Image analysis is the extraction of useful information from images; mainly from digital images by means of digital image processing techniques. Image analysis tasks can be as simple as reading bar coded tags or as sophisticated as identifying a person by its face.

Computers are indispensable for the analysis of large amounts of data, for tasks that require complex computation, of for the extraction of quantitative information such as particle counts, areas, or integrated desities. On the other hand, the human visual cortex is an excellent image analysis apparatus, especially for higher-level information; and for many applications -- such as medicine, security, biology, remote sensing -- human analysts still cannot be replaced by computers. For this reason, many important image analysis tools -- such as edge detectors and neural networks try to mimic human visual perception processes, or were at least inspired by them.

Digital image analysis largely contains the fields of computer and machine vision, and is strongly connected to pattern recognition and signal processing. This field of computer science developed in the 1950s at academic institutions such as the MIT A.I. Lab, originally as a branch of artificial intelligence and robotics.

The applications of digital image analysis are continuously expanding, through all areas of science and industry, including

• medicine
• microscopy
• remote sensing
• astronomy
• defense
• metereology
• materials science
• manufacturing
• agriculture
• security
• robotics
• document processing
• assay plate reading

Each of these application areas spawned a separate subfield of digital image analysis, with a large collection of specialized algorithms and concepts -- and with its own journals, books, conferences, technical societies, etc.

External links

• Computer vision wikicity