Preface

Currently, digital imaging is used widely in various real-life applications. There are a number of potential digital imaging applications such as television, photography, robotics, remote sensing, medical diagnosis, reconnaissance, architectural and engineering design, art, crime prevention, geographical information systems, communication, intellectual property, retail catalogs, nudity detection, face finding, industrial, and others. The increasing trends, needs, and applications of imaging make it more difficult to process images for desired objectives. This leads to the idea of capturing, storing, finding, retrieving, analyzing, and using images in everyday life in the computing environment. Being a computer-based technology, digital imaging carries out automatic processing, manipulation, and interpretation of visual information. It plays a significant and important role in various aspects of real life. It is also highly useful in many areas, disciplines, and fields of art, science, and technology.

This book is specifically dedicated to digital imaging education, research, applications, techniques, tools, and algorithms that originate from fields such as image processing, computer vision, pattern recognition, signal processing, artificial intelligence, intelligent systems, and soft computing. In general, this comprehensive book contains state-of-the-art chapters focusing on the latest developments using theories, methods, approaches, algorithms, analyses, display of images, visual information, and videos.

The six chapters from academicians, practitioners, and researchers from different disciplines of life explore the latest developments, methods, approaches, and applications of digital imaging in a variety of fields and endeavors. The book is compiled with a view to providing researchers, academicians, and readers with an in-depth discussion of the latest advances.

The target audience of this book are professionals and researchers working in the field of digital imaging in various disciplines, e.g. computer science, computer engineering, information technology, information and communication sciences, education, health, libraries, and others. The book is also targeted at scientists, engineers, researchers, practitioners, academicians, and related industry professionals and provides an in-depth discussion of the latest advances.

Sarfraz begins the book with an introductory chapter on digital image processing which describes digital imaging is used widely in various real-life applications. This chapter is specifically dedicated to digital imaging history, methodologies, tasks, software, and applications.

This is followed by a chapter titled "Fast Motion Estimation's Configuration Using Diamond Pattern and ECU, CFM, and ESD Modes for Reducing HEVC Computational Complexity" by Khemiri et al., who mention that the high performance of the high-efficiency video coding (HEVC) standard makes it more suitable for high-definition resolutions. This encoding performance is coupled with tremendous encoding complexity, compared to the earlier H.264 (also referred to as advanced video coding). HEVC complexity is mainly a return to the motion estimation (ME) module that represents the important part of encoding time, which has made several researchers turn around the optimization of this module. Some researchers are interested in hardware solutions exploiting the parallel processing of field programmable gate array, graphics processing unit, or other multicore architectures, while other researchers are focused on software optimizations by inducing fast mode decision algorithms. In this context, this chapter proposes a fast HEVC encoder configuration to speed up the encoding process. Fast configuration uses different options such as early skip detection, early control unit termination, and coded block flag fast method modes. Regarding the algorithm of ME, diamond search is used in the encoding process through several video resolutions. A time saving of around 46.75% is obtained with acceptable distortion in terms of video quality and bit rate compared to the reference test model HM.16.2. This chapter can be compared to techniques in the literature for better evaluation.

Saldaña-Heredia et al., in Chapter 3, discuss "Experimental and Theoretical Investigation on the Shear Behaviour of High Strength Reinforced Concrete Beams Using Digital Image Correlation." They show that digital image processing is a useful tool that improves pictorial information for human interpretation and is mainly used for storage, transmission, and representation of different data. In this chapter, the authors introduce an optical technique that couples physical analysis with image processing for a measurement system. Optical methods have been used to obtain the stress–strain relation by different invasive and non-invasive methods, and the chapter talks about a novel non-invasive methodology to measure stress–strain evolution. The proposed technique is based upon a single laser beam reflected on a cross-section of ductile materials (steel and aluminum) while they are under a compression load. A laser beam has been measured by using Gaussian beam propagation equations. It has been proposed that the reflection area of the laser will change as the material surface area is compressed and these differences are analyzed by using digital image processing. This technique has enabled the construction of a stress–strain diagram.

The next chapter, by Tahenni and Lecompte, is on "Experimental and Theoretical Investigation on the Shear Behaviour of High Strength Reinforced Concrete Beams Using Digital Image Correlation." In this chapter, an experimental investigation is carried out on high-strength concrete (HSC) beams with and without transverse reinforcement. The beams were tested by bending under two concentrated loads using the digital image correlation technique. In the experimental device, the shear zone between the support and the loading point was digitized by a high-resolution camera. The numerical analysis of the recorded images is performed by Gom-Aramis software to obtain the deformation of concrete and to monitor the crack evolution in terms of width, spacing, and length. The different models to determine the shear capacity of reinforced concrete beams, used by the principal universal design codes such as the American ACI 318, British Standard BS 8110, European Eurocode 2, New Zealand NZS 3101, and Indian Standard IS456, have been extrapolated to HSC to evaluate the applicability of these regulations originally developed for ordinary concrete to HSC. The experimental results show that all the code models underestimate the shear contribution of HSC and at the same time greatly overestimate the transverse reinforcement contribution. Among the four models, Eurocode 2 yields the best predictions of the ultimate shear strength of HSC.

Munera et al. are motivated by an industrial approach of the use of artificial vision in Chapter 5, "Implementation of an Artificial Vision System for Welding in the

**V**

Retrofitting Process of a Robotic Arm Industrial." The authors' aim is to improve the welding process using a robotic arm; recently, this kind of robot has been associated with high-accuracy tasks like classification, welding, object manipulation, assembly, and so on. Artificial vision is not usually used in work that uses a manipulator arm; this is normally because the robot programmer plans the robot task, which is executed cyclically. However, there are some approaches where different tasks using artificial vision are implemented. This chapter proposes a retrofitting process of a manipulator welder arm Miller MR-2000. It develops an artificial vision system to be used in the positioning system. The developed system is able to look for areas suitable for the welding task between two pieces of material within a workspace; this is possible using techniques of computational vision and image processing. Subsequently, the algorithm calculates the number of welding points based on the area identified previously, and finally sends the respective coordinates by means of

Awareness of the problem that different search interfaces discourage patrons from using library information sources has led academic libraries to implement web-scale discovery services. These services offer the user a "Google-like" search experience of library resources. Chapter 6, "EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) Usage in Israeli Academic Libraries," by Greenberg, is a motivation to explore library professionals' satisfaction, patrons' information behavior, and use of the EDS discovery tool service in academic libraries in Israel. Qualitative research methods through content analysis of library directors' interviews and quantitative research methods through collected library metrics (from Google analytics) data analysis regarding usage

**Muhammad Sarfraz**

Shadadiya, Kuwait

College of Life Sciences, Kuwait University,

Department of Information Science,

Sabah AlSalem University City,

patterns and search sessions analysis have been used in this chapter.

G code to the robot for welding the pieces.

Retrofitting Process of a Robotic Arm Industrial." The authors' aim is to improve the welding process using a robotic arm; recently, this kind of robot has been associated with high-accuracy tasks like classification, welding, object manipulation, assembly, and so on. Artificial vision is not usually used in work that uses a manipulator arm; this is normally because the robot programmer plans the robot task, which is executed cyclically. However, there are some approaches where different tasks using artificial vision are implemented. This chapter proposes a retrofitting process of a manipulator welder arm Miller MR-2000. It develops an artificial vision system to be used in the positioning system. The developed system is able to look for areas suitable for the welding task between two pieces of material within a workspace; this is possible using techniques of computational vision and image processing. Subsequently, the algorithm calculates the number of welding points based on the area identified previously, and finally sends the respective coordinates by means of G code to the robot for welding the pieces.

Awareness of the problem that different search interfaces discourage patrons from using library information sources has led academic libraries to implement web-scale discovery services. These services offer the user a "Google-like" search experience of library resources. Chapter 6, "EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) Usage in Israeli Academic Libraries," by Greenberg, is a motivation to explore library professionals' satisfaction, patrons' information behavior, and use of the EDS discovery tool service in academic libraries in Israel. Qualitative research methods through content analysis of library directors' interviews and quantitative research methods through collected library metrics (from Google analytics) data analysis regarding usage patterns and search sessions analysis have been used in this chapter.
