Modem technical imaging devices acquire digital image data at a precision level that often exceeds that of available display technologies so that parts of the data information may not be revealed in the displayed image. Data resolution and display resolution are closely related to image information and digital image processing provides several useful tools for compensation of such display deficiencies.
Typical precision data may be captured by a CCD camera, a scanning microscope or flatbed digitizer from photographic film and may exceed a size of 1,000×1,000 data points and a data point depth of 12 bit. Digital data has two general characteristics that deal with spatial resolution and intensity resolution. The distance represented between data points determines the spatial data resolution. Equally important is the bit-resolution which describes the maximum number of intensity levels possible in each point.