Distributed Knowledge-based Systems for Integration of Image Processing Modules

Knowledge Based Systems (KBSs) and their application to Image Processing problems is described. The focus is on Artificial Intelligence techniques for knowledge representation that have been used for Image processing purposes. Production Systems and Semantic Networks are addressed as the most widely used techniques. Then, distributed approaches to KBSs, which have been of growing interest in the last few years, are considered, together with uncertainty management techniques, which are a major issue when dealing with noisy data and incomplete a-priori knowledge. KBSs are also classified into two main categories depending on the type of knowledge representation: object centered and process centered KBSs. Existing Image Processing applications of KBSs, of both the centralized and the distributed types, are briefly reviewed.