The Scientist and Engineer's Guide to
Digital Signal Processing
By Steven W. Smith, Ph.D.

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Figure 23-1 illustrates the structure of a digital image. This example image is of the planet Venus, acquired by microwave radar from an orbiting space probe. Microwave imaging is necessary because the dense atmosphere blocks visible light, making standard photography impossible. The image shown is represented by 40,000 samples arranged in a two-dimensional array of 200 columns by 200 rows. Just as with one-dimensional signals, these rows and columns can be numbered 0 through 199, or 1 through 200. In imaging jargon, each sample is called a pixel, a contraction of the phrase: picture element. Each pixel in this example is a single number between 0 and 255. When the image was acquired, this number related to the amount of microwave energy being reflected from the corresponding location on the planet's surface. To display this as a visual image, the value of each pixel is converted into a grayscale, where 0 is black, 255 is white, and the intermediate values are shades of gray.

Images have their information encoded in the spatial domain, the image equivalent of the time domain. In other words, features in images are represented by edges, not sinusoids. This means that the spacing and number of pixels are determined by how small of features need to be seen, rather than by the formal constraints of the sampling theorem. Aliasing can occur in images, but it is generally thought of as a nuisance rather than a major problem. For instance, pinstriped suits look terrible on television because the repetitive pattern is greater than the Nyquist frequency. The aliased frequencies appear as light and dark bands that move across the clothing as the person changes position.

A "typical" digital image is composed of about 500 rows by 500 columns. This is the image quality encountered in television, personnel computer applications, and general scientific research. Images with fewer pixels, say 250 by 250, are regarded as having unusually poor resolution. This is frequently the case with new imaging modalities; as the technology matures, more pixels are added. These low resolution images look noticeably unnatural, and the individual pixels can often be seen. On the other end, images with more than 1000 by 1000 pixels are considered exceptionally good. This is the quality of the best computer graphics, high-definition television, and 35 mm motion pictures. There are also applications needing even higher resolution, requiring several thousand pixels per side: digitized x-ray images, space photographs, and glossy advertisements in magazines.

The strongest motivation for using lower resolution images is that there are fewer pixels to handle. This is not trivial; one of the most difficult problems in image processing is managing massive amounts of data. For example, one second of digital audio requires about eight kilobytes. In comparison, one second of television requires about eight Megabytes. Transmitting a 500 by 500 pixel image over a 33.6 kbps modem requires nearly a minute! Jumping to an image size of 1000 by 1000 quadruples these problems.

It is common for 256 gray levels (quantization levels) to be used in image processing, corresponding to a single byte per pixel. There are several reasons for this. First, a single byte is convenient for data management, since this is how computers usually store data. Second, the large number of pixels in an image compensate to a certain degree for a limited number of quantization steps. For example, imagine a group of adjacent pixels alternating in value between digital numbers (DN) 145 and 146. The human eye perceives the region as a brightness of 145.5. In other words, images are very dithered. Third, and most important, a brightness step size of 1/256 (0.39%) is smaller than the eye can perceive. An image presented to a human observer will not be improved by using more than 256 levels.

However, some images need to be stored with more than 8 bits per pixel. Remember, most of the images encountered in DSP represent nonvisual parameters. The acquired image may be able to take advantage of more quantization levels to properly capture the subtle details of the signal. The point of this is, don't expect to human eye to see all the information contained in these finely spaced levels. We will consider ways around this problem during a later discussion of brightness and contrast.

The value of each pixel in the digital image represents a small region in the continuous image being digitized. For example, imagine that the Venus

probe takes samples every 10 meters along the planet's surface as it orbits overhead. This defines a square sample spacing and sampling grid, with each pixel representing a 10 meter by 10 meter area. Now, imagine what happens in a single microwave reflection measurement. The space probe emits a highly focused burst of microwave energy, striking the surface in, for example, a circular area 15 meters in diameter. Each pixel therefore contains information about this circular area, regardless of the size of the sampling grid.

This region of the continuous image that contributes to the pixel value is called the sampling aperture. The size of the sampling aperture is often related to the inherent capabilities of the particular imaging system being used. For example, microscopes are limited by the quality of the optics and the wavelength of light, electronic cameras are limited by random electron diffusion in the image sensor, and so on. In most cases, the sampling grid is made approximately the same as the sampling aperture of the system. Resolution in the final digital image will be limited primary by the larger of the two, the sampling grid or the sampling aperture. We will return to this topic in Chapter 25 when discussing the spatial resolution of digital images.

Color is added to digital images by using three numbers for each pixel, representing the intensity of the three primary colors: red, green and blue. Mixing these three colors generates all possible colors that the human eye can perceive. A single byte is frequently used to store each of the color intensities, allowing the image to capture a total of 256?256?256 = 16.8 million different colors.

Color is very important when the goal is to present the viewer with a true picture of the world, such as in television and still photography. However, this is usually not how images are used in science and engineering. The purpose here is to analyze a two-dimensional signal by using the human visual system as a tool. Black and white images are sufficient for this.