Image Processing 101

Simple examples of image processing concepts on OpenCV. Concepts explored:

  • Data structures
  • Color and color conversions
  • Thresholding and masking
  • Blurring
  • Contours and bounding rectangles
  • Edges
  • Hough Transforms
In [1]:
import matplotlib, cv2
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

%matplotlib inline

Basic data structures in OpenCV

In [2]:
# read an image
img = cv2.imread('images/noguchi02.jpg')

# show image format (basically a 3-d array of pixel color info, in BGR format)
print(img)

[[[ 72  99 143]
  [ 76 103 147]
  [ 78 106 147]
  ..., 
  [159 186 207]
  [160 187 213]
  [157 187 212]]

 [[ 74 101 145]
  [ 77 104 148]
  [ 77 105 146]
  ..., 
  [160 187 208]
  [158 186 210]
  [153 183 208]]

 [[ 76 103 147]
  [ 77 104 148]
  [ 76 104 145]
  ..., 
  [157 181 203]
  [160 188 212]
  [158 186 210]]

 ..., 
 [[ 39  78 130]
  [ 39  78 130]
  [ 40  79 131]
  ..., 
  [193 210 223]
  [195 212 225]
  [197 214 227]]

 [[ 32  71 123]
  [ 32  71 123]
  [ 32  71 123]
  ..., 
  [198 215 228]
  [200 217 230]
  [200 217 230]]

 [[ 39  78 130]
  [ 39  78 130]
  [ 39  78 130]
  ..., 
  [199 216 229]
  [200 217 230]
  [201 218 231]]]

Colors and color conversions

In [3]:
# convert image to RGB color for matplotlib
img = cv2.cvtColor(img, cv2.COLOR_BGR2RGB)

# show image with matplotlib
plt.imshow(img)
Out[3]:
<matplotlib.image.AxesImage at 0x10d46e8d0>
In [4]:
# convert image to grayscale
gray_img = cv2.cvtColor(img, cv2.COLOR_RGB2GRAY)

# grayscale image represented as a 2-d array
print(gray_img)

[[109 113 115 ..., 189 192 191]
 [111 114 114 ..., 190 190 187]
 [113 114 113 ..., 185 192 190]
 ..., 
 [ 89  89  90 ..., 212 214 216]
 [ 82  82  82 ..., 217 219 219]
 [ 89  89  89 ..., 218 219 220]]
In [5]:
# have to convert grayscale back to RGB for plt.imshow()
plt.imshow(cv2.cvtColor(gray_img, cv2.COLOR_GRAY2RGB))
Out[5]:
<matplotlib.image.AxesImage at 0x10da6ba50>

Finding the average color of an image

In [6]:
# find average per row
# np.average() takes in an axis argument which finds the average across that axis. 
average_color_per_row = np.average(img, axis=0)

# find average across average per row
average_color = np.average(average_color_per_row, axis=0)

# convert back to uint8
average_color = np.uint8(average_color)
print(average_color)

[179 146 123]
In [7]:
# create 100 x 100 pixel array with average color value
average_color_img = np.array([[average_color]*100]*100, np.uint8)

plt.imshow(average_color_img)
Out[7]:
<matplotlib.image.AxesImage at 0x10d22a5d0>

Binary thresholding

Examples using thresholding on brightness/darkness of grayscale image and on color ranges

Binary thresholding on grayscale image

In [8]:
# threshold for grayscale image
_, threshold_img = cv2.threshold(gray_img, 60, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY)

threshold_img = cv2.cvtColor(threshold_img, cv2.COLOR_GRAY2RGB)
plt.figure(figsize=(10,10))
plt.imshow(threshold_img)
Out[8]:
<matplotlib.image.AxesImage at 0x10d6dea10>

Binary thresholding on color

In [9]:
# open new Mondrian Piet painting photo
piet = cv2.imread('images/piet.png')
piet_hsv = cv2.cvtColor(piet, cv2.COLOR_BGR2HSV)
In [10]:
plt.imshow(cv2.cvtColor(piet, cv2.COLOR_BGR2RGB))
Out[10]:
<matplotlib.image.AxesImage at 0x10dc1d450>