Stochastic Image Processing

Stochastic Image Processing provides the first thorough treatment of Markov and hidden Markov random fields and their application to image processing. Although promoted as a promising approach for over thirty years, it has only been in the past few years that the theory and algorithms have developed to the point of providing useful solutions to old and new problems in image processing. Markov random fields are a multidimensional extension of Markov chains, but the generalization is complicated by the lack of a natural ordering of pixels in multidimensional spaces. Hidden Markov fields are a natural generalization of the hidden Markov models that have proved essential to the development of modern speech recognition, but again the multidimensional nature of the signals makes them inherently more complicated to handle. This added complexity contributed to the long time required for the development of successful methods and applications. This book collects together a variety of successful approaches to a complete and useful characterization of multidimensional Markov and hidden Markov models along with applications to image analysis. The book provides a survey and comparative development of an exciting and rapidly evolving field of multidimensional Markov and hidden Markov random fields with extensive references to the literature.

This book develops the mathematical foundation of modern image processing and low-level computer vision, bridging contemporary mathematics with state-of-the-art methodologies in modern image processing, whilst organizing contemporary literature into a coherent and logical structure. The authors have integrated the diversity of modern image processing approaches by revealing the few common threads that connect them to Fourier and spectral analysis, the machinery that image processing has been traditionally built on. The text is systematic and well organized: the geometric, functional, and atomic structures of images are investigated, before moving to a rigorous development and analysis of several image processors. The book is comprehensive and integrative, covering the four most powerful classes of mathematical tools in contemporary image analysis and processing while exploring their intrinsic connections and integration. The material is balanced in theory and computation, following a solid theoretical analysis of model building and performance with computational implementation and numerical examples.

Markov random field (MRF) theory provides a basis for modeling contextual constraints in visual processing and interpretation. It enables us to develop optimal vision algorithms systematically when used with optimization principles. This book presents a comprehensive study on the use of MRFs for solving computer vision problems. Various vision models are presented in a unified framework, including image restoration and reconstruction, edge and region segmentation, texture, stereo and motion, object matching and recognition, and pose estimation. This third edition includes the most recent advances and has new and expanded sections on topics such as: Bayesian Network; Discriminative Random Fields; Strong Random Fields; Spatial-Temporal Models; Learning MRF for Classification. This book is an excellent reference for researchers working in computer vision, image processing, statistical pattern recognition and applications of MRFs. It is also suitable as a text for advanced courses in these areas.

Markov processes are processes that have limited memory. In particular, their dependence on the past is only through the previous state. They are used to model the behavior of many systems including communications systems, transportation networks, image segmentation and analysis, biological systems and DNA sequence analysis, random atomic motion and diffusion in physics, social mobility, population studies, epidemiology, animal and insect migration, queueing systems, resource management, dams, financial engineering, actuarial science, and decision systems. Covering a wide range of areas of application of Markov processes, this second edition is revised to highlight the most important aspects as well as the most recent trends and applications of Markov processes. The author spent over 16 years in the industry before returning to academia, and he has applied many of the principles covered in this book in multiple research projects. Therefore, this is an applications-oriented book that also includes enough theory to provide a solid ground in the subject for the reader. Presents both the theory and applications of the different aspects of Markov processes Includes numerous solved examples as well as detailed diagrams that make it easier to understand the principle being presented Discusses different applications of hidden Markov models, such as DNA sequence analysis and speech analysis.

This text is concerned with a probabilistic approach to image analysis as initiated by U. GRENANDER, D. and S. GEMAN, B.R. HUNT and many others, and developed and popularized by D. and S. GEMAN in a paper from 1984. It formally adopts the Bayesian paradigm and therefore is referred to as 'Bayesian Image Analysis'. There has been considerable and still growing interest in prior models and, in particular, in discrete Markov random field methods. Whereas image analysis is replete with ad hoc techniques, Bayesian image analysis provides a general framework encompassing various problems from imaging. Among those are such 'classical' applications like restoration, edge detection, texture discrimination, motion analysis and tomographic reconstruction. The subject is rapidly developing and in the near future is likely to deal with high-level applications like object recognition. Fascinating experiments by Y. CHOW, U. GRENANDER and D.M. KEENAN (1987), (1990) strongly support this belief.

At no other time in human history have the influence and impact of image processing on modern society, science, and technology been so explosive. Image processing has become a critical component in contemporary science and technology and has many important applications. This book develops the mathematical foundation of modern image processing and low-level computer vision, and presents a general framework from the analysis of image structures and patterns to their processing. The core mathematical and computational ingredients of several important image processing tasks are investigated. The book bridges contemporary mathematics with state-of-the-art methodologies in modern image processing while organizing the vast contemporary literature into a coherent and logical structure.

Images are all around us! The proliferation of low-cost, high-quality imaging devices has led to an explosion in acquired images. When these images are acquired from a microscope, telescope, satellite, or medical imaging device, there is a statistical image processing task: the inference of something—an artery, a road, a DNA marker, an oil spill—from imagery, possibly noisy, blurry, or incomplete. A great many textbooks have been written on image processing. However this book does not so much focus on images, per se, but rather on spatial data sets, with one or more measurements taken over a two or higher dimensional space, and to which standard image-processing algorithms may not apply. There are many important data analysis methods developed in this text for such statistical image problems. Examples abound throughout remote sensing (satellite data mapping, data assimilation, climate-change studies, land use), medical imaging (organ segmentation, anomaly detection), computer vision (image classification, segmentation), and other 2D/3D problems (biological imaging, porous media). The goal, then, of this text is to address methods for solving multidimensional statistical problems. The text strikes a balance between mathematics and theory on the one hand, versus applications and algorithms on the other, by deliberately developing the basic theory (Part I), the mathematical modeling (Part II), and the algorithmic and numerical methods (Part III) of solving a given problem. The particular emphases of the book include inverse problems, multidimensional modeling, random fields, and hierarchical methods.

The subject of modelling and application of stochastic processes is too vast to be exhausted in a single volume. In this book, attention is focused on a small subset of this vast subject. The primary emphasis is on realization and approximation of stochastic systems. Recently there has been considerable interest in the stochastic realization problem, and hence, an attempt has been made here to collect in one place some of the more recent approaches and algorithms for solving the stochastic realiza tion problem. Various different approaches for realizing linear minimum-phase systems, linear nonminimum-phase systems, and bilinear systems are presented. These approaches range from time-domain methods to spectral-domain methods. An overview of the chapter contents briefly describes these approaches. Also, in most of these chapters special attention is given to the problem of developing numerically ef ficient algorithms for obtaining reduced-order (approximate) stochastic realizations. On the application side, chapters on use of Markov random fields for modelling and analyzing image signals, use of complementary models for the smoothing problem with missing data, and nonlinear estimation are included. Chapter 1 by Klein and Dickinson develops the nested orthogonal state space realization for ARMA processes. As suggested by the name, nested orthogonal realizations possess two key properties; (i) the state variables are orthogonal, and (ii) the system matrices for the (n + l)st order realization contain as their "upper" n-th order blocks the system matrices from the n-th order realization (nesting property).

Stochastic geometry is the branch of mathematics that studies geometric structures associated with random configurations, such as random graphs, tilings and mosaics. Due to its close ties with stereology and spatial statistics, the results in this area are relevant for a large number of important applications, e.g. to the mathematical modeling and statistical analysis of telecommunication networks, geostatistics and image analysis. In recent years – due mainly to the impetus of the authors and their collaborators – a powerful connection has been established between stochastic geometry and the Malliavin calculus of variations, which is a collection of probabilistic techniques based on the properties of infinite-dimensional differential operators. This has led in particular to the discovery of a large number of new quantitative limit theorems for high-dimensional geometric objects. This unique book presents an organic collection of authoritative surveys written by the principal actors in this rapidly evolving field, offering a rigorous yet lively presentation of its many facets.

This book develops the stochastic geometry framework for image analysis purpose. Two main frameworks are described: marked point process and random closed sets models. We derive the main issues for defining an appropriate model. The algorithms for sampling and optimizing the models as well as for estimating parameters are reviewed. Numerous applications, covering remote sensing images, biological and medical imaging, are detailed. This book provides all the necessary tools for developing an image analysis application based on modern stochastic modeling.