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Computer images are everywhere, occupying a dominant part of the computer culture and now rivaling their analogue cousin the TV image in popularity, a process bound to increase with the advent of digital TV. This book is about the computer image, emphasizing the 'how', but also addressing the 'whys' and 'wherefores' of this creation of the 20th century. Where did it come from? Where is it going? What is its importance? These questions cannot be answered without a knowledge of the technology itself, its past and its evolutionary forces. The three main fields of computer imagery - Computer graphics, image Processing and Computer vision - are merging in many applications. Computer Vision techniques are used in computer graphics to collect and model complex scenes; computer graphics techniques are used to constrain the recognition of 3D objects by computers; image processing techniques are routinely used by graphic designers to manipulate photographs. For the first time this textbook brings all three areas together in a coherent overview. Special features Unique breadth of coverage of subjects that have previously only appeared in separate texts. Novel treatment of the moving image, Virtual reality, medical imaging and computer art. Packaged with the book is a CD-ROM that provides implementations of many of the techniques described in the book. The CD-ROM contains scene files, animation demonstrations, a complete set of all the images used in the book and a suite of programs. The software can be used for teaching, experimentation and the development of an application package. The source code is written in C++. The software includes a Z-buffer renderer, a distributed ray tracer, a radiosity renderer, an image processing module containing all the normal filtering facilities and transforms, morphing and warping software particle/elastic object simulation with collision detection, a progressive image compressor using wavelets (including a Java, ActiveX, OLE, 3DSMAX plugin), stereo and autostereogram generator, modeling software (including a Bezier modeller and a rnesh optimizer), computer vision software including depth from stereo, (low field estimation, object tracking and classification of satelliteimagery.