In January 1978, I began the preface to the first edition of Digital Image Processing with the following statement:
The field of image processing has grown considerably during the past decade with the increased utilization of imagery in myriad applications coupled with improvements in the size, speed, and cost effectiveness of digital computers and related signal processing technologies. Image processing has found a significant role in scientific, industrial, space, and government applications.
In January 1991, in the preface to the second edition, I stated:
Thirteen years later as I write this preface to the second edition, I find the quoted statement still to be valid. The 1980s have been a decade of significant growth and maturity in this field. At the beginning of that decade, many image processing tech- niques were of academic interest only; their execution was too slow and too costly. Today, thanks to algorithmic and implementation advances, image processing has become a vital cost-effective technology in a host of applications.