Note that the first class meeting will be on Tuesday, September 27.
This course is about digital images (and video): how they are created, stored, compressed, transmitted, displayed, processed, and used in various applications. This is not a course on computer vision, image processing, or computer graphics - rather, it is a course that is in many ways complementary to these other subjects. Background in these areas is not required, although students who have some background in these subjects can also learn a good deal of valuable information in this course.
Computer imaging, visual computing, digital imaging.... Whatever one calls it, imaging is becoming increasingly important in computer- and communication-related fields. As computational power and bandwidth increase, more and more use is being made of images, video, and 3D in all sorts of applications and environments. Imaging is central to communications, entertainment, human-computer interaction, medicine, meteorology, transportation, space exploration, etc.
There are many types of image sources, imaging technologies, imaging systems, and applications of imaging. It is beneficial for people involved in various aspects of imaging to have a solid foundation in the range of relevant areas. For example, people working in image compression should understand specifically how the images are formed in order to take advantage of inherent constraints or redundancies caused by the imaging process. Similarly, engineers who design cameras should understand how their engineering decisions will impact people using those cameras for medical imaging or videophones.
In this course, we will explore the digital imaging process, from light and image formation to image processing to display systems, and investigate particular applications of imaging. Topics may include:
The physics of light, optics and image formation
Human vision
Color
Camera sensor technologies
Infrared (and other non-visible) sensing
Compression of image and video
Image displays
3D imaging
Computational photography
Biometrics
Automobile imaging systems
Interactive media
By the end of the course, students will understand how digital images are formed in detail, the implications of various imaging technologies and standards, the fundamentals of image processing and related areas, and how imaging systems are used in a variety of applications.