Imagery Analysis
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Image analysis or imagery analysis is the extraction of meaningful information from
image 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 ...
s; mainly from
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 ...
s by means of
digital image processing Digital image processing is the use of a digital computer to process digital images through an algorithm. As a subcategory or field of digital signal processing, digital image processing has many advantages over analog image processing. It allo ...
techniques. Image analysis tasks can be as simple as reading
bar code A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, Machine-readable data, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly refe ...
d tags or as sophisticated as identifying a person from their face.
Computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
s are indispensable for the analysis of large amounts of data, for tasks that require complex computation, or for the extraction of quantitative information. On the other hand, the human
visual cortex The visual cortex of the brain is the area of the cerebral cortex that processes visual information. It is located in the occipital lobe. Sensory input originating from the eyes travels through the lateral geniculate nucleus in the thalamus and ...
is an excellent image analysis apparatus, especially for extracting higher-level information, and for many applications — including medicine, security, and remote sensing — human analysts still cannot be replaced by computers. For this reason, many important image analysis tools such as edge detectors and
neural networks A neural network is a network or circuit of biological neurons, or, in a modern sense, an artificial neural network, composed of artificial neurons or nodes. Thus, a neural network is either a biological neural network, made up of biological ...
are inspired by human
visual perception Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the visible spectrum reflecte ...
models.


Digital

Digital Image Analysis or Computer Image Analysis is when a computer or electrical device automatically studies an image to obtain useful information from it. Note that the device is often a computer but may also be an electrical circuit, a digital camera or a mobile phone. It involves the fields of
computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
or
machine vision Machine vision (MV) is the technology and methods used to provide imaging-based automatic inspection and analysis for such applications as automatic inspection, process control, and robot guidance, usually in industry. Machine vision refers to m ...
, and
medical imaging Medical imaging is the technique and process of imaging the interior of a body for clinical analysis and medical intervention, as well as visual representation of the function of some organs or tissues (physiology). Medical imaging seeks to rev ...
, and makes heavy use of
pattern recognition Pattern recognition is the automated recognition of patterns and regularities in data. It has applications in statistical data analysis, signal processing, image analysis, information retrieval, bioinformatics, data compression, computer graphi ...
,
digital geometry Digital geometry deals with discrete sets (usually discrete point sets) considered to be digitized models or images of objects of the 2D or 3D Euclidean space. Simply put, digitizing is replacing an object by a discrete set of its points. The i ...
, and
signal processing Signal processing is an electrical engineering subfield that focuses on analyzing, modifying and synthesizing ''signals'', such as audio signal processing, sound, image processing, images, and scientific measurements. Signal processing techniq ...
. This field of
computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
developed in the 1950s at academic institutions such as the
MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
A.I. Lab, originally as a branch of
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
and
robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...
. It is the
quantitative Quantitative may refer to: * Quantitative research, scientific investigation of quantitative properties * Quantitative analysis (disambiguation) * Quantitative verse, a metrical system in poetry * Statistics, also known as quantitative analysis ...
or qualitative characterization of
two-dimensional In mathematics, a plane is a Euclidean (flat), two-dimensional surface that extends indefinitely. A plane is the two-dimensional analogue of a point (zero dimensions), a line (one dimension) and three-dimensional space. Planes can arise as s ...
(2D) or
three-dimensional Three-dimensional space (also: 3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a geometric setting in which three values (called ''parameters'') are required to determine the position of an element (i.e., point). This is the informal ...
(3D)
digital images 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 f ...
. 2D images are, for example, to be analyzed in
computer vision Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the hum ...
, and 3D images in
medical imaging Medical imaging is the technique and process of imaging the interior of a body for clinical analysis and medical intervention, as well as visual representation of the function of some organs or tissues (physiology). Medical imaging seeks to rev ...
. The field was established in the 1950s—1970s, for example with pioneering contributions by
Azriel Rosenfeld Azriel Rosenfeld (February 19, 1931 – February 22, 2004) was an American Research Professor, a Distinguished University Professor, and Director of the Center for Automation Research at the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, where he ...
,
Herbert Freeman Dr. Herbert Freeman (born Herbert Freinmann, December 13, 1925 – November 15, 2020) was an American computer scientist who made important contributions to the field of automatic label placement, computer graphics, including spatial anti-aliasi ...
,
Jack E. Bresenham Jack Elton Bresenham (born 11 October 1937, Clovis, New Mexico, United States, US) is a former professor of computer science. Biography Bresenham retired from 27 years of service at IBM as a Senior Technical Staff Member in 1987. He taught for 16 ...
, or
King-Sun Fu King-Sun Fu (; October 2, 1930 – April 29, 1985) was a Chinese-born American computer scientist. He was a Goss Distinguished Professor at Purdue University School of Electrical and Computer Engineering in West Lafayette, Indiana. He was instru ...
.


Techniques

There are many different techniques used in automatically analysing images. Each technique may be useful for a small range of tasks, however there still aren't any known methods of image analysis that are generic enough for wide ranges of tasks, compared to the abilities of a human's image analysing capabilities. Examples of image analysis techniques in different fields include: * 2D and 3D
object recognition Object recognition – technology in the field of computer vision for finding and identifying objects in an image or video sequence. Humans recognize a multitude of objects in images with little effort, despite the fact that the image of the ...
, *
image segmentation In digital image processing and computer vision, image segmentation is the process of partitioning a digital image into multiple image segments, also known as image regions or image objects ( sets of pixels). The goal of segmentation is to simpl ...
, *
motion detection Motion detection is the process of detecting a change in the position of an object relative to its surroundings or a change in the surroundings relative to an object. It can be achieved by either mechanical or electronic methods. When it is done by ...
e.g.
Single particle tracking Single-particle tracking (SPT) is the observation of the motion of individual particles within a medium. The coordinates time series, which can be either in two dimensions (''x'', ''y'') or in three dimensions (''x'', ''y'', ''z''), is referred to ...
, *
video tracking Video tracking is the process of locating a moving object (or multiple objects) over time using a camera. It has a variety of uses, some of which are: human-computer interaction, security and surveillance, video communication and compression, aug ...
, *
optical flow Optical flow or optic flow is the pattern of apparent motion of objects, surfaces, and edges in a visual scene caused by the relative motion between an observer and a scene. Optical flow can also be defined as the distribution of apparent veloci ...
, * medical scan analysis, * 3D Pose Estimation.


Applications

The applications of digital image analysis are continuously expanding through all areas of science and industry, including: * assay micro plate reading, such as detecting where a chemical was manufactured. *
astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...
, such as calculating the size of a planet. *
automated species identification Automated species identification is a method of making the expertise of Taxonomy (biology), taxonomists available to ecologists, parataxonomy, parataxonomists and others via digital technology and artificial intelligence. Today, most automated ide ...
(e.g. plant and animal species) *
defense Defense or defence may refer to: Tactical, martial, and political acts or groups * Defense (military), forces primarily intended for warfare * Civil defense, the organizing of civilians to deal with emergencies or enemy attacks * Defense industr ...
*
error level analysis Error level analysis (ELA) is the analysis of compression artifacts in digital data with lossy compression such as JPEG. Principles When used, lossy compression is normally applied uniformly to a set of data, such as an image, resulting in a un ...
*
filter Filter, filtering or filters may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming * Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream * Filter (video), a software component tha ...
ing *
machine vision Machine vision (MV) is the technology and methods used to provide imaging-based automatic inspection and analysis for such applications as automatic inspection, process control, and robot guidance, usually in industry. Machine vision refers to m ...
, such as to automatically count items in a factory conveyor belt. * materials science, such as determining if a metal weld has cracks. *
medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
, such as detecting cancer in a mammography scan. *
metallography Metallography is the study of the physical structure and components of metals, by using microscopy. Ceramic and polymeric materials may also be prepared using metallographic techniques, hence the terms ceramography, plastography and, collectiv ...
, such as determining the mineral content of a rock sample. *
microscopy Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view objects and areas of objects that cannot be seen with the naked eye (objects that are not within the resolution range of the normal eye). There are three well-known branches of micr ...
, such as counting the germs in a swab. *
automatic number plate recognition Automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR; see also #Other names, other names below) is a technology that uses optical character recognition on images to read vehicle registration plates to create vehicle location data. It can use existing close ...
; *
optical character recognition Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scen ...
, such as automatic license plate detection. *
remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring information about Earth ...
, such as detecting intruders in a house, and producing land cover/land use maps. *
robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...
, such as to avoid steering into an obstacle. *
security Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercive change) caused by others, by restraining the freedom of others to act. Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be of persons and social ...
, such as detecting a person's eye color or hair color.


Object-based

Object-based image analysis (OBIA) employs two main processes, segmentation and classification. Traditional image segmentation is on a per-pixel basis. However, OBIA groups pixels into homogeneous objects. These objects can have different shapes and scale. Objects also have statistics associated with them which can be used to classify objects. Statistics can include geometry, context and texture of image objects. The analyst defines statistics in the classification process to generate for example
land cover Land cover is the physical material at the surface of Earth. Land covers include grass, asphalt, trees, bare ground, water, etc. Earth cover is the expression used by ecologist Frederick Edward Clements that has its closest modern equivalent being ...
. When applied to
earth image Satellite images (also Earth observation imagery, spaceborne photography, or simply satellite photo) are images of Earth collected by imaging satellites operated by governments and businesses around the world. Satellite imaging companies sell i ...
s, OBIA is known as ''geographic object-based image analysis'' (GEOBIA), defined as "a sub-discipline of
geoinformation science Geographic information science or geographical information science (GIScience or GISc) is the scientific discipline that studies geographic information, including how it represents phenomena in the real world, how it represents the way humans unders ...
devoted to (...) partitioning
remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring information about Earth ...
(RS) imagery into meaningful image-objects, and assessing their characteristics through spatial, spectral and temporal scale". The international GEOBIA conference has been held biannually since 2006. Object-based image analysis is also applied in other fields, such as cell biology or medicine. It can for instance detect changes of cellular shapes in the process of cell differentiation. The technique is implemented in software such as
eCognition Cognition Network Technology (CNT), also known as Definiens Cognition Network Technology, is an object-based image analysis method developed by Nobel laureate Gerd Binnig together with a team of researchers at Definiens AG in Munich, Germany. I ...
or the
Orfeo toolbox In computer science, Orfeo Toolbox (OTB) is a software library for processing images from Earth observation satellites. OTB was initiated by the French space agency (CNES) in 2006. The software is released under a free licence; a number of contri ...
.


See also

* Archeological imagery * Imaging technologies *
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 ...
*
imc FAMOS FAMOS (short for fast analysis and monitoring of signals) is a graphical data analysis program for image analysis, evaluating and visually displaying measurement results. The program was introduced in 1987 by the German company imc Test & Measu ...
(1987), graphical data analysis *
Land cover mapping Land cover maps are tools that provide vital information about the Earth's land use and cover patterns. They aid policy development, urban planning, and forest and agricultural monitoring. The systematic mapping of land cover patterns, including c ...
*
Military intelligence Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a ...
*
Remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring information about Earth ...


References


Further reading

* ''The Image Processing Handbook'' by John C. Russ, (2006) * ''Image Processing and Analysis - Variational, PDE, Wavelet, and Stochastic Methods'' by
Tony F. Chan Tony Fan-Cheong Chan () is a Chinese American mathematician who has been serving as President of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) since 2018. Prior that, he was President of the Hong Kong University of Science an ...
an
Jianhong (Jackie) Shen
(2005) * ''Front-End Vision and Multi-Scale Image Analysis'' by Bart M. ter Haar Romeny, Paperback, (2003) * ''Practical Guide to Image Analysis'' by J.J. Friel, et al.,
ASM International ASM International is a Dutch headquartered multinational corporation that specializes in design, manufacturing, sales and service of semiconductor wafer processing equipment for the fabrication of semiconductor devices. ASM's products are use ...
, (2000). * ''Fundamentals of Image Processing'' by Ian T. Young, Jan J. Gerbrands, Lucas J. Van Vliet, Paperback, (1995) * ''Image Analysis and Metallography'' edited by P.J. Kenny, et al.,
International Metallographic Society International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...
and
ASM International ASM International is a Dutch headquartered multinational corporation that specializes in design, manufacturing, sales and service of semiconductor wafer processing equipment for the fabrication of semiconductor devices. ASM's products are use ...
(1989). * ''Quantitative Image Analysis of Microstructures'' by H.E. Exner & H.P. Hougardy, DGM Informationsgesellschaft mbH, (1988). * "Metallographic and Materialographic Specimen Preparation, Light Microscopy, Image Analysis and Hardness Testing", Kay Geels in collaboration with Struers A/S, ASTM International 2006. {{Authority control Computer vision Formal sciences