Image Processing in Java

Rating:
Summary: Simple and Practical
Review: I thought this book provided very clear examples of image processing programming. I have a significant amount of programming experience but no programming experience with imaging. I was able to follow all of his examples and translate them easily to my own project. Although some of the programming examples used conventions and styles that I probably would not have used, he explains them clearly and logically.

There were some typos or grammatical errors but they were not significant enough to detract from the information presented. Mr. Lyon's style is clearer and easier to read than most technical authors I have read. I recommend sending him an email pointing out the errors and asking that he hire a better proof-reader.

Rating:
Summary: Nuggets of goodness surrounded by...
Review: I've found that the brief overview of practical techniques (such as convolution kernels) are useful.

Otherwise:
* The book formatting is terrible (pages are 3/4 blank sometimes in the middle of chapters)
* It appears unedited. Grammatical errors, especially ones where the error changes the meaning of the sentence (like leaving out the word NOT!) plague this book
* The author specifically chose Java as the implementation language, then proceeds to discuss the weaknesses of the language which he clearly does not understand. He offers the worst object model for image processing that I could have imagined. The code examples printed in the book are riddled with errors (though the code included on the CD-ROM may not... I haven't tested anything except for the Fourier Transform algorithm. I have no use for this book other than that algorithm, which is in fact why I bought it in the first place).
* The author is introduced as a teacher of Java, yet the code examples which deal with image processing are invariably wrapped around GUI classes. Who ever heard of an image sharpening algorithm extending java.awt.Frame?

If you are looking for a book that talks about different kinds of concepts, this book may be okay, but I'm sure there are better ones. If you want to use the code provided by this book in a production environment of any kind, you will need to copy-and-paste the appropriate code into a more sane and reusable structure before you begin.

Rating:
Summary: Strain to read ...
Review: This book is littered with very poor grammar, layout and typesetting from cover to cover making it a difficult and painful read for a technical book. The enclosed CD rom comprises a heap of code, very poorly formatted (and expressed) lecture notes and unrelated information. This book is also very mathematical and as such would not be recommended to a novice.

Rating:
Summary: Not another everyday JAVA book
Review: Well, I felt like adding a review after seeing that actually some people don't find the book of quality, for what I would call inconsistent reasons.

The book is a tremendous contribution to the JAVA world, and in short is unique in its content. Very rich in image processing algorithms of all flavors, at their finest quality. The text is surprisingly clear, the code implementation intuitive and easy to follow. I rarely find quality code that does quality things. Some algorithms that once required me to go through hard to understand microfilms or research papers, I find them here implemented and approached in a very elegant manner. Of course, you might have to adjust them a little if you're going to use them in your own code, but the work left is so trivial that I would call them "plug-n-play". You do not need to take care of porting any libraries to your platform, the code is pure JAVA. It is Kahindu. The classes are based on frames, dialogs, standard JDK, nothing can get simpler than that. You might find the GUI a bit messy if you are a graphics user or the everyday homepage applet writer, but for a programmer it should appear as common sense.

As conclusion, you DO NOT want to miss this book. Whether you are to instruct yourself, teach, use the code for yourself or just simply stare at some sweet algorithms, this book is a blast. Too bad there are very few books like that out there yet, hopefully this will change. As far as the price, you can consider it a donation from the author. Great great great.

Rating:
Summary: Pathetic
Review: What an enjoyable and useful book! Digital image processing is a subject that is best understood by implementing, seeing the picture result, modifying the parameters, and running the program again. "Image Processing in Java" makes this approach easy. The book provides a practical coverage of the methods that are most useful and widely used. From basic filtering to the Fourier transform and wavelets, this book provides easy-to-understand description of the spectrum of image processing subjects. The Java code by which the methods are provided makes the code portable - but mostly this makes it fun and appropriate for computer science and engineering students now learning this language. I'd recommend this book to professors especially as a supplementary project book for students taking a first course on image processing.