Easy Java programming for teaching image-processing

We have designed a series of computer sessions build around ImageJ (a public-domain software for image analysis), as a practical complement to a two-semester course in image processing. The students are challenged with simple practical imaging problems as they acquire hands-on practice by experimenting with image-processing operators. In the process, they also learn how to program standard image-processing algorithms in Java. This is made possible thanks to a programmer-friendly environment and a software interface that greatly facilitates the developments of plug-ins for ImageJ. Since our students have generally not acquired programming skills yet (they typically do not even know Java), we use a learning-by-example teaching strategy, with good success.