When I was learning image processing technology in school, I always used a photo of a woman as a comparison for classic processing effects.

Lenna’s story

Anyone who studies digital image processing has used the standard test image Lenna.

Do you know who she is?

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Her full name is Lena Soderberg, Lenna is the spelling of Playboy, and Lena is Swedish.

The origin of this image:

< p>In June and July of 1973, Alexander Sawchuk, then a teaching assistant in the Department of Electrical Engineering at SIPI, was hurriedly looking for an image to use in a conference paper in the laboratory with a graduate student and laboratory director of SIPI. And they were tired of the boring test images in the inventory, and they needed an image of a human face.

Just at that moment, a man walked in with the new Play?boy under his arm.

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They engineers took the magazine and tore off the upper 1/3 of the nude insert. Hehe, it just happened to be rolled on the copy drum of the Muirhead scanner... So this 512X512 The classic was born. I have always been confused as to why everyone chose this photo of a beautiful woman to test and analyze. Is there anything special about it? Who is the mysterious Lenna? Until yesterday I found the answer. The photo of beautiful Lenna comes from the famous Play?boy magazine. In June 1973, an assistant professor at the Signal and Image Processing Institute of the University of Southern California and one of his graduate students were looking for a digital photo for an academic conference, and they were tired of the piles of "boring" photos they had on hand. . In fact, what they need is a photo of a human face that is also eye-catching. At this time, someone happened to walk into the laboratory, carrying a copy of Play?boy magazine at that time, and the story happened...?... Due to the needs of laboratory equipment and test pictures at that time, Lenna's pictures were only cut out It’s to the shoulder part of the original picture.

The photo has been widely used ever since. The beautiful Playboy girl Lenna became so famous in the field of computer vision that she was invited as a guest to attend the 50th anniversary academic conference on digital image science and technology. Lenna became one of the most popular people at the conference. She made a brief speech introducing herself and was asked for autographs by countless fans. The origin of the Lenna standard test image. The Lenna diagram is quite well-known in digital image processing learning and research, and is often used as an example of various experiments in digital image processing.

The picture was originally part of a nude illustration published in the November 1972 issue of Play?boy magazine. This issue of Play?boy was also the best-selling issue in the past, with sales of 7,161,561 copies. . In June 1973, an assistant professor at the Signal and Image Processing Institute of the University of Southern California and one of his graduate students planned to find a digital photo for an academic conference, and they were tired of the piles of "boring" photos they had on hand. In fact, what they need is a photo of a human face that is also eye-catching. At this time, someone happened to walk into the laboratory, carrying a copy of Playboy magazine at that time, and the story happened... Due to the needs of laboratory equipment and test pictures at that time, Lenna's picture only touched the shoulders of the original picture. part.

The person in the picture is the Swedish model Lena Soderberg (ne? Sjööblom). The now widely used English name "Lenna" was originally named by Play?boy magazine when this photo was published to facilitate English readers to pronounce "Lena" in Swedish approximately correctly. Ms. Lena Soderberg still lives in her native Sweden, has a family of three children, and works for the National Liquor Monopoly. In 1988, she was interviewed by some computer-related publishing houses in Sweden. She was very surprised and excited that her photos had such adventures. This was the first time she learned that her photos were being used in the computer industry. Lena Soderberg was invited as a guest in 1997 to attend the 50th Anniversary Academic Conference on Digital Image Science and Technology. Lenna became one of the most popular people at the conference. She made a brief speech introducing herself and was asked for autographs by countless fans.

The Lena image is the most widely used standard test image for image compression algorithms - her face and bare shoulders have become the de facto industry standard. However, the use of this image has also caused some controversy. Some were concerned about its pornographic content; Playboy magazine once threatened to sue for unauthorized use of Lena's image. But the magazine has backed away from that threat, instead encouraging the use of Lena images in the public interest.

David C. Munson, editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, cited two papers in January 1996 There are three reasons why Lena diagrams are popular in the scientific research field: 1. This diagram has a moderate mix of details, smooth areas, shadows and textures, making it a good test for various image processing algorithms. 2. Lenna is a beautiful woman. For researchers in the image processing field (mostly men), pictures of beautiful women can effectively attract them to do research.

Here, as a researcher (male) in the image processing field, I pay tribute to Lenna~~!