If you're into imaging in any way -- big or small -- you must have spent a considerable amount of time on the picture to your right. So must have every other guy into imaging. Well, you know who she is. "She's Lena". Quite right, she's Lena (or Lenna, for some). "Ok, so who's Lena?". "I don't know. Just Lena.".

No other picture has probably been used more widely in image processing research as this one. Numerous conferences, journals, technical publications -- you name it. Yet, very few people including those who actually use it for their work, know very little about the origins of this picture or that of it's subject. Though my primary research intersts don't have anything to do with images or their processing, I've been seeing this picture day-in and day-out for about 2 years! So when I first heard this story, I thought it story deserves at least a little part of the 4MB I have for this web page!!

Hmm, so here we go!!

"Just Lena," is Lena Sjööblom, Playboy's Miss November 1972. In the early Seventies, an unknown researcher at the University of Southern California working on compression technologies scanned in the image of Lena's centerfold. Since that time, images of the Playmate have been used as the industry standard for testing ways in which pictures can be manipulated and transmitted electronically. Over the past 25 years, no image has been more important in the history of imaging and electronic communications, and today the mysterious Lena is considered the First Lady of the Internet.

"The use of her photo is clearly one of the most important events in the history of electronic imaging," many will say. Image compression is what has made the World Wide Web the wildly popular communications medium it is today.

When it came time to plan for the 50th anniversary conference of the Society for Imaging Science and Technology (IS&T), it's president of the Boston chapter decided he wanted to commemorate the event by featuring highlights from the history of imaging technology. Nobody he talked to knew what had become of the First Lady of the Internet, so he decided he would track down the elusive Lena. After a lot of patient digging up and following leads, he somehow managed to get her to attend the conference after all!

According to all reports, the event went spectacularly. Everyone was excited to finally meet Lenna in person and get her autograph. And she got a chance to meet some of the many people who have been using her picture as the basis of their research.

Lena Soderberg, nee Sjööblom, now lives near Stockholm and works for a government agency supervising handicapped employees archiving data using, appropriately, computers and scanners. With the assistance of Playboy, IS&T arranged for Miss November 1972, The First Lady of the Internet, to appear at the IS&T Boston conference on May 20 and 21.

Over the years some researchers have complained that they lacked vital information about the Lena image, such as what type of scanner was originally used, what kind of camera and film. IS&T is working with Playboy's archivist to re-scan Lena's image and compile all the missing information, including everything from the type of photo emulsion used to make the print to the technical specifications of the scanner. In this way, the image of this Playboy Playmate can remain the standard reference image for comparing compression technologies into the 21st century.

The actual picture that appeared in Playboy is here. But before you go there I have something to say. It's from Playboy (centerspread, I guess), so needless to say, you can expect it to have adult content. Please don't visit that link if you're not 18 years or over. Even if you do, just make sure you don't ``tell" anyone you did :-). While I feel uncomfortable with stuff like that on my webpage, you need to know (especially if you're one of the faculty at Villanova ECE, or the ECE web server's administrator ;-) that I put it here because of it's ``academic" significance. If you think it shouldn't be here anyway, just send me an e-mail, and I'll replace it with these instead. As for myself, I couldn't help letting out a low whistle when I first saw it.

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