity values change. Image features with high spatial frequency (such as edges) are those that change greatly in intensity over short image distances. Spatial Domain I=image, s=scene: The spatial domain is the normal image space, in which a change in position in I directly projects to a change in position in S. Distances in I (in pixels) correspond to real distances (e.g. in meters) in S. This concept is used most often when discussing the frequency with which image values change, that is, over how many pixels does a cycle of periodically repeating intensity variations occur. One would refer to the number of pixels over which a pattern repeats (its periodicity) in the spatial domain. In most cases, the Fourier Transform will be used to convert images from the spatial domain into the frequency domain. Fourier Transform The Fourier Transform is an important image processing tool which is used to decompose an image into its sine and cosine components. The output of the transformation represents the image in the Fourier or frequency domain, while the input image is the spatial domain equivalent. In the Fourier domain image, each point represents a particular frequency contained in the spatial domain image. The Fourier Transform is used in a wide range of applications, such as image analysis, image filtering, image reconstruction and image compression. Noise Generation Real world signals usually contain departures from the ideal signal that would be produced by our model of the signal production process. Such departures are referred to as noise. Noise arises as a result of unmodelled or unmodellable processes going on in the production and capture of the real signal. It is not part of the ideal signal and may be caused by a wide range of sources, e.g. variations in the detector sensitivity, environmental variations, the discrete nature of radiation, transmission or quantization errors, etc. It is also possible to treat irrelevant scene details as if they are image noise (e.g. surface reflectance textures). The characteristics of noise depend on its source, as does the operator which best reduces its effects. Many image processing packages contain operators to artificially add noise to an image. Deliberately corrupting an image with noise allows us to test the resistance of an image processing operator to noise and assess the performance of various noise filters. Edge Detectors Edges are places in the image with strong intensity contrast. Since edges often occur at image locations representing object boundaries, edge detection is extensively used in

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image segmentation when we want to divide the image into areas corresponding to different objects. Representing an image by its edges has the further advantage that the amount of data is reduced significantly while retaining most of the image information. Since edges consist of mainly high frequencies, we can, in theory, detect edges by applying a highpass frequency filter in the Fourier domain or by convolving the image with an appropriate kernel in the spatial domain. In practice, edge detection is performed in the spatial domain, because it is computationally less expensive and often yields better results. Convolution Convolution is a simple mathematical operation which is fundamental to many common image processing operators. Convolution provides a way of `multiplying together' two arrays of numbers, generally of different sizes, but of the same dimensionality, to produce a third array of numbers of the same dimensionality. This can be used in image processing to implement operators whose output pixel values are simple linear combinations of certain input pixel values. In an image processing context, one of the input arrays is normally just a graylevel image. The second array is usually much smaller, and is also two-dimensional (although it may be just a single pixel thick), and is known as the kernel. Kernel A kernel is a (usually) smallish matrix of numbers that is used in image convolutions. Differently sized kernels containing different patterns of numbers give rise to different results under convolution. For instance, Figure 1 shows a 33 kernel that implements a mean filter. Sobel Edge Detector: Brief Description The Sobel operator performs a 2-D spatial gradient measurement on an image and so emphasizes regions of high spatial frequency that correspond to edges. Typically it is used to find the approximate absolute gradient magnitude at each point in an input grayscale image. How It Works In theory at least, the operator consists of a pair of 33 convolution kernels as shown in Figure 1. One kernel is simply the other rotated by 90. This is very similar to the Roberts Cross operator.

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Figure 1 Sobel convolution kernels These kernels are designed to respond maximally to edges running vertically and horizontally relative to the pixel grid, one kernel for each of the two perpendicular orientations. The kernels can be applied separately to the input image, to produce separate measurements of the gradient component in each orientation (call theseGx and Gy). These can then be combined together to find the absolute magnitude of the gradient at each point and the orientation of that gradient. The gradient magnitude is given by:

Typically, an approximate magnitude is computed using:

which is much faster to compute. spatial gradient is given by: The angle of orientation of the edge (relative to the pixel grid) giving rise to the

Roberts Cross Edge Detector he Roberts Cross operator performs a simple, quick to compute, 2-D spatial gradient measurement on an image. It thus highlights regions of high spatial frequencywhich often correspond to edges. In its most common usage, the input to the operator is a grayscale image, as is the output. Pixel values at each point in the output represent the estimated absolute magnitude of the spatial gradient of the input image at that point.

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Guidelines for Use The Sobel operator is slower to compute than the Roberts Cross operator, but its larger convolution kernel smooths the input image to a greater extent and so makes the operator less sensitive to noise. The operator also generally produces considerably higher output values for similar edges, compared with the Roberts Cross. As with the Roberts Cross operator, output values from the operator can easily overflow the maximum allowed pixel value for image types that only support smallish integer pixel values (e.g. 8-bit integer images). When this happens the standard practice is to simply set overflowing output pixels to the maximum allowed value. The problem can be avoided by using an image type that supports pixel values with a larger range. Natural edges in images often lead to lines in the output image that are several pixels wide due to the smoothing effect of the Sobel operator.

Spatial domain methods

The value of a pixel with coordinates (x,y) in the enhanced image is the result of performing some operation on the pixels in the neighbourhood of (x,y) in the input image, F. Neighbourhoods can be any shape, but usually they are rectangular.

Grey scale manipulation:

The simplest form of operation is when the operator T only acts on a 1*1 pixel neighbourhood in the input image, that is f(x,y) only depends on the value of Fat (x,y). This is a grey scale transformation or mapping. The simplest case is thresholding where the intensity profile is replaced by a step function, active at a chosen threshold value. In this case any pixel with a

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grey level below the threshold in the input image gets mapped to 0 in the output image. Other pixels are mapped to 255. Other grey scale transformations are outlined in figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Tone-scale adjustments.

2) Histogram Equalization
Histogram equalization is a common technique for enhancing the appearance of images. Suppose we have an image which is predominantly dark. Then its histogram would be skewed towards the lower end of the grey scale and all the image detail is compressed into the dark end of the histogram. If we could `stretch out' the grey levels at the dark end to produce a more uniformly distributed histogram then the image would become much clearer. Histogram equalization involves finding a grey scale transformation function that creates an output image with a uniform histogram (or nearly so). How do we determine this grey scale transformation function? Assume our grey levels are continuous and have been normalized to lie between 0 and 1.

3)Image Smoothing:
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The aim of image smoothing is to diminish the effects of camera noise, spurious pixel values, missing pixel values etc. There are many different techniques for image smoothing; we will consider neighbourhood averaging and edge-preserving smoothing. 3.1) Neighbourhood Averaging

Each point in the smoothed image, is obtained from the average pixel value in a neighbourhood of (x,y) in the input image. For example, if we use a the mask neighbourhood around each pixel we would use

1/9 1/9 1/9 1/9 1/9 1/9 1/9 1/9 1/9

Each pixel value is multiplied by , summed, and then the result placed in the output image. This mask is successively moved across the image until every pixel has been covered. That is, the image is convolved with this smoothing mask (also known as a spatial filter or kernel). However, one usually expects the value of a pixel to be more closely related to the values of pixels close to it than to those further away. This is because most points in an image are spatially coherent with their neighbours; indeed it is generally only at edge or feature points where this hypothesis is not valid. Accordingly it is usual to weight the pixels near the centre of the mask more strongly than those at the edge. Some common weighting functions include the rectangular weighting function above (which just takes the average over the window), a triangular weighting function, or a Gaussian. In practice one doesn't notice much difference between different weighting functions, although Gaussian smoothing is the most commonly used. Gaussian

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smoothing has the attribute that the frequency components of the image are modified in a smooth manner. Smoothing reduces or attenuates the higher frequencies in the image. Mask shapes other than the Gaussian can do odd things to the frequency spectrum, but as far as the appearance of the image is concerned we usually don't notice much.
3.2)Edge preserving smoothing:

Neighbourhood averaging or Gaussian smoothing will tend to blur edges because the high frequencies in the image are attenuated. An alternative approach is to usemedian filtering. Here we set the grey level to be the median of the pixel values in the neighbourhood of that pixel. The median m of a set of values is such that half the values in the set are less than m and half are greater. For example, suppose the pixel values in a neighbourhood are (10, 20, 20, 15, 20, 20, 20, 25, 100). If we sort the values we get (10, 15, 20, 20, |20|, 20, 20, 25, 100) and the median here is 20. The outcome of median filtering is that pixels with outlying values are forced to become more like their neighbours, but at the same time edges are preserved. Of course, median filters are non-linear. Median filtering is in fact a morphological operation. When we erode an image, pixel values are replaced with the smallest value in the neighbourhood. Dilating an image corresponds to replacing pixel values with the largest value in the neighbourhood. Median filtering replaces pixels with the median value in the neighbourhood. It is the rank of the value of the pixel used in the neighbourhood that determines the type of morphological operation.

Figure 3: Image of Genevieve; with salt and pepper noise; the result of averaging; and the result of median filtering.

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4)Image sharpening:
The main aim in image sharpening is to highlight fine detail in the image, or to enhance detail that has been blurred (perhaps due to noise or other effects, such as motion). With image sharpening, we want to enhance the high-frequency components; this implies a spatial filter shape that has a high positive component at the centre (see figure 4 below).
Figure 4: Frequency domain filters (top) and their corresponding spatial domain counterparts (bottom).

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A simple spatial filter that achieves image sharpening is given by

-1/9 -1/9 -1/9 -1/9 8/9 -1/9 -1/9 -1/9 -1/9

Since the sum of all the weights is zero, the resulting signal will have a zero DC value (that is, the average signal value, or the coefficient of the zero frequency term in the Fourier expansion). For display purposes, we might want to add an offset to keep the result in the range.

5) High boost filtering

We can think of high pass filtering in terms of subtracting a low pass image from the original image, that is, High pass = Original - Low pass. However, in many cases where a high pass image is required, we also want to retain some of the low frequency components to aid in the interpretation of the image. Thus, if we multiply the original image by an amplification factor A before subtracting the low pass image, we will get a high boost or high frequency emphasis filter. Thus,

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Now, if A = 1 we have a simple high pass filter. When A > 1 part of the original image is retained in the output. A simple filter for high boost filtering is given by
-1/9 -1/9 -1/9 -1/9 /9 -1/9 -1/9 -1/9 -1/9

where

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