Purpose of this book

This book is written as an introduction for people who are new to the area of digital imaging. Readers may be planning to go into the imaging business, to use imaging for purposes peripheral to their main interest or to conduct research in any of the many areas of image processing and analysis. For each of these readers, this text covers the basics that will be used at some point in almost every task.

The common factors in all of image processing are the capture and display of images. While many people are engaged in the high-level processing that goes on between these two points, the starting and ending points are critical. The imaging worker needs to know exactly what the image data represents before meaningful analysis or interpretation can be done. The results of most image processing results in an output image that must be displayed and interpreted by an observer. To display such an image accurately, the worker must know the characteristics of the image and the display device. This book introduces the reader to the methods used for analyzing and characterizing image input and output devices. It presents the techniques necessary for interpreting images to determine the best ways to capture and display them.

Since accuracy of both capture and display is a major motivation for this text, it is necessary to emphasize a mathematical approach.