Image analysis is one of the most challenging areas in today's computer sci ence, and image technologies are used in a host of applications. This book concentrates on image textures and presents novel techniques for their sim ulation, retrieval, and segmentation using specific Gibbs random fields with multiple pairwise interaction between signals as probabilistic image models. These models and techniques were developed mainly during the previous five years (in relation to April 1999 when these words were written). While scanning these pages you may notice that, in spite of long equa tions, the mathematical background is extremely simple. I have tried to avoid complex abstract constructions and give explicit physical (to be spe cific, "image-based") explanations to all the mathematical notions involved. Therefore it is hoped that the book can be easily read both by professionals and graduate students in computer science and electrical engineering who take an interest in image analysis and synthesis. Perhaps, mathematicians studying applications of random fields may find here some less traditional, and thus controversial, views and techniques.

This text presents techniques for describing image textures. Contrary to the usual practice of embedding the images to known modelling frameworks borrowed from statistical physics or other domains, this book deduces the Gibbs models from basic image features and tailors the modelling framework to the images. This approach results in more general Gibbs models than can be either Markovian or non-Markovian and possess arbitrary interaction structures and strengths. The book presents computationally feasible algorithms for parameter estimation and image simulation and demonstrates their abilities and limitations by numerous experimental results.

Introduces the theory and application of Markov random fields in image processing/computer vision. Modelling images through the local interaction of Markov models produces algorithms for use in texture analysis, image synthesis, restoration, segmentation and surface reconstruction.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 11th International Workshop on Theoretical Foundations of Computer Vision, held in Dagstuhl Castle, Germany in April 2002. The 27 revised full papers presented went through two rounds of reviewing and improvement and assess the state of the art in geometry, morphology, and computational imaging. The papers are organized in sections on geometry - models and algorithms; property measurement in the grid and on finite samples; features, shape, and morphology; and computer vision and scene analysis.

This volume contains all papers presented at SSPR 2004 and SPR 2004, hosted by the Instituto de Telecomunicac ̃ ̧oes/Instituto Superior T ́ ecnico, Lisbon, Portugal, August 18-20, 2004. This was the fourth time that the two workshops were held back-to-back. The SSPR was the tenth International Workshop on Structural and Synt- tic Pattern Recognition, and the SPR was the ?fth International Workshop on Statistical Techniques in Pattern Recognition. These workshops have traditi- ally been held in conjunction with ICPR (International Conference on Pattern Recognition), and are the major events for technical committees TC2 and TC1, respectively, of the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR). The workshops were closely coordinated, being held in parallel, with plenary talks and a common session on hybrid systems. This was an attempt to resolve thedilemmaofhowto dealwiththeneedfornarrow-focusspecializedworkshops yet accommodate the presentation of new theories and techniques that blur the distinction between the statistical and the structural approaches. A total of 219 papers were received from many countries, with the subm- sion and reviewing processes being carried out separately for each workshop. A total of 59 papers were accepted for oral presentation and 64 for posters. In - dition, four invited speakers presented informative talks and overviews of their research. They were: Alberto Sanfeliu, from the Technical University of Cata- nia, Spain; Marco Gori, from the University of Siena, Italy; Nello Cristianini, from the University of California, USA; and Erkki Oja, from Helsinki University of Technology, Finland, winner of the 2004 Pierre Devijver Award.

This handbook gathers together the state of the art on mathematical models and algorithms for imaging and vision. Its emphasis lies on rigorous mathematical methods, which represent the optimal solutions to a class of imaging and vision problems, and on effective algorithms, which are necessary for the methods to be translated to practical use in various applications. Viewing discrete images as data sampled from functional surfaces enables the use of advanced tools from calculus, functions and calculus of variations, and nonlinear optimization, and provides the basis of high-resolution imaging through geometry and variational models. Besides, optimization naturally connects traditional model-driven approaches to the emerging data-driven approaches of machine and deep learning. No other framework can provide comparable accuracy and precision to imaging and vision. Written by leading researchers in imaging and vision, the chapters in this handbook all start with gentle introductions, which make this work accessible to graduate students. For newcomers to the field, the book provides a comprehensive and fast-track introduction to the content, to save time and get on with tackling new and emerging challenges. For researchers, exposure to the state of the art of research works leads to an overall view of the entire field so as to guide new research directions and avoid pitfalls in moving the field forward and looking into the next decades of imaging and information services. This work can greatly benefit graduate students, researchers, and practitioners in imaging and vision; applied mathematicians; medical imagers; engineers; and computer scientists.

This volume presents the proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns (CAIP 2003). This conference - ries started about 18 years ago in Berlin. Initially, the conference served as a forum for meetings between scientists from Western- and Eastern-bloc co- tries. Nowadays, the conference attracts participants from all over the world. The conference gives equal weight to posters and oral presentations, and the selected presentation mode is based on the most appropriate communication medium. The programme follows a single-track format, rather than parallel s- sions. Non-overlapping oral and poster sessions ensure that all attendees have the opportunity to interact personally with presenters. As for the numbers, we received a total of 160 submissions. All papers were reviewed by two to three members of the Programme Committee. The ?nal - lection was carried out by the Conference Chairs. Out of the 160 papers, 42 were selected for oral presentation and 52 as posters. At this point, we wish to thank the Programme Committee and additional referees for their timely and high-quality reviews. The paper submission and review procedure was carried out electronically. We thank Marcin Morg ́ os from Scalar–IT Solutions for p- viding us with the Web-based participant registration system. We also thank the invited speakers Nicholas Ayache, John Daugman, and Dariu Gavrila, for kindly accepting our invitation.