Lenna

For the Italian city, see Lenna, Italy.

Image of Lena Söderberg famously used in many image processing experiments.

Lenna is the name given to a portion of a centerfold picture of Lena Söderberg, a Swedish model posing naked in the November 1972 issue of Playboy magazine. The anglicised version of the name comes from the article; Playboy changed it so English-speaking readers would pronounce the name correctly.

The image is one of the most widely used standard test images for image compression algorithms — her face and bare shoulder having become a de facto industry standard. It is so widely accepted that Söderberg was a guest at the 50th annual Conference of the Society for Imaging Science in Technology in 1997.

David C. Munson, editor-in-chief, January 1996 IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, cited two reasons for the popularity of the image in research:

Use of the image has produced some controversy, with some people concerned about its prurient content, and Playboy at one time threatening to prosecute over the unauthorized use of the image. The magazine has since abandoned the threats, instead embracing the use of "Lenna" for publicity reasons. Coincidentally, Playboy states the issue was its best-selling ever, having sold 7,161,561 copies.

History

The picture's history was described in the May 2001 newsletter of the IEEE Professional Communication Society, in an article by Jamie Hutchinson:

External links

[An interesting page about the image]
[Lenna] (TIFF file)
[The full Lena image] (This image contains nudity)
[The comp.compression FAQ]
[A Note on Lena] by David C. Munson
[A Sonnet dedicated to Lenna]

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Lenna

History

See also

External links