In the last 40 years, machine vision has evolved into a mature field embracing a wide range of applications including surveillance, automated inspection, robot assembly, vehicle guidance, traffic monitoring and control, signature verification, biometric measurement, and analysis of remotely sensed images. While researchers and industry specialists continue to document their work in this area, it has become increasingly difficult for professionals and graduate students to understand the essential theory and practicalities well enough to design their own algorithms and systems. This book directly addresses this need. As in earlier editions, E.R. Davies clearly and systematically presents the basic concepts of the field in highly accessible prose and images, covering essential elements of the theory while emphasizing algorithmic and practical design constraints. In this thoroughly updated edition, he divides the material into horizontal levels of a complete machine vision system. Application case studies demonstrate specific techniques and illustrate key constraints for designing real-world machine vision systems. * Includes solid, accessible coverage of 2-D and 3-D scene analysis.* Offers thorough treatment of the Hough Transform-a key technique for inspection and surveillance. * Brings vital topics and techniques together in an integrated system design approach. * Takes full account of the requirement for real-time processing in real applications.

Table of Contents

1. Vision, the Challenge Part 1 Low-Level Vision 2. Images and Imaging Operations 3. Basic Image Filtering Operations 4. Thresholding Techniques 5. Edge Detection 6. Binary Shape Analysis 7. Boundary Pattern Analysis 8. Mathematical Morphology Part 2 Intermediate-Level Vision 9. Line Detection 10. Circle Detection 11. The Hough Transform and Its Nature 12. Ellipse Detection 13. Hole Detection 14. Polygon and Corner Detection 15. Abstract Pattern Matching Techniques Part 3 3D Vision and Motion 16. The Three-Dimensional World 17. Tackling the Perspective n-Point Problem 18. Motion 19. Invariants and their Applications 20. Egomotion and Related Tasks 21. Image Transformations and Camera Calibration Part 4 Towards Real-Time Pattern Recognition Systems 22. Automated Visual Inspection 23. Inspection of Cereal Grains 24. Statistical Pattern Recognition 25. Biologically Inspired Recognition Schemes 26. Texture 27. Image Acquisition 28. Real-Time Hardware and Systems Design Considerations Part 5 Perspectives on Vision 29. Machine Vision, Art or Science? Appendix A Robust Statistics

About the Author

Roy Davies is a Professor of Machine Vision at Royal Holloway, University of London, and has extensive experience of machine vision, image analysis, automated visual inspection, and noise suppression techniques. His book Electronics, Noise, and Signal Recovery was published in 1993 by Academic Press, and is a useful companion to the present volume.

Prizes

* Includes solid, accessible coverage of 2-D and 3-D scene analysis. * Offers thorough treatment of the Hough Transforma key technique for inspection and surveillance. * Brings vital topics and techniques together in an integrated system design approach. * Takes full account of the requirement for real-time processing in real applications.

Reviews

"This book brings together the analytic aspects of image processing with the practicalities of applying the techniques in an industrial setting. It is excellent grounding for a machine vision researcher." - John Billingsley, University of Southern Queensland "The book in its previous incarnations has established its place as a unique repository of detailed analysis of important image processing and computer vision algorithms. This edition builds on these strengths and adds material to guide the reader's understanding of the latest developments in the field. The result is a comprehensive up-to-date reference text." - Farzin Deravi, University of Kent "This book is an essential reference for anyone developing techniques for machine vision analysis, including systems for industrial inspection, biomedical analysis, and much more. It comes from a long-term practitioner and is packed with the fundamental techniques required to build and prototype methods to test their applicability to the problem at hand." - Majid Mirmehdi, University of Bristol "The book contains a large number of experimental design and evaluation procedures that are of keen interest to industrial application engineers of machine vision." - William Wee, University of Cincinnati "Author E.R. Davies covers essential elements of the theory while addressing algorithmic and practical design constraints. In this updated edition, he divides the material into horizontal levels of a complete machine vision system. He includes coverage of 2-D and 3-D scene analysis, along with the Hough Transform, a key technique for inspection and surveillance." - Mechanical Engineering, August 2006