This book is intended as an introductory image processing text for undergraduate students. It is one of the first such texts to cover the newer areas of mathematical morphology and special-purpose image processing architectures. It consistently presents algorithms in terms of their component parts, building upon descriptions of basic techniques to develop more complex concepts. There are an abundance of detailed examples that serve to illustrate the topics developed in the text.

The authors introduce the concept of the bound matrix to represent images. This notation adds the concepts of limitation in the range of the definition and variable location of the origin to the traditional definition of a digital image. In a bound matrix, elements outside the boundaries of the image are considered undefined. This concept is useful in emphasizing the finite nature of images and in developing the explanation of various algorithms. The concept of a variable image origin relative to the coordinate system being used is important for completeness, but when origins other than (0,0) are used in examples, the concepts being illustrated are often obscured.

The greatest strength of this book is the consistent and clear development of the algorithms used for processing images. The text progresses from gray level processing (e.g., thresholding and smoothing) through edge detection, morphology, topological operations (e.g., region growing), and transforms, providing an excellent overview of the available tools and techniques. Much careful thought has been devoted to both the content and organization of the presentation, so that the student is led in a logical and understandable fashion from the simplest to the most complex concepts. The notational consistency and clarity make a significant contribution.

The major weakness of the book is that it contains no reproductions of digital images to motivate the concepts presented. The beginning student, while likely to understand the algorithms being presented, will have very little understanding of the effect of an algorithm on a typical image, what types of problems it is typically used for, and when the algorithm is likely to be unsuccessful. The absence of even a single half-tone reproduction of a real digital image effectively precludes the use of this book by anyone without access to extensive supplementary material or an image processing facility.

The production of the book is well done and the writing style is pleasant and easily readable. In general, both text and examples are free from errors. However, there is at least one example with a confusing numerical error, so students should be warned appropriately. The lack of answers to selected exercises is an unfortunate, albeit minor, omission.

I would recommend this book as an excellent introductory text for image processing only if accompanied by extensive supplementary material showing examples of the application of the algorithms to actual digital images. I hope the authors will include such material in a subsequent edition.