Fourier Transform

Image Transforms
• Many times, image processing tasks can be best
performed in a domain other than the spatial domain.
• Key steps
(1) Transform the image
(2) Carry the task(s) in the transformed domain.
(3) Apply inverse transform to return to the spatial domain.
 Trigonometric Fourier Series
• Any periodic function f(t) can be
expressed as a weighted (infinite)
sum of sine and cosine functions of
increasing frequency:

basis functions

where
n=1,2,3,…
coefficients of expansion
Trigonometric Fourier Series (cont’d)

Sinusoidals of varying frequency

Trigonometric Fourier Series - Example
 Exponential Fourier Series
complex exponential

Relationship to
trigonometric series:

where

• This can also be thought as a decomposition into

sines and cosines as implied by Euler’s formula:
 Time and Frequency
• example : g(t) = sin(2pi f t) + (1/3)sin(2pi (3f) t)
 Time and Frequency
• example : g(t) = sin(2pi f t) + (1/3)sin(2pi (3f) t)

= +
 Frequency Spectra
• example : g(t) = sin(2pi f t) + (1/3)sin(2pi (3f) t)

= +
 Frequency Spectra

• Usually, frequency is more interesting than the phase

Frequency Spectra

= +

=
Frequency Spectra

= +

=
Frequency Spectra

= +

=
Frequency Spectra

= +

=
Frequency Spectra

= +

=
Frequency Spectra

=
 Fourier Transform – more formally
Represent the signal as an infinite weighted sum
of an infinite number of sinusoids

Note:

Arbitrary function Single Analytic Expression

Spatial Domain (x) Frequency Domain (u)
(Frequency Spectrum F(u))

Inverse Fourier Transform (IFT)

 Why is FT Useful?

• Easier to remove undesirable frequencies in the

frequency domain (i.e., frequency domain filtering).

• Faster to perform certain operations in the frequency

domain than in the spatial domain (e.g., convolution)
using the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)
 Frequency Filtering: Main Steps

1. Take the FT of f(x):

2. Remove undesired frequencies

by applying a filter:

3. Convert back to spatial domain:

More details later …

Example: Removing undesirable frequencies

frequency
noisy signal decomposition

remove high filtered

frequencies signal
 How do frequencies show up in an image?

• Low frequencies correspond to slowly varying pixel

intensities (e.g., smooth areas).
• High frequencies correspond to quickly varying pixel
intensities (e.g., edges)

Original Image Smoothed or low-passed image

(i.e., high frequencies removed)
 Extending FT in 2D

• Forward FT

• Inverse FT
 Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT)
• Extending the FT to the DFT requires converting
continuous functions into a sequence of discrete
values 🡪 apply sampling!
f(x) F(u)
x-th sample (i.e., x is now an index)

Δx: sampling step in the spatial domain

(assuming x0=0)
u-th sample (i.e., u is now an index)

Δu: sampling step in the frequency domain

 Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) (cont’d)

Forward DFT:

u-th sample (i.e., u is now an index)

Inverse DFT:

x-th sample (i.e., x is now an index)

 Example

f(0) = 2
f(1) = 3
f(2) = 4
f(3) = 4

13/4

F(0) = 13/4
F(1) = 1/4(-2+j) 1
F(2) = -1/4
F(3) = -1/4(2+j)
 Extending DFT to 2D

• Assuming that f(x,y) is M x N:

• Forward DFT

(u-th, v-th) sample (i.e., u and v are now an indices)

• Inverse DFT:
Notation:
x

(x-th, y-th) sample (i.e., x and y are now an indices)

 Extending DFT to 2D (cont’d)

• Special case: f(x,y) is N x N:

• Forward DFT

(u-th, v-th) sample (i.e., u and v are now an indices)

• Inverse DFT

(x-th, y-th) sample (i.e., x and y are now an indices)

Image Processing in the Fourier Domain
Magnitude of the FT

Does not look anything like what we have seen

Image Processing in the Fourier Domain
Magnitude of the FT

Does not look anything like what we have seen

2D DFT Interpretation

2D cos/sin functions
 DFT Properties: (1) Separability

• The 2D DFT can be computed using 1D DFTs:

Forward DFT:

This is because
the exponential
kernel is
separable!
 DFT Properties: (1) Separability (cont’d)

• Using the kernel separability:

• Let’s set: 1

2D DFT steps:
• Then: 1
1. Compute F1(x,v)
2. Compute F(u,v)
DFT Properties: (1) Separability (cont’d)

• How to compute F1(x,v)?

) x,v=0,1,2,…N-1

N x DFT of the rows of f(x,y)

• How to compute F(u,v)?

1 u,v=0,1,2,…N-1

DFT of the cols of F1(x,v)

DFT Properties: (1) Separability
Computing 2D DFT using 1D DFTs:

f(x,y)🡪F1(x,v)🡪F(u,v)

The same exactly steps (i.e., rows first, columns

second) can be used to compute the 2D IDFT
using 1D IDFTs.
 DFT Properties: (2) Periodicity

• The DFT and its inverse are periodic with period N:

DFT Properties: (3) Symmetry
 DFT Properties: (4) Translation
f(x,y) F(u,v)

• Translation in spatial domain:

• Translation in frequency domain:

)
N
DFT Properties: (4) Translation (cont’d)

• To “see” a full period of the DFT, we need to translate the

origin of F(u) to N/2 in 1D or of F(u,v) to (N/2,N/2) in 2D
this is what we see!
|F(u)|

after translation
|F(u-N/2)|
DFT Properties: (4) Translation (cont’d)
• Use the following property to preform the translation
F(u-N/2,v-N/2):
)
N
Set

• This results to the following result:

DFT Properties: (4) Translation (cont’d)
• Need to pre-multiply f(x,y) by (-1) x+y to see a full
period.

• You need to “undo” the multiplication by (-1) x+y when

you transform your results back to the spatial domain.

f(x,y) (-1)x+y 🡪2D DFT🡪 Filtering 🡪 2D IDFT 🡪g(x,y) (-1)x+y

DFT Properties: (4) Translation (cont’d)
sinc

before translation after translation

 DFT Properties: (5) Rotation

• Rotating f(x,y) by θ rotates F(u,v) by θ

DFT Properties: (6) Addition/Multiplication
DFT Properties: (7) Scale
 DFT Properties: (8) Average value

Average:

F(u,v) at u=0, v=0:

So: