Subject: The "Lena" Image - Another "Playboy" Connection

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 11:50:26 +0300 (IDT)

In the course "Image Processing and Analysis" which I am taking at the
Technion at the present semester, we constantly see and work with an image
called Lena. It consists of the face and shoulders of a woman wearing a
hat.

My course-mate and I were given this image in a Matlab internal format as
part of our assignment, but since we needed to view it in an image touchup
program, we looked for it on the web. Thus, we discovered the following
pages:

http://www.eso.org/~ndevilla/lena.html - there's a picture here
http://in.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Graphics/Lena_Image/ - links to
several pages about her.

Not already did we find the image (which was 2*2 the size of what we were
given, but also looked much better), but we found out that it was taken
out of a 1972 Playboy centerfold. Of course, there is nothing pronographic
about the image itself, because it is only a small part of it. It was also
converted to black and white.

In any case, this image is a standard in the image processing industry and
appears in almost every article in the topic. There are some interesting
bits and pieces about it, so I suggest you read the web pages.

My friend and I so far completed three tasks with the image. The first one
was to split the frame into four parts and have each display a smaller
Lena. The second was to blur her face. The third was to show the face
clearly and to have a fade effect extending from it.

Although we had to write a very small amount of code (thanks to Matlab's
bulk operations on vectors and matrixes), it took us quite some time,
because getting things right, requires a lot of thought as well as
tweaking the code until you get the right result.

Just thought it might interest you.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish        [email-masked] 
Home Page:         http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Home E-mail:       [email-masked]

A more experienced programmer does not make less bugs. He just realizes
what went wrong more quickly.

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 17:51:58 +0300

On Fri, May 04, 2001, Shlomi Fish wrote about "[hackers-il] The "Lena" Image - Another "Playboy" Connection":
>..
>...

I wonder what would happen if instead of doing the excercise on the original
part, you do it on the entire image. I would love to see the expression on
the TA checking this excercise when he (hoping that it is a "he") sees the
result :)

Actually, I'm quite surprised the clip you show is actually used... It's
quite obvious that it is a part of a nude picture! I know no actual nudity
is seen, but neither is any clothes (except the hat ;)), and I would say
using such a picture isn't very politically-correct...

BTW, Chen, I'm sure that by now you regret having brought up the subject
of women on the web :)

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |       Friday, May  4 2001, 11 Iyyar 5761
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |Hospitality: Making your guests feel at
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |home, even if you wish they were.

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 May 2001 10:29:36 +0300 (IDT)

> the TA checking this excercise when he (hoping that it is a "he") sees the

Actually, one of the specifications of the exercise is that we do it on
the images we were given. If we want, we can do it on other images, but
what we are supposed to hand in should be on that.

BTW, the Matlab exercises do not contribute to the mark this semester.

> using such a picture isn't very politically-correct...

The problem is that Image Processing experts are already too used to
seeing it, that its origin becomes irrelevant. Switching the entire Image
Processing world to a different clip would be a hopeless task.

It's not the only picture that most aritcles show, but most articles
contain it in addition to the other images.

> BTW, Chen, I'm sure that by now you regret having brought up the subject

Actually, I did not mean to offend anyone, just to bring a curious nuance.
And besides, from my experience on mailing-list threads, it's hard to 
tell in advance where they will divert to. But there is a tendendcy to
focus on a side issue rather than the issue that the opening message was
trying to address.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish
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