This book is concerned with the aspects of real-time, parallel computing which are specific to the analysis of digitized images including both the symbolic and semantic data derived from such images. The subjects covered encompass processing, storing, and transmitting images and image data. A variety of techniques and algorithms for the analysis and manipulation of images are explored both theoretically and in terms of implementation in hardware and software. The book is organized into four topic areas: (1) theo- retical development, (2) languages for image processing, (3) new computer...

In order to rea1ize real-time medica1 imaging systems, such as are used for computed tomography, automated miscroscopy, dynamic radioisotope imaging, etc., special techno1ogy is required. The high-speed image sour ce must be successfu11y married with the u1tra- high-speed computer. Usua11y the ordinary genera1-purpose computer is found to be inadequate to the image generation and/or image pro- cessing task. The ordinary computer executes instructions at be- tween 1 and 10 million per second. Speed has improved by only about a factor of 10 during the past 20 years. In contrast a typical com-...