As humans, we perceive the three-dimensional structure of the world around us with apparent ease. However, despite all of the recent advances in computer vision research, the dream of having a computer interpret an image at the same level as a two-year old remains elusive. Why is computer vision such a challenging problem, and what is the current state of the art? Computer Vision: Algorithms and Applications explores the variety of techniques commonly used to analyze and interpret images. It also describes challenging real-world applications where vision is being successfully used, both for specialized applications such as medical imaging and fun consumer-level tasks such as image editing and stitching, which students can apply to their own personal photos and videos. More than just a source of "recipes", this text/reference also takes a scientific approach to basic vision problems, formulating physical models of the imaging process before inverting this process to produce the best possible descriptions of a scene. Exercises are presented throughout the book, with a heavy emphasis on testing algorithms. Suitable for either an undergraduate or a graduate-level course in computer vision, this textbook focuses on basic techniques that work under real-world conditions and encourages students to push their creative boundaries. Dr. Richard Szeliski has over twenty years’ experience in computer vision research, most notably at Digital Equipment Corporation and Microsoft.