Digital image processing

An introduction to current trends in the digital processing and manipulation of images is presented. The paper does not attempt a detailed survey of the field, but outlines instead the motivation behind it, and the relationships between the ‘disciplines’ such as image enhancement, pattern recognition and scene analysis involved with processing images. Selected examples are used to indicate the state of the art. Finally the typical configuration of an image processing system is described. The processing speeds of available digital processors are discussed, and the need for special purpose processors is emphasized.