ANIMAL (first implementation: 1988 - revised: 2004) is an interactive environment for

image processing An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...

that is oriented toward the rapid prototyping, testing, and modification of algorithms. To create ANIMAL (AN IMage ALgebra),

XLISP XLISP is a family of Lisp (programming language), Lisp implementations written by David Betz and first released in 1983. The first version was a Lisp with object-oriented programming, object-oriented extensions for computers with limited power. Th ...

of David Betz was extended with some new types: sockets, arrays, images, masks, and drawables. The theoretical framework and the implementation of the working environment is described in the paper "ANIMAL: AN IMage ALgebra". In the theoretical framework of ANIMAL a

digital image A digital image is an image composed of picture elements, also known as ''pixels'', each with ''finite'', '' discrete quantities'' of numeric representation for its intensity or gray level that is an output from its two-dimensional functions ...

is a boundless matrix with its ''history''. However, in the implementation it is bounded by a rectangular region in the discrete plane and the elements outside the region have a constant value. The size and position of the region in the plane (focus) is defined by the coordinates of the rectangle. In this way all the

pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the smal ...

s, including those on the border, have the same number of neighbors (useful in local operators, such as

digital filter In signal processing, a digital filter is a system that performs mathematical operations on a sampled, discrete-time signal to reduce or enhance certain aspects of that signal. This is in contrast to the other major type of electronic filter, t ...

s). Furthermore, pixelwise

commutative operation In mathematics, a binary operation is commutative if changing the order of the operands does not change the result. It is a fundamental property of many binary operations, and many mathematical proofs depend on it. Most familiar as the name of ...

s remain commutative on image level, independently on focus (size and position of the rectangular regions). The ''history'' is a list which tracks the operations and parameters applied to the matrix. This mechanism is useful to document algorithms and generate new functions. ANIMAL has been ported to R, a freely available language and environment for statistical computing and graphics
The new implementation
is free and is used in a recent bookR. Brunelli, ''Template Matching Techniques in Computer Vision: Theory and Practice'', Wiley, , 2009 '

TM book)'' to illustrate the use of template matching techniques in computer vision (see th

of th
book code companion
.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Animal (Image Processing) Computer vision software Image processing software