Multimedia

Graphics/Image Data Types

The number of file formats used in
multimedia continues to proliferate.
For example, Table shows a list of some
file formats used in the popular product
Macromedia Director.

1-bit Images
Each pixel is stored as a single bit (0 or
1), so also referred to as binary image.
Such an image is also called a 1-bit
monochrome image since it contains no
color.
here shows a 1-bit monochrome image
(called Lena by multimedia scientists this is a standard image used to illustrate many
algorithms).

COLOR SCIENCE
Recall from high school that light is an
electromagnetic wave and that its color is
characterized by the wavelength of the
wave.
Laser light consists of a single wavelength ~
for example, a ruby laser produces a bright,
scarlet beam.
most light sources produce contributions
over many wavelengths.
Humans cannot detect all light.

COLOR SCIENCE
We measure visible light using a device called a
spectrophotometer,
by
reflecting
light
from a diffraction grating (a ruled surface) that
spreads out the different wavelengths, much
as a prism does.
Prism generates a rainbow effect, due to a natural
phenomenon called dispersion.
A similar effect on the surface of a soap bubble.

Visible light is an electromagnetic wave in the range

400--700 nm
(where nm stands for nanometer, or 10-9 meter).

COLOR SCIENCE
Figure shows the relative power in
each wavelength interval for typical
outdoor light on a sunny day.

COLOR SCIENCE
This type of curve, called a spectral power distribution
(SPD), or spectrum.
It shows the relative amount of light energy
(electromagnetic
signal)
at
each
wavelength.

COLOR SCIENCE
HumanVision:
The eye works like a camera, with the lens focusing an
image onto the retina (upside, down and left-right
reversed).
The retina consists of an array of rods and three kinds of
cones.
The rods come into play when light levels are low and
produce an image in shades of gray ("At night, all cats
are gray!").
For higher light levels, the cones each produce a signal.
Because of their differing pigments.
The three kinds of cones are most sensitive to red (R),
green (G), and blue (B) light.

COLOR SCIENCE
Spectral Sensitivity of the Eye:
The eye is most sensitive to light in the middle of the
visible spectrum.
In Figure, it show the relative sensitivity as a function
of wavelength.
The blue receptor sensitivity is not shown to scale,
because it is much smaller than the curves for red or
green.

(statistically, is the favorite color of humans, regardless of

nationality - perhaps for this reason: blue is a bit
surprising!).

Figure also shows the overall sensitivity as a dashed

line, called the luminous-efficiency function.

It is usually denoted V() and is the sum of the response

curves to red, green, and blue.

COLOR SCIENCE
The eye has about 6 million cones, but the
proportions of R, G, and B cones are
different.
They likely are present in the ratios 40:20: I.

COLOR SCIENCE
So the achromatic channel produced by the cones is
thus something like 2R + G + B /20.
here lets use a vector function q (), with
components
Q () = (qR(); qG(); qB())T

COLOR SCIENCE
The response in each color channel in the eye
is proportional to the number of neurons
firing.
A laser light at wavelength would result in a
certain number of neurons firing.
An SPD is a combination of single frequency
lights, so we add up the cone responses for all
wavelengths, weighted by the eyes relative
response
at
that
wavelength.

COLOR SCIENCE
We can succinctly write down this
idea in the form of an integral:
R = E() qR() d
G = E() qG() d
B = E() qB() d

 Image Formation:
Surfaces reflect different amounts of light
at different wavelengths, and dark surfaces
reflect less energy than light surfaces.
Following Fig. shows the surface spectral
reflectance from (1) orange sneakers and
(2) faded blue jeans.
The reflectance function is denoted S().

Surface spectral reflectance

functions S() for objects.

 Image formation is thus:

Light from the illuminant with SPD E() impinges on a
surface, with surface spectral reflectance function
S(), is reflected, and then is filtered by the eyes
cone functions q ().
Reflection is shown in Fig.
The function C() is called the color signal and
consists
of the product of E(), the illuminant, times S(), the
reflectance:

C() = E() S().

Image formation model

 The equations that take into account

the image formation
model are:
R = E () S() qR() d
G = E () S() qG() d
B = E() S() qB() d

 Camera Systems
Camera systems are made in a similar fashion; a studio
quality camera has three signals produced at each pixel
location (corresponding to a retinal position).
Analog signals are converted to digital, truncated to
integers, and stored.

If the precision used is 8-bit, then the maximum value for any of
R; G; B is 255, and the minimum is 0.

However, the light entering the eye of the computer user

is
that which is emitted by the screen-the screen is
essentially a self-luminous source.
Therefore we need to know the light E() entering the eye.

 Gamma Correction
The light emitted is in fact roughly proportional to
the voltage raised to a power; this power is called
gamma, with symbol .
Thus, if the file value in the red channel is R, the
screen emits light proportional to R.
It is customary to append a prime to signals that
are
gamma-corrected by raising to the power (1/)
before
transmission. Thus we arrive at linear signals:
R R = R1/ => (R) R

 Fig. 1 shows light output with no gamma-correction

applied. We see that darker values are displayed too
dark.
Fig. 2 shows the effect of pre-correcting signals by
applying the power law R1/.

(a): Display of ramp from 0 to 255, with no gamma

correction. (b): Image with gamma correction
applied
Here, a ramp is shown in 16 steps from gray-level 0 to gray-level
255.

 A more careful definition of gamma

recognizes that a simple
power law would result in an infinite
derivative at zero voltage | makes
constructing a circuit to accomplish
gamma
correction difficult to devise in analog.
In practice a more general transform,
such as R R = a R1= + b