Image processing fundamentals

Digital/computational image processing (which we will refer to as image processing from this point forward) has become so popular in the modern era that it exists in numerous aspects of our everyday life. Image processing and manipulation are involved when you take a picture with your camera or phone using different filters, such as when advanced image editing software such as Adobe Photoshop is used, or even when you simply edit images using Microsoft Paint.

Many of the techniques and algorithms that are used in image processing were developed in the early 1960s for various purposes such as medical imaging, satellite image analysis, character recognition, and so on. However, these image processing techniques required significant computing power, and the fact that the available computer equipment at the time was unable to accommodate the need for fast number-crunching slowed down the use of image processing.

Fast-forwarding to the future, when powerful...