"Bayesian Approach to Image Interpretation" should interest anyone working in image interpretation. It is complete in itself and includes background material. This makes it useful for a novice as well as for an expert. It reviews some of the existing probabilistic methods for image interpretation and presents some new results. Additionally, there is extensive bibliography covering references in varied areas. For a researcher in this field, the material on synergistic integration of segmentation and interpretation modules and the Bayesian approach to image interpretation should be beneficial. For a practicing engineer, the procedure for generating knowledge base, selecting initial temperature for the simulated annealing algorithm, and some implementation issues should be valuable.
Ideas introduced in the book include: an approach to image interpretation using synergism between the segmentation and the interpretation modules; a segmentation algorithm based on multiresolution analysis; novel use of the Bayesian networks (causal networks) for image interpretation; and emphasis on making the interpretation approach less dependent on the knowledge base and hence more reliable by modeling the knowledge base in a probabilistic framework. Useful in both the academic and industrial research worlds, Bayesian Approach to Image Interpretation may also be used as a textbook for a semester course in computer vision or pattern recognition.