ECE418
ECE 418 (Image and Video Processing) is a 4-credit-hour course that satisfies the Technical Electives requirement for ECE majors. It is only offered in spring semesters.
Content Covered
- Multidimensional Signal Processing
- Human Visual System
- Image Scanning and Display
- Video Scanning and Display
- Image Enhancement
- Image Compression
- Video Compression
- Image Analysis
This course begins with some multidimensional signal processing (similar to 210, 310 but in 3+ dimensions) and also an overview of the 2-dimensional DTFT and 2-dimensional DFT and filters on the 2d plane. Later in the course, this is applied to images and videos. Then the course discusses the Human Visual System and the assumptions that can be made about the capabilities of the human eye. Building on the HVS, the course discusses image scanning and display. Then the course introduces solutions to Inverse Problems for filtering and an introduction to random processes. The final part of the course covers lossy and lossless image compression, as well as video compression. Throughout the course, there are labs every week with very simple coding assignments where the content covered in class is applied in code.
Prerequisites
The course takes the DSP concepts learned in 310 and applies it to image and video vector spaces. ECE310 is absolutely necessary for this course. Some knowledge of linear algebra will be beneficial in the later parts of the course during the discussion of the KLT (same as Principle Component Analysis) – you will have to be able to find the eigenvectors and eigenvalues of a matrix. ECE313 is crucial as well as there is some probability content necessary.
When to Take It
This course is offered only in the spring. It's probably best taken second semester junior year - however you can take as soon as you have finished ECE310.
Course Structure
The grade breakdown is as follows: - Labs 25% - Homework 10% - MT1 15% - MT2 15% - Final 35% or 20% - Optional Project 0% or 15% (If you choose to do the project, the final has less weight)
Instructors
The course is traditionally taught by Professor Pierre Moulin. He usually does an hour and a half of office hours per week.
Course Tips
Stay on top of the labs. It's also strongly recommended to read the textbook. The exams can be difficult, but the grading is lenient.
Life After
Image processing can be applied in a lot of places. For example, even though the course does not dive deeply into medical images, the skills can be transferred to be applied to the medical field.