REAL-TIME IMAGE PROCESSING.

Abstract

Recent advances in hardware and algorithms, coupled with a dramatic increase in the amount of data that are being processed, have made digital image processing a rapidly growing field. The need for real-time image processing became evident with the expanding utilization of television imaging to the industrial, medical, and military environments. Many of these applications involve acquisition, processing, and display in fractions of a second. Optical image processing depends on lenses, apertures, and phase plates, which are used to process a modulated beam of light. Digital image processing is very flexible and although at present it has other limitations, such as speed, size, and frequency range, it is evolving rapidly. This chapter deals with real-time image processing accomplished by digital techniques as the processing of images that can be viewed on an appropriate display, with an apparent continuity.