C!Ichemistry EDITOR: GEORGE H. MORRISON EDITORIAL HEADQUARTERS 1155 Sixteenth St., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 Phone: 202-872-4570 Teletype: 710-8220 151 Executive Editor: Josephine M. Petruzzi Managing Editor: Barbara Cassatt Assistant Editor: Stuart A. Borman Editorial Assistants: Marcia Cohen, Jacquelyn Danes Production Manager: Leroy L. Corcoran Art Director: John V. Sinnett Staff Artist: Linda M. Mattingly
Copy Editor: Gail M. Mortenson Circulation Manager: Cynthia G. Smith Journals Dept., Columbus, Ohio Associate Head: Marianne Brogan Assistant Editor: Rodney L. Temos Advisory Board: L.S. Birks, Donald D. Bly, Richard Durst. Shizuo Fujiwara, Georges Guiochon, Wilbur I. Kaye, Bruce R. Kowalski. Robert A. Libby, Robert S. McDonald, Royce W. Murray, Richard S. Nicholson, Janet Ostefyoung, Robert E. Sievers, Walter Slavin, Rudolph H. Stehl. John P. Walters lnstrumentatlon Advlsory Panel: Nelson L. Alpert, Edward Chait, Stuart P. Cram, Martin S. Frant, TOMS Hirschfeld, Fred E. Lytle, Carter L. Olson, Thomas H. Ridgway. Yair Talmi Contributing Editor, The Analytical Approach: Jeanette G. Grasselli The Analytical Approach Advisory Panel: Edward C. Dunlop, Robert A. Hofstader, Wilbur D. Shults Regulatory Affairs, Analytical Dlvlsion Committee: Fred Freeberg (Chairman) Published by the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY 1155 16th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036
Books and Journals Division Director: D. H. Michael Bowen Journals: Charles R. Bertsch Production: Elmer Pusey, Jr. Research and Development: Seldon W. Terrant
From Picasso to Pixels We have often heard the statement that one picture is worth a thousand words. If, however, we desire to reproduce a Picasso painting or a light micrograph image from numerical data, we find that tens or hundreds of thousands of gridlike picture elements or pixels are required. Thus, we see that the quantitative information content of an image can be very high. Images can reflect nature’s external or internal structure. In this representation they capture the global unity and the inherent complexities of nature. Ancillary to the detection and storage of information, imaging allows the ready display of this information for human interpretation. The combination of various forms of microscopy with computerized digital image processing techniques is producing another revolution in science. Image analysis, the science of extracting quantitative geometric and density information from images, has broad application to the physical and life sciences. Gaining its initial impetus from the work of the Mariner Mission and, most recently, demonstrating its power in Voyager’s fly by Saturn, it is routinely used in satellite reconnaissance, and is being rapidly introduced into light microscopy, electron microscopy, radiography, and many other fields that produce large amounts of image information. I t is interesting to note that the 1979 Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine was awarded to A.M. Cormack and G.N. Hounsfield for their work on computed medical imaging. The implications of image analysis for chemical analysis are great, spanning the macroscopic to the microscopic. During the recent national ACS meeting I had the opportunity to visit the EPA’s Environmental Monitoring Systems Laboratory in Las Vegas. One of its missions is the development of advanced remote sensing monitoring systems for chemical pollutants, using image analysis for comparison of old and more recent photographs obtained by airplanes and satellites. This comparison is making possible the identification of abandoned toxic waste sites throughout the U S . On the microscopic side, my paper in last month’s issue of this JOURNAL (December 1980, p 2305) describes a microscopic image digital acquisition system (MIDAS) for quantification of the secondary ion mass spectrometric images produced by an ion microscope. Because of the large amount of compositional and morphological information inherent in the image, color display was used to aid human interpretation. This has necessitated another first for our journal-the use of color figures in research articles (at the author’s expense). As the demand for handling larger amounts of quantitative data by image analysis grows, advanced techniques of image manipulation and display will be required. Spatial chemical analysis is an idea whose time has come.
Manuscript requirements are published in the January 1981 issue, page 139. Manuscripts for publication (4 copies) should be submitted to ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY at the ACS Wash ington address. The American Chemical Society and its editors assume no responsibility for the statements and opinions advanced by contributors. Views expressed in the editorials are those of the editors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the American Chemical Society.
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 53, NO. 1, JANUARY 1981
1
