Re: [boost] VIGRA - Image processing for boost

From: Ullrich Koethe (u.koethe_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-11-13 18:36:55

> 
>  From looking at the home page it seems really interesting.  It's hard for
> a non-expert like me to easily grasp of applications it would be very
> useful for, possibly useful for, or unlikely to be useful for.
> 
> Could you give a few examples of each?
> 

VIGRA provides functionality similar to programs like PhotoShop, gimp,
and ImageMagick, or the java.awt.image package in Java 1.4. That is, you
can manipulate images in many different ways, like 

* change the size of an image (create thumbnails or enlargements with
very high quality)
* change colors (gamma correction, contrast adjustment, false colors,
color->gray etc.)
* filter the image (smooth, sharpen, emboss effect, denoise etc.)
* create composite images (tile many images into one, blend one over the
other etc.)
* perform geometric manipulations (flip, rotate etc.)
* extract object boundaries and measure object properties (area,
circumference, average color etc.)
* convert between different file formats (TIF -> JPEG and the like)
* restrict all the above to arbitrarily formed regions of interest

Some of this functionality is needed by any application that supports
graphics manipulation, e.g. internet browsers, presentation programs,
WYSIWIG word processors, databases that contain images and so on. In
contrast to programs like PhotoShop, VIGRA is designed so that users can
easily intergrate the functionality into their applications.

Besides the above uses which might be considered 'standard image
processing problems', VIGRA also contains a growing body of functions
for object recognition and image understanding. These can be useful e.g.
in an image database application to implement appearance based retrieval
methods. A long term goal is the creation of a system that takes a
collection of photographs and constructs a geometric 3D model of the
depicted object which is suitable for rendering in a virtual environment
(but this might be too specific for a general audience).

Of course, VIGRA is useless if you don't have to manipulate images ;-) 

Ulli
-- 
 ________________________________________________________________
|                                                                |
| Ullrich Koethe  Universität Hamburg / University of Hamburg    |
|                 FB Informatik / Dept. of Computer Science      |
|                 AB Kognitive Systeme / Cognitive Systems Group |
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