Introduction to Image Analysis

Image analysis is the process of extracting meaningful information from images, with wide-ranging applications such as counting items on a factory conveyor belt, monitoring cells on a microscope, and self-driving cars. In this tutorial, I will introduce the basics of image analysis in MATLAB. We will discuss a typical image analysis pipeline to identify, count, and measure the length of cells in a fluorescence microscope image. We will also discuss imaging concepts, such as how raw image data is displayed, image types, and contrast ratios that might impact the accuracy of the analysis. While microscope images are used as examples, the MATLAB functions and concepts introduced are common to analyzing any digital image.