数字图像处理的发展历史不长，但已引起科技界的广泛重视。首先，视觉是人类最重要的感知手段，图像又是视觉的基础。因此数字图像成为心理学、生理学、计算机科学等诸多方面的学者研究视觉感知的有效工具。其次，图像处理在军事、遥感、气象、交通等大型应用中有不断增长的需求。此外数字成像(如数字摄像机、扫描仪等) 、图像打印机和数字印刷技术的快速发展，使得图像处理设备已不再昂贵，给数字图像处理的发展提供了很好的条件。随着多媒体技术的发展和普及，数字图像处理和视频技术已经从专业术语变成普通老百姓的日常用语了。 数字图像处理是一门实用的学科，同时又需要一定的理论基础。因此图像处理的学习需要理论与实践的结合才能收到最佳效果。我们只有通过使用图像处理的设备，应用学到的各种算法解决实际图像处理的问题，才能获得深刻的领悟。理论和实践的紧密结合可使本课程的学习变得非常有趣。

Digital image processing has caught widespread attention in science and engineering over the past decade of rapid evolution. First, vision is undoubtedly the most important sense that man has come to depend upon, and at the same time, image is the basis of vision. Therefore, digital images have become efficient tools of studying vision sense for scientists in many areas such as psychology, physiology and computer science. Secondly, image processing has become an important, integral part of growing applications like military, remote sensing, weather, and communication. Thirdly, the availability of computing machinery capable of handling large-scale image processing tasks, imaging devices (such as CCD camera, scanner, video recorder), image printer and Digital Typography have supplied beneficial conditions to cause the remarkable adoption of digital image processing. Finally, with the development of multimedia technique, digital image and video processing have changed into everyday language appropriate for ordinary people from special one.Digital image processing is a practical discipline, and it also needs appropriate theoretical basis. Therefore, the best way to learn digital image processing is the one integrating theory with practice. Only when making use of image processing devices and applying various algorithms to resolve practical image processing problems, can we achieve the profound understanding. The way of close integrating theory with practice makes the course learning is very interesting.