The Pixelated Image

Abstract

We think of images as smoothly continuous, but we frequently handle them in small pieces. This chapter is about the consequences of dividing the image space into small boxes called pixels and assigning each a number---the pixel value or gray level. We do not display every x position, but rather divide the x axis into perhaps 1000 parts and choose our x locations from those. Similarly, we don't display all the imaginable pixel values, but rather divide the intensity range into parts (gray levels) and choose our pixel values from those.