Bit Plane Slicing

Given an X-bit per pixel image, slicing the image at different planes (bit-planes) plays an important role in image processing. An application of this technique is data compression. In general, 8-bit per pixel images are processed. We can slice an image into the following bit-planes. Zero is the least significant bit (LSB) and 7 is the most significant bit (MSB):

• 0 which results in a binary image, i.e, odd and even pixels are displayed
• 1 which displays all pixels with bit 1 set: 0000.0010
• 2 which displays all pixels with bit 2 set: 0000.0100
• 3 which displays all pixels with bit 3 set: 0000.1000
• 4 which displays all pixels with bit 4 set: 0001.0000
• 5 which displays all pixels with bit 5 set: 0010.0000
• 6 which displays all pixels with bit 6 set: 0100.0000
• 7 which displays all pixels with bit 7 set: 1000.0000

Shown below is an 8-bit per pixel image and the different bit-planes after slicing.

---
Bit-slice 0 --------------- Bit-slice 1

---
Bit-slice 2 --------------- Bit-slice 3

---
Bit-slice 4 --------------- Bit-slice 5

---
Bit-slice 6 --------------- Bit-slice 7

• Building a visual program (workspace) in cantata
• Execute the visual program bit-slices.wk