Image analysis is a fundamental task for extracting information from images acquired across a range of different devices. Since reliable quantitative results are requested, image analysis requires highly sophisticated numerical and analytical methods—particularly for applications in medicine, security, and remote sensing, where the results of the processing may consist of vitally important data. The contributions to this book provide a good overview of the most important demands and solutions concerning this research area. In particular, the reader will find image analysis applied for feature extraction, encryption and decryption of data, color segmentation, and in the support new technologies. In all the contributions, entropy plays a pivotal role.

Spatial statistics is one of the most rapidly growing areas of statistics, rife with fascinating research opportunities. Yet many statisticians are unaware of those opportunities, and most students in the United States are never exposed to any course work in spatial statistics. Written to be accessible to the nonspecialist, this volume surveys the applications of spatial statistics to a wide range of areas, including image analysis, geosciences, physical chemistry, and ecology. The book describes the contributions of the mathematical sciences, summarizes the current state of knowledge, and identifies directions for research.

Forty years ago, in 1957, the Principle of Maximum Entropy was first intro duced by Jaynes into the field of statistical mechanics. Since that seminal publication, this principle has been adopted in many areas of science and technology beyond its initial application. It is now found in spectral analysis, image restoration and a number of branches ofmathematics and physics, and has become better known as the Maximum Entropy Method (MEM). Today MEM is a powerful means to deal with ill-posed problems, and much research work is devoted to it. My own research in the area ofMEM started in 1980, when I was a grad uate student in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Sydney, Australia. This research work was the basis of my Ph.D. the sis, The Maximum Entropy Method and Its Application in Radio Astronomy, completed in 1985. As well as continuing my research in MEM after graduation, I taught a course of the same name at the Graduate School, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijingfrom 1987to 1990. Delivering the course was theimpetus for developing a structured approach to the understanding of MEM and writing hundreds of pages of lecture notes.

Digital image processing and analysis is a field that continues to experience rapid growth, with applications in many facets of our lives. Areas such as medicine, agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, communication systems, and space exploration are just a few of the application areas. This book takes an engineering approach to image processing and analysis, including more examples and images throughout the text than the previous edition. It provides more material for illustrating the concepts, along with new PowerPoint slides. The application development has been expanded and updated, and the related chapter provides step-by-step tutorial examples for this type of development. The new edition also includes supplementary exercises, as well as MATLAB-based exercises, to aid both the reader and student in development of their skills.

This introduction to the fundamental concepts and methodologies of image processing is suitable for first-year postgraduate and senior undergraduate students in almost every engineering discipline, and in particular meets the requirement of the prescribed courses in the streams: Electronics and Communication, Computer Science and Engineering, Information Technology, and Computer Applications. The book, now in its second edition, continues to offer a balanced exposition of the basic principles and applications of image processing. It lays considerable emphasis on the algorithmic approach in order to teach students how to write good practical programs for problem solving. Major topics covered in the book include Image fundamentals, Different image transforms, Image enhancement in the spatial and frequency domains, Restoration, Image analysis, Image description, Image compression, Image reconstruction from projections, and Applications of image processing in the areas of biometrics, speaker recognition, satellite imaging, medical imaging, and many more. The style of presentation is comprehensive and application oriented, comprising examples, diagrams, image results, case studies of applications, and review questions—making it easy for students to understand key ideas, their practical relevance and applications. NEW TO THIS EDITION • Object representation, recognition and classification • MATLAB programs for image processing • OpenCV programs for image processing