Advances in Image Analysis Research

The primary goal of this book is to provide students and practitioners in the field of image analysis with cohesive information and innovative (novel) techniques compiled from independent peer-reviewed studies across the globe. Image analysis is a multi-disciplinary subject that covers expansive subjects on photography, optics, physics, mathematics, software engineering, electronics, computer science, and information technology. The integration of these multi-disciplinary studies became the foundations of specialised and emerging fields, such as medical imaging, machine vision, image processing, and computer graphics. The term image analysis deals with the process of extracting features from digital images and analysing these extracted features into measurable parameters. Therefore, image analysis is composed of three integrated parts: a device that transform electromagnetic energy into an image (i.e. photography); a method of extracting features from an image (image processing); and an analytical method that measures extracted parameters (mathematics). Although a number of books and publications are available in the study of image analysis, no true integration is available that provides a singular reference to tie in the foundation of each subject into a unified format. The overarching aim of this book is to fill these gaps and describe each contributing discipline into the science of image analysis. Consequently, this book is presented into three unified sections.