Why use HIPR2?

According to the authors of HIPR2, the Image Library is one of the biggest reasons for using HIPR2 rather than other sources is the image library:

"One of the major reasons for using HIPR is the fact that every image processing operation described in the package is extensively illustrated using good quality on-line digitized images. Viewing these images on a computer screen gives a much more realistic impression of what real image processing is like than is provided by looking at typical pictures in image processing textbooks."

• Image library

Another reason is the balanced overview of the field that the authors give. Although all these processes could be found by using a search engine, and processed with Adobe Photoshop, the novice or intermediate student would have an uneven education: some fields would be covered extensively, while others would have been omitted. Although Photoshop could do most of these image processing tasks, the well-organized approach (in order of difficulty, with major fields categorized, and common names aligned with the proper processes) is highly favorable to an overall understanding of the field. Showing the processing of images over time also adds an ability usually not found in image processing software: easily preserving before and after imagery, with labels automatically attached. "Students can compare the output of their own image processing package's operators with the example output images included with HIPR to see how different implementations differ slightly in functionality."

Besides their major contributions of organization and imagery, interactive queries (later) are perhaps the most striking and valuable part of this package. If they ever become available for personal use, its recommended to look into acquiring them.

Clear explanations, and previously written instructional materials will help the teacher, while the ability to play with different processing techniques in a variety of compositions and order should speed the student's progress and engagement in this subject. "...experiment with the effect of changing parameters to operators to see how this changes the output. Suggestions of interesting things to try are given in the student exercises section of many of the worksheets." Added extras round out the field, with glossary, bibliography, and links.

Disadvantage: this could have been done another way using HTML and your own image processing software/ knowledge. Still, it saves time.