Introduction to Markov Random Fields

Question

I'm looking for a gentle introduction to this topic. The material I've found so far is substantially related to physics, and requires some background in such field.
Is there anything more general and fairly accessible on the web?

Answer 1

The tract by Kindermann and Snell called Markov Random Fields and Their Applications, published by the AMS in 1980, is available on the web and a classic (maybe a tad gentler than Brémaud's book indicated by @Learner, which is, in any case, also a must-read on the subject).

Answer 2

From my own experience, I found chapter 7 in Pierre Brémaud's book "Markov Chains: Gibbs Fields, Monte Carlo Simulation, and Queues" quite an illuminating introduction to Markov random fields.