2D Gaussian Function

In my last post I mentioned using 5x5 Gaussian kernel as a Point Spread Function to make an image blurry.

What occured to me last night is that these Gaussian kernels are demonstrated so many times in image processing without any explanation of the underlying function used. A Gaussian function is in fact continuous and not like the 5x5 matrix I showed at all.

So to explain a bit more lets derive our 5x5 Gaussian kernel in the last post from the 2D Gaussian function (I've installed LaTex plugin to wordpress to make it a bit more readable):



In one dimension the Gaussian function looks like:

\$f(x) = Ae^{- \frac{(x-b)^2} {2\sigma^2} } \$

where \$\sigma\approx2.718281828 \$  which is Euler's Number, and b is the point over which the bell curve will be centred. You should recognize the \$(x-b)^2\$  as the first step in calculating the distance between two points. A is the amplitude of the function. The bigger A is the higher the peak produced.

As can been seen from this equation \$\sigma\$ controls the spread of the bell shaped curve produced. If its not immediately obvious then keep in mind as you divide by a bigger number then the fraction gets smaller and \$anything^0 = 1 \$

Now that we understand the function in 1D lets extend it to 2D, after all thats what we are interested in for our image manipulation.

It is very simple to extend the function to 2 Dimensions as we are really looking at the distance of a point from a centre location. For now lets assume our \$\sigma\$ (curve spread) is the same in each direction and that our centre point is \$bx,by\$

\$f(x,y) = Ae^{- \frac{(x-b_x)^2+(y-b_y)^2} {2\sigma^2} } \$

Again you should see the \$(x-b_x)^2+(y-b_y)^2\$ as the distance of the two points from the centre point - we are just missing the square root.

This is the equation we used to calculate our Gaussian PSF kernel. The kernel mentioned in the last post has the following parameters:

\$A=15\$ and \$\sigma=1.4\$

We then take the points from -2 to 2  = 5  in each direction and plug them into our equation as x,y values. The resultant value is rounded and stored in our matrix.

For Example: x=2, y=2

\$f(2,2) = Ae^{-(\frac{2^2+2^2}{2(1.4^2)})}\$

\$f(2,2) = Ae^{-(\frac{8}{3.92})}\$

\$f(2,2) = Ae^{-2.0408}\$

\$f(2,2) = 15*0.1299\$

\$f(2,2) = 1.9488\$    which can be rounded up to 2 and this is the value at 2,2 in our kernel.

Note that as we are squaring our differences from the position to the centre in each direction the values at: -2,-2  ; -2,2  ; 2,-2   are all the same as the 2,2 one calculated above.



As mentioned earlier the \$\sigma\$ value can vary for x and y directions. This causes our 2D curve to be stretched/compressed in the x or y direction.

Our equation then becomes:

\$f(x,y) = Ae^{-( \frac{(x-b_x)^2}{2\sigma_x^2}+\frac{(y-b_y)^2} {2\sigma_y^2} )} \$

knowing about our 1d Gaussian function we can clearly see how the above function works (the two component directions are calculated first, added together, then the result used as the power to which we are raising e)