Go digital, Go fuzzy

Abstract

In many application areas of imaging sciences, object information captured in multi-dimensional images needs to be extracted, visualized, manipulated, and analyzed. These four groups of operations have been (and are being) intensively investigated, developed, and applied in a variety of applications. In this paper, we put forth two main arguments: (1) Computers are digital, and most image acquisition and communication efforts at present are toward digital approaches. In the same vein, there are considerable advantages to taking an inherently digital approach to the above four groups of operations rather than using concepts based on continuous approximations. (2) Considering the fact that images are inherently fuzzy, to handle uncertainties and heterogeneity of object properties realistically, approaches based on fuzzy sets should be taken to the above four groups of operations. We give two examples in support of these arguments. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.