This is the eighteenth in the annual survey series of the yearly bibliographies on image engineering in China. The purpose of this survey work is mainly to capture the up-to-date development of image engineering in China

to provide a convenient means of literature searching facility for readers working in related areas

and to supply a useful reference for the editors of journals and potential authors of papers. Considering the wide distribution of related publications in China

792 references on image engineering research and technique are selected carefully from 2 912 research papers published in 134 issues of a set of 15 Chinese journals. These 15 journals are considered as important journals in which papers concerning image engineering have higher quality and are relatively concentrated. Those selected references are classified first into 5 categories (image processing

image analysis

image understanding

technique application and survey)

and then into 23 specialized classes according to their main contents (same as the last 7 years). Some analysis and discussions about the statistics made on the results of classifications by journal and by category are also presented

respectively. This work shows a general and off-the-shelf picture of the various progresses of image engineering in China in 2012.