You should start to work on each project as soon as it is assigned. Don't wait until the night before it's due. You definitely won't be able to finish it if you do so.

No specific programming language required. You are free to choose any language such as Matlab (but without using the functions in the image processing toolbox), C, C++, Java, etc., and you can use any computer platform (Windows, Linux, Mac OS, etc.) to carry out all required projects. To help you with the programming efforts, certain functions written in C will be provided to you. Also an m-file template in Matlab is made available. However, if you prefer to use some language other than C or Matlab, you can convert the provided code to your preferred language.

For each of the projects, you will be required to submit the following electronically to the corresponding folder of the class directory at \\charlie\Courses\Engineering\E161\2013Fall\Project_n (where n is the project number from 1 to 8):

1. The input images used,
   
2. The corresponding output (processed) images, as specified in the project,
   
3. The source code used to generate the images.
   
4. A summary in a text file which concisely describes what you did for each part of the project, such as what methods were used, how the parameters were chosen, what effects were achieved, any some brief discussions/comments when needed.

Note:

(a) Name all image submitted by as lastname_firstname with an image index and extension indicating the format. For example, the second output image in pgm format submitted by Albert Einstein should be named as "einstein_albert_2.pgm". The extension for his text file is txt, i.e., "einstein_albert.txt".

(b) The source code submitted should include at the beginning as a comment the information for compilation, such as operating system and command used to compile. Your code may be compiled and rerun to check its validity. No credit will be given for any result that is not repeatable.

There exist many different digital image formats (gif, pbm, jpeg, tiff, bmp, etc.) Read these pages for detailed description of the formats:

• Wikipedia

• Swinburne Univ.

• Edinburgh Univ.

• Daubnet

However, in the code provided to you, only bmp (bitmap) and ppm/pgm (portable pixtmap/greymap) formats are used to input and output images. Any other image format can be converted to and from these two formats in various ways:

• If you use unix/linux, you can use xv that can read, convert and write images in most of the image formats. Also "convert" is a command in unix/linus environment which can also convert images in many different formats ("man convert" to learn more about this command).

• If you use Windows or Macintosh, then applications such as Photoshop are quite capable of image manipulations. There may also be some free software for Windows and Mac to use (but I am not a fan of those platforms).

• There is also a freely down-loadable package called ImageMagick which is a collection of tools and libraries to read, write, and manipulate an image in many image formats. ImageMagic can be installed in different platforms including Windows, Macintosh, various versions of Unix and Linux.

Unless otherwise specified, you are free to choose images to be processed. You may want to scan in some of your favorite photos. However, images in the following image databases or libraries can also be used.

In-house images

Stanford Center for Image Systems Engineering

USC-SIPI Image Database

Cambridge Image Database

PennState Database

In case you wonder why you see this Lenna image in many image processing books and publications, here is the story.

In-house c code