A mask is a binary image consisting of zero- and non-zero values. If a mask is applied to another binary or to a grayscale image of the same size, all pixels which are zero in the mask are set to zero in the output image. All others remain unchanged.
Masking can be implemented either using pixel multiplication or logical AND, the latter in general being faster.
Masking is often used to restrict a point or arithmetic operator to an area defined by the mask. We can, for example, accomplish this by first masking the desired area in the input image and processing it with the operator, then masking the original input image with the inverted mask to obtain the unprocessed area of the image and finally recombining the two partial images using image addition. An example can be seen in the worksheet on the logical AND operator. In some image processing packages, a mask can directly be defined as an optional input to a point operator, so that automatically the operator is only applied to the pixels defined by the mask .
©2003 R. Fisher, S. Perkins,
A. Walker and E. Wolfart.
