Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing

Since time immemorial, vision in general and images in particular have played an important and essential role in human life. Nowadays, the field of image processing also has numerous scientific, commercial, industrial and military applications. All these applications result from the interaction between fun­ damental scientific research on the one hand, and the development of new and high-standard technology on the other hand. Regarding the scientific com­ ponent, quite recently the scientific community became familiar with "fuzzy techniques" in image processing, which make use of the framework of fuzzy sets and related theories. The theory of fuzzy sets was initiated in 1965 by Zadeh, and is one of the most developed models to treat imprecision and uncertainty. Instead of the classical approach that an object belongs or does not belong to a set, the concept of a fuzzy set allows a gradual transition from membership to nonmembership, providing partial degrees of member­ ship. Fuzzy techniques are often complementary to existing techniques and can contribute to the development of better and more robust methods, as has already been illustrated in numerous scientific branches. With this vol­ ume, we want to demonstrate that the introduction and application of fuzzy techniques can also be very successful in the area of image processing. This book contains high-quality contributions of over 30 field experts, covering a wide range of both theoretical and practical applications of fuzzy techniques in image processing.