Beginning with modest initial attempts in roughly the 1960s, digital image processing has become a recognized field of science, as well as a broadly accepted methodology, to solve practical problems in many different kinds of human activities. The applications encompass an enormous range, starting perhaps with astronomy, geology, and physics, via medical, biological, and ecological imaging and technological exploitation, up to the initially unexpected use in humane sciences, ., archaeology or art history. The results obtained in the area of digital image acquisition, synthesis, processing, and analysis are impressive, though it is often not generally known that digital methods have been applied
