Preface

Digital imaging and image processing are among the major components of modern information technologies. Their very fundamental operation is a conversion of analog signals of image sensors into digital signals, i.e., into arrays of numbers that are stored and processed in the memory of digital cameras and computers, transmitted via digital communication channels and used for recreating images in display devices. This conversion is implemented through image sampling, i.e., by taking, in one or another way, signal samples at certain positions throughout the image area.

Optimal design and implementation of image sampling require answering the question:

- What is the minimum sampling rate, i.e., the minimal amount of numbers sufficient for representing images with a given accuracy?

- How can one sample images with sampling rates close to the theoretical minimum?

- Is it possible to implement image resampling without introducing additional distortions due to the resampling?

The book answers these questions. It provides both the most updated formulations of the sampling theory and practical algorithms of image sampling with sampling rates close to the theoretical minimum, as well as introduces interpolation error-free methods of image resampling. In addition, the book presents a number of examples of applications of the described methods. The book is supplemented by a MATLAB© program package for exercising.