Computer vision is the simulation of biological vision using computers and related equipment. Its main task is to obtain the three-dimensional information of the corresponding scene by processing the collected pictures or videos, just like humans and many other creatures do every day.
Computer vision is a knowledge about how to use cameras and computers to obtain the data and information of the objects we need. Vividly speaking, it is to install eyes (camera) and brain (algorithm) on the computer to let the computer perceive the environment. The idiom "Seeing is believing" in China and "A picture is worth a thousand words" in the west often express the importance of vision to human beings. It is not difficult to imagine how broad the application prospect of machines with vision can be.
Computer vision is not only an engineering field, but also an important and challenging research field in the field of science. Computer vision is a comprehensive subject, which attracts researchers from various disciplines to participate in its research. These subjects include computer science and engineering, signal processing, physics, applied mathematics and statistics, neurophysiology and cognitive science.
Extended data:
Computer vision uses various imaging systems instead of visual organs as input sensitive means, and computers instead of brains to complete processing and interpretation. The ultimate research goal of computer vision is to enable computers to observe and understand the world through vision like people, and have the ability to adapt to the environment independently. It takes a long time to achieve the goal. Therefore, before reaching the ultimate goal, the mid-term goal of people's efforts is to establish a visual system to complete certain tasks according to a certain degree of intelligence of visual sensitivity and feedback. For example, an important application field of computer vision is the visual navigation of autonomous vehicles, and there is no condition to realize a system that can recognize and understand any environment and complete autonomous navigation like people.
Therefore, the research goal of people's efforts is to realize a vision-assisted driving system with road tracking ability and avoiding collision with vehicles in front on the expressway. The point to be pointed out here is that the computer plays a role in replacing the human brain in the computer vision system, but it does not mean that the computer must complete the processing of visual information in the way of human vision. Computer vision can and should process visual information according to the characteristics of computer systems.
However, the human visual system is the most powerful and perfect visual system that people know so far. As will be seen in the following chapters, the study of human visual processing mechanism will provide inspiration and guidance for the study of computer vision. Therefore, the mechanism of human vision is studied by computer information processing, and the calculation theory of human vision is established. This research is called computational vision. Computational vision can be considered as a research field of computer vision.
References:
Baidu encyclopedia-computer vision