image processing

I study image processing. The book has been sitting on the shelf for a year now, I always wanted to pick it up, but every time I did I got discouraged.

Image processing does not impress a lot of people, in fact did not impress me much. There are few companies in the field that do much image processing, an example of course would be ADOBE with Photoshop and Illustrator.

Every camera is coming now with simple image editor, so why would I want to study image processing, especially in Java? Most of the good software is still written in C++.

Well, image processing is mathematical transformations of the image on the bit level. The effect may result in variety of things, e.g.: black-and-white, negative, sepia, brightness, sharpness and color alternation. Also edge finding, rotating, etc. This is as far as most of the basic skills get.

So why? Well, with a bit of practice and some new ideas I can be doing things that are not as common. Image compression, encoding. Putting hidden messages in the image - that is fun, I have seen it in the movie.

Pattern recognition, that is a major one.

It's already a highly sough after skill now, and I think will be incredibly more so in the future. There will be a huge industry, equal to most of the current software combined, focused on patter recognition in the future.
To name just the few: Airport security, smart locks, robotic eyes, smart car and airplane navigation systems, traffic cameras, astronomy, meteorology, satellite imaging, security systems that replace current dumb motion detectors, even a TV set and house stereo might recognize you to play your favorites, the applications will be endless.

So here I am studying. Ironic that I found so hard to explain to a friend why I study such a highly UNPRACTICAL computer skill.