From: otto@ifi.uio.no (Otto Milvang)
Subject: Re: Public Domain Imageing Library
Organization: Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 14:23:58 GMT
Originator: otto@solva.ifi.uio.no



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           Free Software for Image Processing
    XITE -- X-based Image processing Tools and Environment
            Tor Lonnestad  and Otto Milvang
  BLAB, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway

This UNIX software consists of:

 -- File format BIFF (Blab Image File Format)
 -- X11 - based displayprogram with Image widget and GUI
 -- More than 140 programs for image processing
 -- More than 200 subroutines for image processing
 -- On-line documentation of all routines and programs
 -- Some images on BIFF format

FILE FORMAT

The file format is a raster format for 2D and 3D images. In case of 3D,
the image is viewed as a sequence of bands, the image may contain
any number of bands. Each band may have its own size and pixel type.
The image file contains the neccessary parameters (e.g. sizes and pixel
types), pixel data ordered band by band, line by line, any amount of
textual data, regularly used to store the processing history of the
image, and finally any amount of other data.
An internal C data structure is also defined, able to hold the whole
image, information as well as pixels. The individual pixels are accessed
by normal indexing. Simple routines are used to read (write) a whole
image from (to) file or a channel, more complex routines are provided
if you want to access only a part of the file.

XSHOW - X11-BASED DISPLAYPROGRAM WITH GUI

xshow displays images of arbitrary size and pixel type under X11 and 
works on most types of displays (1 - 24 bit planes). The images may be 
scaled, zoomed and panned. Look up tables may be selected from a menu of
predefined and userdefined LUTs. The LUT may also be specified in a
histogram window. The user may design menus of programs and activate 
a program by selecting the program from the menues. If the result of the
program is a new image this will  appear as a new image window on the
display. In this way xshow works as a graphical interface to the program
library. 

PROGRAMS

 -- Image information: size, min, max, median, mean, st. dev.
 -- Image treatment: subimages, scaling, merging images.
 -- Histogram, scattergram, histogram transformations.
 -- Global and local tresholding.
 -- Convolution: mean, Compass, Laplace.
 -- Gradient, Roberts, Sobel, Prewitt.
 -- Lokal operators based on lokal st. dev.
 -- Lokal operators: median, min, max, sigma, knn, kncn, snn.
 -- Genererate, add or multiply gaussic noice.
 -- Aritmetic, add, subtract, multiply and divide images.
 -- Dithering, production of PostScript images.
 -- Rotation, mirroring, affine transformations.
 -- Fourier transform, Hartley transform.
 -- Non-supervised classification.
 -- Image analysis, measuring area, perimeter, moments,  etc.
 -- Texture estimation: lit, lit-snn, glcm, grey level run

ROUTINES

All routines are written in C, and you will find:
 -- Everything listed under programs.
 -- Biff-routines for image treatment (mainly I/O)
 -- Image widget and histogram widget for X11.

DOCUMENTATION

A standard routine header is defined. When this header is used,
a program "cdoc" will find the comments, reformat them and produce
LaTeX or troff-code. If you use "xman" you will have a graphical
interface to the documentation of all programs and routines.

TIME CONSUMPTION

All  algorithms are tested on images of size 512x512x1 byte.
Time consumption (user time) is measured by the program "time"
under UNIX,  and displayed in seconds. Some examples:

Algorithm         | Sun 3/60 | Sun 4/260 | DS 3100 | DS 5000/200
----------------------------------------------------------------
konvolution 3x3   |    4.58  |     2.16  |   1.31  |    0.78
konvolution 7x7   |   22.98  |    17.82  |  16.50  |    8.96
sobel             |    2.76  |     1.01  |   0.80  |    0.50
median 3x3        |    7.92  |     3.12  |   2.37  |    1.50
median 11x11      |   18.96  |     7.42  |   5.87  |    3.80
mean 3x3          |    2.24  |     2.14  |   1.02  |    0.60
mean 11x11        |    2.40  |     2.17  |   1.02  |    0.60
minarea 11x11     |    4.04  |     1.76  |   1.35  |    0.91
2D FFT float      |   222.8  |    59.25  |  15.93  |    9.59
2D FFT double     |   221.4  |    39.13  |  16.09  |    9.77
----------------------------------------------------------------

HOW TO GET THE SOFTWARE

You can get the software with anonymous ftp from ftp.ifi.uio.no
(129.240.88.1) or ifi.uio.no (129.240.66.1). A file "README"
describes how to get the software and how to install it.

  % ftp ftp.ifi.uio.no
  Name (slembe.uio.no:otto): anonymous
  Password:otto@ifi.uio.no              (your e-mail address)
  ftp> cd /pub/blab/software
  ftp> ascii
  ftp> get README
  ftp> get install
  ftp> bin
  ftp> get blab.tar.Z
  ftp> quit
  %

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-- 
Otto Milvang, Dept. of Informatics, Box 1080, Blindern, 0316 Oslo, Norway.
E-mail: otto@ifi.uio.no, Phone (+47) 45 36 97,  Fax (+47) 85 24 01