1.3 Computer graphics and other related fields

With the rapid advances in graphics system, three main fields of computer imagery (computer graphics, image processing and computer vision) are beginning to merge in many applications.

The main task in computer graphics or image synthesis is to create pictures or images using a computer. In three-dimensional computer graphics the image is generated by a program from a mathematical description or a model. Computer graphics takes a three-dimensional model and calculates a two-dimensional projection for display. It is a kind of synthetic camera.

The main task in image processing (IP) is to improve or alter images that were created elsewhere, perhaps digitized from photographs or captured by a video recorder. Thus, IP is the manipulation of an image to produce another image which is in some way different from the input image.

IP applies techniques to modify or interpret existing pictures, such as photographs and TV scans. Two principle applications of image processing are:

	Improve picture quality.
	Machine perception of visual information, as used in robotics.

1.3 Computer graphics and other related fields

Medical applications also make extensive use of image processing techniques for picture enhancements, in tomography and in simulations of operations.

Tomography is a technique of X-ray photography that allows cross-sectional views of physiological systems to be displayed. Both computed X-ray tomography (CT) and position emission tomography (PET) use projection methods to reconstruct cross sections from digital data.

Image processing and computer graphics are often combined in medical applications to model and study physical functions, to design artificial limbs, and to plan and practice surgery. Computer vision (or image understanding or pattern recognition) on the other hand is the extraction of information from an image.

In some aspects, computer graphics and computer vision are the inverse of each other. Computer graphics aims to model the way in which a light interacts with a model and produces a two-dimensional image for display. Computer vision attempts the inverse of this operation and is concerned with deriving information from a two-dimensional projection of a scene or an object. Thus we can summarize the relationship between these three related fields as follows:

Image synthesis or computer graphics is normally three-dimensional model in, two-dimensional image out.

1.3 Computer graphics and other related fields

	Image processing is normally three-dimensional reality as two-dimensional image (or two-dimensional reality) in, two-dimensional image out.
	Computer Vision is normally three-dimensional reality as two-dimensional projection in, numbers, classifications or actionout.

1.3 Computer graphics and other related fields

1.3 Computer graphics and other related fields

1.3 Computer graphics and other related fields

1.3 Computer graphics and other related fields

1.3 Computer graphics and other related fields

1.3 Computer graphics and other related fields

1.3 Computer graphics and other related fields

1.3 Computer graphics and other related fields

1.3 Computer graphics and other related fields

1.3 Computer graphics and other related fields

1.3 Computer graphics and other related fields

1.3 Computer graphics and other related fields