Image Analysis, Random Fields and Dynamic Monte Carlo Methods

"This book is concerned with a probabilistic approach for image analysis, mostly from the Bayesian point of view, and the important Markov chain Monte Carlo methods commonly used....This book will be useful, especially to researchers with a strong background in probability and an interest in image analysis. The author has presented the theory with rigor…he doesn’t neglect applications, providing numerous examples of applications to illustrate the theory." -- MATHEMATICAL REVIEWS

The book is mainly concerned with the mathematical foundations of Bayesian image analysis and its algorithms. This amounts to the study of Markov random fields and dynamic Monte Carlo algorithms like sampling, simulated annealing and stochastic gradient algorithms. The approach is introductory and elemenatry: given basic concepts from linear algebra and real analysis it is self-contained. No previous knowledge from image analysis is required. Knowledge of elementary probability theory and statistics is certainly beneficial but not absolutely necessary. The necessary background from imaging is sketched and illustrated by a number of concrete applications like restoration, texture segmentation and motion analysis.