Personal computers such as the Macintosh II offer very cost-effective hardware configurations for simple image processing tasks. However, their programming using conventional techniques is notoriously difficult, due to the high level of sophistication of the user interface. The main purpose of this project was to devise powerful development tools to facilitate the development of specialized image processing software for such workstations. The first step was to create a simple image processing shell that is easy to modify for creating specialized applications; the main feature is that all complex interactions with the user interface are handled automatically, and that the programmer need only be concerned with the application-specific procedures. The second aspect was to develop a comprehensive set of basic image processing modules. At present, our software library includes about 250 subroutines that perform image processing tasks such as filtering, multiresolution and wavelet decompositions, edge detection, point transformations, and binary operations.
