This book contains the proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop held in Maratea (Italy), May 5-9, 1986 on Pyramidal Systems for Image Processing and Computer Vision. We had 40 participants from 11 countries playing an active part in the workshop and all the leaders of groups that have produced a prototype pyramid machine or a design for such a machine were present. Within the wide field of parallel architectures for image processing a new area was recently born and is growing healthily: the area of pyramidally structured multiprocessing systems. Essentially, the processors are arranged in planes (from a base to an apex) each one of which is generally a reduced (usually by a power of two) version of the plane underneath: these processors are horizontally interconnected (within a plane) and vertically connected with "fathers" (on top planes) and "children" on the plane below. This arrangement has a number of interesting features, all of which were amply discussed in our Workshop including the cellular array and hypercube versions of pyramids. A number of projects (in different parts of the world) are reported as well as some interesting applications in computer vision, tactile systems and numerical calculations.

This book offers readers a broad view of research in some Western and Eastern European countries on pattern and signal analysis, and on coding, handling and measurement of images. It is a selection of refereed papers from two sources: first, a satellite conference within the biannual International Conference on Pattern Recognition held in Rome, November 14-17, 1988, and second, work done at the International Basic Laboratory on Image Processing and Computer Graphics, Berlin, GDR. The papers are grouped into three sections. The first section contains new proposals for the specific computation of particular features of digital images and the second section is devoted to the introduction and testing of general approaches to the solution of problems met in digital geometry, image coding, feature extraction and object classification. The third section illustrates some recent practical results obtained on real images specifically in character and speech recognition as well as in biomedicine. All the techniques illustrated in this book will find direct application in the near future. This book should interest and stimulate the reader, provoke new thoughts and encourage further research in this widely appealing field.

Artificial Vision is a rapidly growing discipline, aiming to build computational models of the visual functionalities in humans, as well as machines that emulate them. Visual communication in itself involves a numberof challenging topics with a dramatic impact on contemporary culture where human-computer interaction and human dialogue play a more and more significant role.
This state-of-the-art book brings together carefully selected review articles from world renowned researchers at the forefront of this exciting area. The contributions cover topics including image processing, computational geometry, optics, pattern recognition, and computer science. The book is divided into three sections. Part I covers active vision; Part II deals with the integration of visual with cognitive capabilities; and Part III concerns visual communication.
Artificial Vision will be essential reading for students and researchers in image processing, vision, and computer science who want to grasp the current concepts and future directions of this challenging field.
Key Features
* This state-of-the-art book brings together selected review articles and accounts of current projects from world-renowned researchers at the forefront of this exciting area; The contributions cover topics such as:
* psychology of perception
* image processing
* computational geometry
* visual knowledge representation and languages
* It is this truly multi-disciplinary approach that has produced successful theories and applications for the subject.

The exponential explosion of images and videos concerns everybody's common life, since this media is now present everywhere and in all human activities. Scientists, artists and engineers, in any field, need to be aware of the basic mechanisms that allow them to understand how images are essentially information carriers. Images bear a strong evocative power because their perception quickly brings into mind a number of related pictorial contents of past experiences and even of abstract concepts like pleasure, attraction or aversion. This book analyzes the visual hints, thanks to which images are generally interpreted, processed and exploited both by humans and computer programs.