100% found this document useful (1 vote)

654 views

Machine Vision Toolbox For Matlab

Book: Machine Vision Toolbox for Matlab Author: Peter Corke

Uploaded by

joseangmn

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

100% found this document useful (1 vote)

654 views

Machine Vision Toolbox For Matlab

Book: Machine Vision Toolbox for Matlab Author: Peter Corke

Uploaded by

joseangmn

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

You are on page 1/ 218

Release

Release date

3.3
October 2012

Licence
Toolbox home page
Discussion group

LGPL
http://www.petercorke.com/robot
http://groups.google.com.au/group/robotics-tool-box

c
Copyright 2012
Peter Corke
[email protected]
http://www.petercorke.com

Preface

Peter Corke

Peter C0rke

Robotics,
Vision
and
Control

isbn 978-3-642-20143-1

9 783642 201431

springer.com

Corke

1
Robotics, Vision and Control

The practice of robotics and computer vision

each involve the application of computational algorithms to data. The research community has developed a very large body of algorithms but for a
newcomer to the field this can be quite daunting.
For more than 10 years the author has maintained two opensource matlab Toolboxes, one for robotics and one for vision.
They provide implementations of many important algorithms and
allow users to work with real problems, not just trivial examples.
This new book makes the fundamental algorithms of robotics,
vision and control accessible to all. It weaves together theory, algorithms and examples in a narrative that covers robotics and computer vision separately and together. Using the latest versions
of the Toolboxes the author shows how complex problems can be
decomposed and solved using just a few simple lines of code.
The topics covered are guided by real problems observed by the
author over many years as a practitioner of both robotics and
computer vision. It is written in a light but informative style, it is
easy to read and absorb, and includes over 1000 matlab and
Simulink examples and figures. The book is a real walk through
the fundamentals of mobile robots, navigation, localization, armrobot kinematics, dynamics and joint level control, then camera
models, image processing, feature extraction and multi-view
geometry, and finally bringing it all together with an extensive
discussion of visual servo systems.

Robotics,
Vision
and
Control

This, the third release of the Toolbox, represents a

decade of development. The last release was in 2005
and this version captures a large number of changes
over that period but with extensive work over the
last two years to support my new book Robotics,
Vision & Control shown to the left.

The Machine Vision Toolbox (MVTB) provides

many functions that are useful in machine vision
and vision-based control. It is a somewhat eclecFUNDAMENTAL
tic collection reflecting my personal interest in areas
ALGORITHMS
IN MATLAB
of photometry, photogrammetry, colorimetry. It includes over 100 functions spanning operations such
123
as image file reading and writing, acquisition, display, filtering, blob, point and line feature extraction, mathematical morphology, homographies, visual Jacobians, camera calibration and color space conversion. The Toolbox, combined
R

with MATLAB and a modern workstation computer, is a useful and convenient environment for investigation of machine vision algorithms. For modest image sizes the
processing rate can be sufficiently real-time to allow for closed-loop control. Focus of attention methods such as dynamic windowing (not provided) can be used to
increase the processing rate. With input from a firewire or web camera (support provided) and output to a robot (not provided) it would be possible to implement a visual
R

servo system entirely in MATLAB .
An image is usually treated as a rectangular array of scalar values representing intenR

sity or perhaps range. The matrix is the natural datatype for MATLAB and thus
makes the manipulation of images easily expressible in terms of arithmetic statements
R

in MATLAB language. Many image operations such as thresholding, filtering and
R

statistics can be achieved with existing MATLAB functions. The Toolbox extends
this core functionality with M-files that implement functions and classes, and mex-files
for some compute intensive operations. It is possible to use mex-files to interface with
image acquisition hardware ranging from simple framegrabbers to robots. Examples
for firewire cameras under Linux are provided.
The routines are written in a straightforward manner which allows for easy underR

standing. MATLAB vectorization has been used as much as possible to improve
efficiency, however some algorithms are not amenable to vectorization. If you have the

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

MATLAB compiler available then this can be used to compile bottleneck functions.
Some particularly compute intensive functions are provided as mex-files and may need
to be compiled for the particular platform. This toolbox considers images generally
as arrays of double precision numbers. This is extravagant on storage, though this is
much less significant today than it was in the past.
This toolbox is not a clone of the Mathworks own Image Processing Toolbox (IPT)
although there are many functions in common. This toolbox predates IPT by many
years, is open-source, contains many functions that are useful for image feature extraction and control. It was developed under Unix and Linux systems and some functions
rely on tools and utilities that exist only in that environment.
R

The manual is now auto-generated from the comments in the MATLAB code itself
which reduces the effort in maintaining code and a separate manual as I used to the
downside is that there are no worked examples and figures in the manual. However
the book Robotics, Vision & Control provides a detailed discussion (over 600 pages,
nearly 400 figures and 1000 code examples) of how to use the Toolbox functions to
solve many types of problems in robotics and machine vision, and I commend it to
you.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1

Introduction
1.1 Support . . . . . . . . . .
1.2 How to obtain the Toolbox
1.2.1 Documentation . .
1.3 MATLAB version issues .
1.4 Use in teaching . . . . . .
1.5 Use in research . . . . . .
1.5.1 Other toolboxes . .
1.6 Acknowledgements . . . .

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

11
11
11
12
13
13
13
13
14

Functions and classes

about . . . . . . . . . .
anaglyph . . . . . . . .
angdiff . . . . . . . . .
AxisWebCamera . . .
BagOfWords . . . . .
blackbody . . . . . . .
boundmatch . . . . . .
bresenham . . . . . . .
camcald . . . . . . . .
Camera . . . . . . . .
CatadioptricCamera . .
ccdresponse . . . . . .
ccxyz . . . . . . . . .
CentralCamera . . . .
cie primaries . . . . .
circle . . . . . . . . . .
closest . . . . . . . . .
cmfrgb . . . . . . . . .
cmfxyz . . . . . . . . .
col2im . . . . . . . . .
colnorm . . . . . . . .
colordistance . . . . .
colorize . . . . . . . .
colorkmeans . . . . . .
colorname . . . . . . .

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

15
15
15
16
17
18
22
23
23
24
24
30
33
34
34
45
45
45
46
47
47
48
48
49
49
50

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CONTENTS

colorseg . . . .
colorspace . . .
diff2 . . . . . .
distance . . . .
e2h . . . . . . .
EarthView . . .
edgelist . . . .
epidist . . . . .
epiline . . . . .
FeatureMatch .
filt1d . . . . . .
FishEyeCamera
fmatrix . . . . .
gauss2d . . . .
gaussfunc . . .
h2e . . . . . . .
hist2d . . . . .
hitormiss . . . .
homline . . . .
homography . .
homtrans . . . .
homwarp . . .
Hough . . . . .
humoments . .
ianimate . . . .
ibbox . . . . .
iblobs . . . . .
icanny . . . . .
iclose . . . . .
icolor . . . . .
iconcat . . . . .
iconv . . . . . .
icorner . . . . .
icp . . . . . . .
idecimate . . .
idilate . . . . .
idisp . . . . . .
idisplabel . . .
idouble . . . .
iendpoint . . .
ierode . . . . .
igamma . . . .
igraphseg . . .
ihist . . . . . .
iint . . . . . . .
iisum . . . . . .
ilabel . . . . . .
iline . . . . . .
im2col . . . . .
ImageSource .

CONTENTS

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
7

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

51
51
53
53
54
54
57
58
58
59
64
64
67
68
68
68
69
70
70
70
71
72
72
76
76
77
78
79
80
80
81
82
83
85
86
86
87
89
90
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
96
97
98
98

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CONTENTS

imatch . . .
imeshgrid .
imoments .
imono . . .
imorph . . .
imser . . . .
inormhist .
intgimage .
invcamcal .
iopen . . . .
ipad . . . .
ipaste . . .
ipixswitch .
iprofile . . .
ipyramid . .
irank . . . .
iread . . . .
irectify . . .
ireplicate . .
iroi . . . . .
irotate . . .
isamesize .
iscale . . .
iscalemax .
iscalespace .
iscolor . . .
isift . . . .
isimilarity .
isize . . . .
ismooth . .
isobel . . .
istereo . . .
istretch . . .
isurf . . . .
ithin . . . .
ithresh . . .
itrim . . . .
itriplepoint .
ivar . . . .
iwindow . .
kcircle . . .
kdgauss . .
kdog . . . .
kgauss . . .
klaplace . .
klog . . . .
kmeans . .
ksobel . . .
ktriangle . .
lambda2rg .

CONTENTS

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
8

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

99
101
101
102
103
104
105
105
106
106
107
108
108
109
110
110
111
113
113
114
114
115
115
116
116
117
117
119
120
121
121
122
124
124
126
126
127
128
128
129
130
131
131
132
132
133
133
134
134
135

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CONTENTS

lambda2xy . . . .
LineFeature . . .
loadspectrum . .
luminos . . . . .
mkcube . . . . .
mkgrid . . . . . .
mlabel . . . . . .
morphdemo . . .
Movie . . . . . .
mplot . . . . . .
mpq . . . . . . .
mpq poly . . . .
mtools . . . . . .
ncc . . . . . . . .
niblack . . . . . .
npq . . . . . . .
npq poly . . . . .
numcols . . . . .
numrows . . . . .
otsu . . . . . . .
peak . . . . . . .
peak2 . . . . . .
PGraph . . . . .
plot2 . . . . . . .
plot arrow . . . .
plot box . . . . .
plot circle . . . .
plot ellipse . . .
plot ellipse inv .
plot homline . . .
plot point . . . .
plot poly . . . . .
plot sphere . . .
plotp . . . . . . .
Plucker . . . . .
pnmfilt . . . . . .
PointFeature . . .
polydiff . . . . .
Polygon . . . . .
radgrad . . . . .
randinit . . . . .
ransac . . . . . .
Ray3D . . . . . .
RegionFeature . .
rg addticks . . .
rgb2xyz . . . . .
rluminos . . . . .
sad . . . . . . . .
ScalePointFeature
SiftPointFeature .

CONTENTS

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
9

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

135
136
139
139
140
140
141
141
142
143
144
144
145
145
146
146
147
147
148
148
149
150
150
164
165
165
165
166
166
166
167
168
168
169
169
171
172
175
175
180
180
181
183
185
189
189
190
190
190
192

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CONTENTS

SphericalCamera
ssd . . . . . . . .
stdisp . . . . . .
SurfPointFeature
tb optparse . . .
testpattern . . . .
Tracker . . . . .
tristim2cc . . . .
upq . . . . . . .
upq poly . . . . .
VideoCamera . .
VideoCamera fg .
VideoCamera IAT
xaxis . . . . . . .
xycolorspace . .
xyzlabel . . . . .
yaxis . . . . . . .
YUV . . . . . . .
zcross . . . . . .
zncc . . . . . . .
zsad . . . . . . .
zssd . . . . . . .

CONTENTS

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

195
199
199
200
203
204
205
207
207
208
208
209
211
213
213
214
214
214
216
217
217
218

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

Chapter 1

Introduction
1.1

Support

There is no support! This software is made freely available in the hope that you find
it useful in solving whatever problems you have to hand. I am happy to correspond
with people who have found genuine bugs or deficiencies but my response time can
be long and I cant guarantee that I respond to your email. I am very happy to accept
contributions for inclusion in future versions of the toolbox, and you will be suitably
acknowledged.
I can guarantee that I will not respond to any requests for help with assignments
or homework, no matter how urgent or important they might be to you. Thats
what your teachers, tutors, lecturers and professors are paid to do.
You might instead like to communicate with other users via the Google Group called
Robotics Toolbox
http://groups.google.com.au/group/robotics-tool-box
which is a forum for discussion. You need to signup in order to post, and the signup
process is moderated by me so allow a few days for this to happen. I need you to write a
few words about why you want to join the list so I can distinguish you from a spammer
or a web-bot.

1.2

How to obtain the Toolbox

The Machine Vision Toolbox is freely available from the Toolbox home page at
http://www.petercorke.com
The web page requests some information from you regarding such as your country,
type of organization and application. This is just a means for me to gauge interest and
to remind myself that this is a worthwhile activity.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

1.2. HOW TO OBTAIN THE TOOLBOX

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

The files are available in zip format (.zip). Download them all to the same directory
and then unzip them. They all unpack to the correct parts of a hiearchy of directories
(folders) headed by rvctools.
You may require one or more files, please read the descriptions carefully before downloading.
vision-3.X.zip This file is essential, it is the core Toolbox and contains all
the functions, classes, mex-files and Simulink models required for most of the
RVC book.
images.zip These are the images that are used for many examples in the RVC
book. These images are all found automatically by the iread() function.
contrib.zip A small number of Toolbox functions depend on third party
code which is included in this file. Please note and respect the licence conditions
associated with these packages. Those functions are: igraphseg, imser, and
CentralCamera.estpose.
contrib2.zip Additional third party code for the functions: isift, and
isurf. Note that the code here is slightly modified version of the open-source
packages.
images2.zip This is a large file (150MB) containing the mosaic, campus,
bridge-l and campus sequences which support the examples in Sections 14.6,
14.7 and 14.8 respectively.
If you already have the Robotics Toolbox installed then download the zip file(s) to the
directory above the existing rvctools directory and then unzip them. The files from
these zip archives will properly interleave with the Robotics Toolbox files.
R

Ensure that the folder rvctools is on your MATLAB search path. You can do
R

this by issuing the addpath command at the MATLAB prompt. Then issue the
R

command startup rvc and it will add a number of paths to your MATLAB search
R

path. You need to setup the path every time you start MATLAB but you can automate
this by setting up environment variables, editing your startup.m script by pressing
R

the Update Toolbox Path Cache button under MATLAB General preferences.

1.2.1

Documentation

This document vision.pdf is a manual that describes all functions in the Toolbox. It
R

is auto-generated from the comments in the MATLAB code and is fully hyperlinked:
to external web sites, the table of content to functions, and the See also functions to
each other.
The same documentation is available online in alphabetical order at http://www.
petercorke.com/MVTB/r3/html/index_alpha.html or by category at http:
//www.petercorke.com/MVTB/r3/html/index.html.
R

Documentation is also available via the MATLAB

Toolbox appears under the Contents.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

help browser, Machine Vision

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

1.3. MATLAB VERSION ISSUES

1.3

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

MATLAB version issues

The Toolbox has been tested under R2012a.

1.4

Use in teaching

This is definitely encouraged! You are free to put the PDF manual (vision.pdf or
the web-based documentation html/*.html on a server for class use. If you plan to
distribute paper copies of the PDF manual then every copy must include the first two
pages (cover and licence).

1.5

Use in research

If the Toolbox helps you in your endeavours then Id appreciate you citing the Toolbox
when you publish. The details are
@article{Corke05f,
Author = {P.I. Corke},
Journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine},
Title = {Machine Vision Toolbox},
Month = nov,
Volume = {12},
Number = {4},
Year = {2005},
Pages = {16-25}
}
or
Machine Vision Toolbox,
P.I. Corke,
IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine,
12(4), pp 1625, November 2005.
which is also given in electronic form in the CITATION file.

1.5.1

Other toolboxes

Matlab Central http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral is a great resource for user contributed MATLAB code, and there are hundreds of modules available. VLFeat http://www.vlfeat.org is a great collection of advanced computer vision algorithms for MATLAB.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

1.6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

1.6

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

Acknowledgements

Last, but not least, this release includes functions for computing image plane homographies and the fundamental matrix, contributed by Nuno Alexandre Cid Martins
of I.S.R., Coimbra. RANSAC code by Peter Kovesi; pose estimation by Francesco
Moreno-Noguer, Vincent Lepetit, Pascal Fua at the CVLab-EPFL; color space conversions by Pascal Getreuer; numerical routines for geometric vision by various members of the Visual Geometry Group at Oxford (from the web site of the Hartley and
Zisserman book; the k-means and MSER algorithms by Andrea Vedaldi and Brian
Fulkerson;the graph-based image segmentation software by Pedro Felzenszwalb; and
the SURF feature detector by Dirk-Jan Kroon at U. Twente. The Camera Calibration
Toolbox by Jean-Yves Bouguet is used unmodified.Functions such as SURF, MSER,
graph-based segmentation and pose estimation are based on great code Some of the
MEX file use some really neat macros that were part of the package VISTA Copyright
1993, 1994 University of British Columbia. See the file CONTRIB for details.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

Chapter 2

Functions and classes

about
Compact display of variable type
about(x) displays a compact line that describes the class and dimensions of x.
about x as above but this is the command rather than functional form

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

r
g
b
c
m

red
green
green
cyan
magenta

a = anaglyph(left, right, color, disp) as above but allows for disparity correction. If
disp is positive the disparity is increased, if negative it is reduced. These adjustments
are achieved by trimming the images. Use this option to make the images more natural/comfortable to view, useful if the images were captured with a stereo baseline
significantly different the human eye separation (typically 65mm).

Example
Load the left and right images
L = iread(rocks2-l.png, reduce, 2);
R = iread(rocks2-r.png, reduce, 2);

then display the anaglyph for viewing with red-cyan glasses

anaglyph(L, R);

References
Robotics, Vision & Control, Section 14.3, P. Corke, Springer 2011.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

AxisWebCamera
Image from Axis webcam
A concrete subclass of ImageSource that acquires images from a web camera built by
Axis Communications (www.axis.com).

Methods
grab
size
close
char

Aquire and return the next image

Size of image
Close the image source
Convert the object parameters to human readable string

Return image with uint8 pixels (default)

Return image with float pixels
Return image with double precision pixels
Return greyscale image
Apply gamma correction with gamma=G
Subsample the image by S in both directions.
Obtain an image of size S=[W H].

Notes:
The specified resolution must match one that the camera is capable of, otherwise the result is not predictable.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

AxisWebCamera.char
Convert to string
A.char() is a string representing the state of the camera object in human readable form.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Methods
isword
occurrences
remove stop
wordvector
wordfreq
similarity
contains
exemplars
display
char

Return all features assigned to word

Return number of occurrences of word
Remove stop words
Return word frequency vector
Return words and their frequencies
Compare two word bags
List the images that contain a word
Display examples of word support regions
Display the parameters of the bag of words
Convert the parameters of the bag of words to a string

Properties
K
nstop
nimages

The number of clusters specified

The number of stop words specified
The number of images in the bag

Reference
J.Sivic and A.Zisserman, Video Google: a text retrieval approach to object matching
in videos, in Proc. Ninth IEEE Int. Conf. on Computer Vision, pp.1470-1477, Oct.
2003.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

nail images. The original sequence of images from which the features were extracted
must be provided as images.

Options
ncolumns, N
maxperimage, M
width, w

Number of columns to display (default 10)

Maximum number of exemplars to display from any one image (default 2)
Width of each thumbnail [pixels] (default 50)

BagOfWords.isword
Features from words
f = B.isword(w) is a vector of feature objects that are assigned to any of the word w. If
w is a vector of words the result is a vector of features assigned to all the words in w.

BagOfWords.occurrence
Word occurrence
n = B.occurrence(w) is the number of occurrences of the word w across all features in
the bag.

BagOfWords.remove stop
Remove stop words
B.remove stop(n) removes the n most frequent words (the stop words) from the bag.
All remaining words are renumbered so that the word labels are consecutive.

BagOfWords.wordfreq
Word frequency statistics
[w,n] = B.wordfreq() is a vector of word labels w and the corresponding elements of
n are the number of occurrences of that word.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

BagOfWords.wordvector
Word frequency vector
wf = B.wordvector(J) is the word frequency vector for the Jth image in the bag.
The vector is K 1 and the angle between any two WFVs is an indication of image
similarity.

Notes
The word vector is expensive to compute so a lazy evaluation is performed on
the first call to this function

blackbody
Compute blackbody emission spectrum
E = blackbody(lambda, T) is the blackbody radiation power density [W/m3 ] at the
wavelength lambda [m] and temperature T [K].
If lambda is a column vector (N 1), then E is a column vector (N 1) of blackbody
radiation power density at the corresponding elements of lambda.

Example
l = [380:10:700]*1e-9; % visible spectrum
e = blackbody(l, 6500); % emission of sun
plot(l, e)

References
Robotics, Vision & Control, Section 10.1, P. Corke, Springer 2011.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

boundmatch
Match boundary profiles
x = boundmatch(R1, r2) is the correlation of the two boundary profiles R1 and r2.
Each is an N 1 vector of distances from the centroid of an object to points on its
perimeter at equal angular increments spanning 2pi radians. x is also N 1 and is a
correlation whose peak indicates the relative orientation of one profile with respect to
the other.
[x,s] = boundmatch(R1, r2) as above but also returns the relative scale s which is the
size of object 2 with respect to object 1.

Notes
Can be considered as matching two functions defined over s(1).

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

camcald
Camera calibration from data points
C = camcald(d) is the camera matrix (3 4) determined by least squares from corresponding world and image-plane points. d is a table of points with rows of the form
[X Y Z U V] where (X,Y,Z) is the coordinate of a world point and [U,V] is the corresponding image plane coordinate.
[C,E] = camcald(d) as above but E is the maximum residual error after back substitution [pixels].
Notes:
This method assumes no lense distortion affecting the image plane coordinates.

plot projection of world point to image plane

control figure hold for image plane window
test figure hold for image plane
clear image plane
figure holding the image plane
draw shape represented as a mesh
draw homogeneous points on image plane
draw homogeneous lines on image plane
draw camera in world view

rpy
move
centre

set camera attitude

clone Camera after motion
get world coordinate of camera centre

delete
char
display

object destructor
convert camera parameters to string
display camera parameters
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Properties (read/write)
image dimensions (2 1)
principal point (2 1)
pixel dimensions (2 1) in metres
camera pose as homogeneous transformation

npix
pp
rho
T

Properties (read only)

nu
nv
u0
v0

number of pixels in u-direction

number of pixels in v-direction
principal point u-coordinate
principal point v-coordinate

Notes
Camera is a reference object.
Camera objects can be used in vectors and arrays
This is an abstract class and must be subclassed and a project() method defined.
The object can create a window to display the Camera image plane, this window
is protected and can only be accessed by the plot methods of this object.

Camera.Camera
Create camera object
Constructor for abstact Camera class, used by all subclasses.
C = Camera(options) creates a default (abstract) camera with null parameters.

Options
name, N
image, IM
resolution, N
sensor, S
centre, P
pixel, S
noise, SIGMA
pose, T
color, C

Name of camera
Load image IM to image plane
Image plane resolution: N N or N=[W H]
Image sensor size in metres (2 1) [metres]
Principal point (2 1)
Pixel size: S S or S=[W H]
Standard deviation of additive Gaussian noise added to returned image projections
Pose of the camera as a homogeneous transformation
Color of image plane background (default [1 1 0.8])

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Notes
Normally the class plots points and lines into a set of axes that represent the
image plane. The image option paints the specified image onto the image plane
and allows points and lines to be overlaid.

See also
CentralCamera, fisheyecamera, CatadioptricCamera, SphericalCamera

Camera.centre
Get camera position
p = C.centre() is the 3-dimensional position of the camera centre (3 1).

Camera.char
Convert to string
s = C.char() is a compact string representation of the camera parameters.

Camera.clf
Clear the image plane
C.clf() removes all graphics from the cameras image plane.

Camera.delete
Camera object destructor
C.delete() destroys all figures associated with the Camera object and removes the
object.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Camera.display
Display value
C.display() displays a compact human-readable representation of the camera parameters.

Notes
This method is invoked implicitly at the command line when the result of an
expression is a Camera object and the command has no trailing semicolon.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Camera.ishold
Return image plane hold status
H = C.ishold() returns true (1) if the cameras image plane is in hold mode, otherwise
false (0).

Camera.lineseg
handle for this camera image plane

Camera.mesh
Plot mesh object on image plane
C.mesh(x, y, z, options) projects a 3D shape defined by the matrices x, y, z to the image
plane and plots them. The matrices x, y, z are of the same size and the corresponding
elements of the matrices define 3D points.

Options
Tobj, T
Tcam, T

Transform all points by the homogeneous transformation T before projecting them to

the camera image plane.
Set the camera pose to the homogeneous transformation T before projecting points to
the camera image plane. Temporarily overrides the current camera pose C.T.

Additional arguments are passed to plot as line style parameters.

See also
mesh, cylinder, sphere, mkcube, Camera.plot, Camera.hold, Camera.clf

Camera.move
Instantiate displaced camera
C2 = C.move(T) is a new camera object that is a clone of C but its pose is displaced
by the homogeneous transformation T with respect to the current pose of C.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Camera.plot
Plot points on image plane
C.plot(p, options) projects world points p (3 N ) to the image plane and plots them.
If p is 2 N the points are assumed to be image plane coordinates and are plotted
directly.
uv = C.plot(p) as above but returns the image plane coordinates uv (2 N ).
If p has 3 dimensions (3 N S) then it is considered a sequence of point sets
and is displayed as an animation.
C.plot(L, options) projects the world lines represented by the array of Plucker objects
(1 N ) to the image plane and plots them.
li = C.plot(L, options) as above but returns an array (3 N ) of image plane lines in
homogeneous form.

Options
Tobj, T
Tcam, T
fps, N
sequence
textcolor, C
textsize, S
drawnow

Transform all points by the homogeneous transformation T before projecting them to

the camera image plane.
Set the camera pose to the homogeneous transformation T before projecting points to
the camera image plane. Overrides the current camera pose C.T.
Number of frames per second for point sequence display
Annotate the points with their index
Text color for annotation (default black)
Text size for annotation (default 12)
Execute MATLAB drawnow function

Additional options are considered MATLAB linestyle parameters and are passed directly to plot.

See also
Camera.mesh, Camera.hold, Camera.clf, plucker

Camera.plot camera
Display camera icon in world view
C.plot camera(options) draw a camera as a simple 3D model in the current figure.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Options
Tcam, T
scale, S
color, C
frustrum
solid
mesh
label

Camera displayed in pose T (homogeneous transformation 4 4)

Overall scale factor (default 0.2 x maximum axis dimension)
Camera body color (default blue)
Draw the camera as a frustrum (pyramid mesh)
Draw a non-frustrum camera as a solid (default)
Draw a non-frustrum camera as a mesh
Show the cameras name next to the camera

Notes
The graphic handles are stored within the Camera object.

Camera.point
Plot homogeneous points on image plane
C.point(p) plots points on the camera image plane which are defined by columns of p
(3 N ) considered as points in homogeneous form.

Camera.rpy
Set camera attitude
C.rpy(R, p, y) sets the camera attitude to the specified roll-pitch-yaw angles.
C.rpy(rpy) as above but rpy=[R,p,y].

CatadioptricCamera
Catadioptric camera class
A concrete class for a catadioptric camera, subclass of Camera.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Methods
project

project world points to image plane

plot
hold
ishold
clf
figure
mesh
point
line
plot camera

plot/return world point on image plane

control hold for image plane
test figure hold for image plane
clear image plane
figure holding the image plane
draw shape represented as a mesh
draw homogeneous points on image plane
draw homogeneous lines on image plane
draw camera

rpy
move
centre

set camera attitude

copy of Camera after motion
get world coordinate of camera centre

delete
char
display

object destructor
convert camera parameters to string
display camera parameters

Properties (read/write)
image dimensions in pixels (2 1)
intrinsic: principal point (2 1)
intrinsic: pixel dimensions (2 1) [metres]
intrinsic: focal length [metres]
intrinsic: tangential distortion parameters
extrinsic: camera pose as homogeneous transformation

npix
pp
rho
f
p
T

Properties (read only)

nu
nv
u0
v0

number of pixels in u-direction

number of pixels in v-direction
principal point u-coordinate
principal point v-coordinate

Notes
Camera is a reference object.
Camera objects can be used in vectors and arrays

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

CatadioptricCamera.CatadioptricCamera
Create central projection camera object
C = CatadioptricCamera() creates a central projection camera with canonic parameters: f=1 and name=canonic.
C = CatadioptricCamera(options) as above but with specified parameters.

Options
name, N
focal, F
default
projection, M
k, K
maxangle, A
resolution, N
sensor, S
centre, P
pixel, S
noise, SIGMA
pose, T

Name of camera
Focal length (metres)
Default camera parameters: 1024 1024, f=8mm, 10um pixels, camera at origin,
optical axis is z-axis, u- and v-axes parallel to x- and y-axes respectively.
Catadioptric model: equiangular (default), sine, equisolid, stereographic
Parameter for the projection model
The maximum viewing angle above the horizontal plane.
Image plane resolution: N N or N=[W H].
Image sensor size in metres (2 1)
Principal point (2 1)
Pixel size: S S or S=[W H].
Standard deviation of additive Gaussian noise added to returned image projections
Pose of the camera as a homogeneous transformation

Notes
The elevation angle range is from -pi/2 (below the mirror) to maxangle above the
horizontal plane.

See also
Camera, fisheyecamera, CatadioptricCamera, SphericalCamera

CatadioptricCamera.project
Project world points to image plane
uv = C.project(p, options) are the image plane coordinates for the world points p.
The columns of p (3 N ) are the world points and the columns of uv (2 N ) are the
corresponding image plane points.
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Options
Tobj, T
Tcam, T

Transform all points by the homogeneous transformation T before projecting them to

the camera image plane.
Set the camera pose to the homogeneous transformation T before projecting points to
the camera image plane. Temporarily overrides the current camera pose C.T.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

ccxyz
XYZ chromaticity coordinates
xyz = ccxyz(lambda) is the xyz-chromaticity coordinates (3 1) for illumination at
wavelength lambda. If lambda is a vector (N 1) then each row of xyz (N 3) is
the xyz-chromaticity of the corresponding element of lambda.
xyz = ccxyz(lambda, E) is the xyz-chromaticity coordinates (N 3) for an illumination
spectrum E (N 1) defined at corresponding wavelengths lambda (N 1).

References
Robotics, Vision & Control, Section 10.2, P. Corke, Springer 2011.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Methods
project
K
C
H
invH
F
E
invE
fov
ray
centre

project world points and lines

camera intrinsic matrix
camera matrix
camera motion to homography
decompose homography
camera motion to fundamental matrix
camera motion to essential matrix
decompose essential matrix
field of view
Ray3D corresponding to point
projective centre

plot
hold
ishold
clf
figure
mesh
point
line
plot camera
plot line tr
plot epiline

plot projection of world point on image plane

flowfield
visjac p
visjac p polar
visjac l
visjac e

compute optical flow

image Jacobian for point features
image Jacobian for point features in polar coordinates
image Jacobian for line features
image Jacobian for ellipse features

rpy
move
centre
estpose

set camera attitude

clone Camera after motion
get world coordinate of camera centre
estimate pose

delete
char
display

object destructor
convert camera parameters to string
display camera parameters

Properties (read/write)
npix
pp
rho
f
k
p
distortion
T

image dimensions in pixels (2 1)

intrinsic: principal point (2 1)
intrinsic: pixel dimensions (2 1) in metres
intrinsic: focal length
intrinsic: radial distortion vector
intrinsic: tangential distortion parameters
intrinsic: camera distortion [k1 k2 k3 p1 p2]
extrinsic: camera pose as homogeneous transformation
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Properties (read only)

nu
nv
u0
v0

number of pixels in u-direction

number of pixels in v-direction
principal point u-coordinate
principal point v-coordinate

Notes
Camera is a reference object.
Camera objects can be used in vectors and arrays

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

See also
Camera, fisheyecamera, CatadioptricCamera, SphericalCamera

CentralCamera.C
Camera matrix
C = C.C() is the 34 camera matrix, also known as the camera calibration or projection
matrix.

CentralCamera.centre
Projective centre
p = C.centre() returns the 3D world coordinate of the projective centre of the camera.

Reference
Hartley & Zisserman, Multiview Geometry,

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Reference
Y.Ma, J.Kosecka, S.Soatto, S.Sastry, An invitation to 3D, Springer, 2003. p.177

See also
CentralCamera.F, CentralCamera.invE

CentralCamera.estpose
Estimate pose from object model and camera view
T = C.estpose(xyz, uv) is an estimate of the pose of the object defined by coordinates
xyz (3N ) in its own coordinate frame. uv (2N ) are the corresponding image plane
coordinates.

Reference
EPnP: An accurate O(n) solution to the PnP problem, V. Lepetit, F. Moreno-Noguer,
and P. Fua, Int. Journal on Computer Vision, vol. 81, pp. 155-166, Feb. 2009.

CentralCamera.F
Fundamental matrix
F = C.F(T) is the fundamental matrix relating two camera views. The first view is
from the current camera pose C.T and the second is a relative motion represented by
the homogeneous transformation T.
F = C.F(C2) is the fundamental matrix relating two camera views described by camera
objects C (first view) and C2 (second view).

Reference
Y.Ma, J.Kosecka, S.Soatto, S.Sastry, An invitation to 3D, Springer, 2003. p.177

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

CentralCamera.flowfield
Optical flow
C.flowfield(v) displays the optical flow pattern for a sparse grid of points when the
camera has a spatial velocity v (6 1).

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

s = C.invE(E, p) as above but only solutions in which the world point p is visible are
returned.

Reference
Hartley & Zisserman, Multiview Geometry, Chap 9, p. 259
Y.Ma, J.Kosecka, s.Soatto, s.Sastry, An invitation to 3D, Springer, 2003. p116, p120122

Notes
The transformation is from view 1 to view 2.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

If Tcam (4 4 S) is a transform sequence then uv (2 N S) represents the

sequence of projected points as the camera moves in the world.
If Tobj (4 4 S) is a transform sequence then uv (2 N S) represents the
sequence of projected points as the object moves in the world.
L = C.project(L, options) are the image plane homogeneous lines (3N ) corresponding to the world lines represented by a vector of Plucker coordinates (1 N ).

Options
Tobj, T
Tcam, T

Transform all points by the homogeneous transformation T before projecting them to

the camera image plane.
Set the camera pose to the homogeneous transformation T before projecting points to
the camera image plane. Temporarily overrides the current camera pose C.T.

Notes
Currently a camera or object pose sequence is not supported for the case of line
projection.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

CentralCamera.visjac e
Visual motion Jacobian for point feature
J = C.visjac e(E, pl) is the image Jacobian (5 6) for the ellipse E (5 1) described
by u2 + E1v2 - 2E2uv + 2E3u + 2E4v + E5 = 0. The ellipse lies in the world plane pl
= (a,b,c,d) such that aX + bY + cZ + d = 0.
The Jacobian gives the rates of change of the ellipse parameters in terms of camera
spatial velocity.

Reference
B. Espiau, F. Chaumette, and P. Rives, A New Approach to Visual Servoing in Robotics,
IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, vol. 8, pp. 313-326, June 1992.

See also
CentralCamera.visjac p, CentralCamera.visjac p polar, CentralCamera.visjac l

CentralCamera.visjac l
Visual motion Jacobian for line feature
J = C.visjac l(L, pl) is the image Jacobian (2N 6) for the image plane lines L (2
N ). Each column of L is a line in theta-rho format, and the rows are theta and rho
respectively.
The lines all lie in the plane pl = (a,b,c,d) such that aX + bY + cZ + d = 0.
The Jacobian gives the rates of change of the line parameters in terms of camera spatial
velocity.

Reference
B. Espiau, F. Chaumette, and P. Rives, A New Approach to Visual Servoing in Robotics,
IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, vol. 8, pp. 313-326, June 1992.

See also
CentralCamera.visjac p, CentralCamera.visjac p polar, CentralCamera.visjac e

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

CentralCamera.visjac p
Visual motion Jacobian for point feature
J = C.visjac p(uv, z) is the image Jacobian (2N 6) for the image plane points uv
(2 N ). The depth of the points from the camera is given by z which is a scalar for all
points, or a vector (N 1) of depth for each point.
The Jacobian gives the image-plane point velocity in terms of camera spatial velocity.

Reference
A tutorial on Visual Servo Control, Hutchinson, Hager & Corke, IEEE Trans. R&A,
Vol 12(5), Oct, 1996, pp 651-670.

See also
CentralCamera.visjac p polar, CentralCamera.visjac l, CentralCamera.visjac e

CentralCamera.visjac p polar
Visual motion Jacobian for point feature
J = C.visjac p polar(rt, z) is the image Jacobian (2N 6) for the image plane points
rt (2 N ) described in polar form, radius and theta. The depth of the points from the
camera is given by z which is a scalar for all point, or a vector (N 1) of depths for
each point.
The Jacobian gives the image-plane polar point coordinate velocity in terms of camera
spatial velocity.

Reference
Combining Cartesian and polar coordinates in IBVS, P. I. Corke, F. Spindler, and F.
Chaumette, in Proc. Int. Conf on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), (St. Louis),
pp. 5962-5967, Oct. 2009.

See also
CentralCamera.visjac p, CentralCamera.visjac l, CentralCamera.visjac e

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

cie primaries
Define CIE primary colors
p = cie primaries() is a 3-vector with the wavelengths [m] of the CIE 1976 red, green
and blue primaries respectively.

circle
Compute points on a circle
circle(C, R, opt) plot a circle centred at C with radius R.
x = circle(C, R, opt) return an N 2 matrix whose rows define the coordinates [x,y]
of points around the circumferance of a circle centred at C and of radius R.
C is normally 2 1 but if 3 1 then the circle is embedded in 3D, and x is N 3, but
the circle is always in the xy-plane with a z-coordinate of C(3).

Options
n, N

Specify the number of points (default 50)

closest
Find closest points in N-dimensional space.
k = closest(a, b) is the correspondence for N-dimensional point sets a (N N A) and
b (N N B). k (1 x NA) is such that the element J = k(I), that is, that the Ith column
of a is closest to the Jth column of b.
[k,d1] = closest(a, b) as above and d1(I)=a(I)-b(J) is the distance of the closest
point.
[k,d1,d2] = closest(a, b) as above but also returns the distance to the second closest
point.

Notes
Is a MEX file.
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

cmfxyz
matching function
The color matching function is the XYZ tristimulus required to match a particular
wavelength excitation.
xyz = cmfxyz(lambda) is the CIE xyz color matching function (N 3) for illumination
at wavelength lambda (N 1) [m]. If lambda is a vector then each row of xyz is the
color matching function of the corresponding element of lambda.
xyz = cmfxyz(lambda, E) is the CIE xyz color matching (1 3) function for an illumination spectrum E (N 1) defined at corresponding wavelengths lambda (N 1).

Note
CIE 1931 2-deg xyz CMFs from cvrl.ioo.ucl.ac.uk

References
Robotics, Vision & Control, Section 14.3, P. Corke, Springer 2011.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

colorize
Colorize a greyscale image
out = colorize(im, mask, color) is a color image where each pixel in out is set to
the corresponding element of the greyscale image im or a specified color according
to whether the corresponding value of mask is true or false respectively. The color is
specified as a 3-vector (R,G,B).
out = colorize(im, func, color) as above but a the mask is the return value of the
function handle func applied to the image im, and returns a per-pixel logical result, eg.
@isnan.

Examples
Display image with values < 100 in blue
out = colorize(im, im<100, [0 0 1])

Display image with NaN values shown in red

out = colorize(im, @isnan, [1 0 0])

Notes
With no output arguments the image is displayed.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

[L,C,R] = colorkmeans(im, k) as above but also returns the residual R, the root mean
square error of all pixel chromaticities with respect to their cluster centre.
L = colorkmeans(im, C) is a segmentation of the color image im into k classes which
are defined by the cluster centres C (k 2) in chromaticity space. Pixels are assigned
to the closest (Euclidean) centre. Since cluster centres are provided the k-means segmentation step is not required.

Options
Various options are possible to choose the initial cluster centres for k-means:
random
spread
pick

randomly choose k points from

randomly choose k values within the rectangle spanned by the input chromaticities.
interactively pick cluster centres

Notes
The k-means clustering algorithm used in the first three forms is computationally
expensive and time consuming.
Clustering is performed in xy-chromaticity space.
The residual is an indication of quality of fit, low is good.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Notes
Color name may contain a wildcard, eg. ?burnt
Based on the standard X11 color database rgb.txt.
Tristimulus values are in the range 0 to 1

colorseg
Color image segmentation using k-means
THIS FUNCTION IS DEPRECATED, USE COLORKMEANS INSTEAD

Notes
deprecated. Use COLORKMEANS instead.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

RGB
YPbPr
YCbCr/YCC
YUV
YIQ
YDbDr
JPEGYCbCr
HSV/HSB
HSL/HLS/HSI
XYZ
Lab
Luv
Lch

RGB Red Green Blue (ITU-R BT.709 gamma-corrected)

Luma (ITU-R BT.601) + Chroma
Luma + Chroma (digitized version of YPbPr)
NTSC PAL YUV Luma + Chroma
NTSC YIQ Luma + Chroma
SECAM YDbDr Luma + Chroma
JPEG-YCbCr Luma + Chroma
Hue Saturation Value/Brightness
Hue Saturation Luminance/Intensity
CIE XYZ
CIE L*a*b* (CIELAB)
CIE L*u*v* (CIELUV)
CIE L*ch (CIELCH)

Notes
RGB input is assumed to be gamma encoded
RGB output is gamma encoded
All conversions assume 2 degree observer and D65 illuminant.
Color space names are case insensitive.
When RGB is the source or destination, it can be omitted. For example yuv< is short for yuv<-rgb.
MATLAB uses two standard data formats for RGB: double data with intensities in the range 0 to 1, and uint8 data with integer-valued intensities from 0
to 255. As MATLABs native datatype, double data is the natural choice, and
the RGB format used by colorspace. However, for memory and computational performance, some functions also operate with uint8 RGB. Given uint8
RGB color data, colorspace will first cast it to double RGB before processing.
If im is an M 3 array, like a colormap, out will also have size M 3.

Author
Pascal Getreuer 2005-2006

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

diff2
Two point difference
d = diff2(v) is the 2-point difference for each point in the vector v and the first element
is zero. The vector d has the same length as v.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Grab a frame from Google maps

Size of image
Close the image source
Convert the object parameters to human readable string

Examples
Create an EarthView camera
ev = EarthView();

Zoom into QUT campus in Brisbane

ev.grab(-27.475722,153.0285, 17);

Show aerial view of Brisbane in satellite and map view

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

ev.grab(brisbane, 14)
ev.grab(brisbane, 14, map)

Notes
Google limit the number of map queries limit to 1000 unique (different) image
requests per viewer per day. A 403 error is returned if the daily quota is exceeded.
Maximum size is 640 640 for free access, business users can get more.
There are lots of conditions on what you can do with the images, particularly
with respect to publication. See the Google web site for details.

Author
Peter Corke, with some lines of code from from get google map by Val Schmidt.

Retrieve satellite image

Retrieve map image
Retrieve satellite image with map overlay
Google map scale (default 18)
Set image width to W (default 640)
Set image height to H (default 640)
The Google maps key string

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Notes
Scale is 1 for the whole world, 20 is about as high a resolution as you can get.

Retrieve satellite image

Retrieve map image
Retrieve satellite image with map overlay
Google map scale (default 18)
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Examples
Zoom into QUT campus in Brisbane
ev.grab(-27.475722,153.0285, 17);

Show aerial view of Brisbane in satellite and map view

ev.grab(brisbane, 14)
ev.grab(brisbane, 14, map)

Notes
If northing/easting outputs are requested the function deg2utm is required (from
MATLAB Central)
The easting/northing is somewhat approximate, see get google map on MATLAB Central.
If no output argument is given the image is displayed using idisp.

edgelist
Return list of edge pixels for region
E = edgelist(im, seed) is a list of edge pixels of a region in the image im starting at edge
coordinate seed (i,j). The result E is a matrix, each row is one edge point coordinate
(x,y).
E = edgelist(im, seed, direction) is a list of edge pixels as above, but the direction
of edge following is specified. direction == 0 (default) means clockwise, non zero
is counter-clockwise. Note that direction is with respect to y-axis upward, in matrix
coordinate frame, not image frame.

Notes
im is a binary image where 0 is assumed to be background, non-zero is an object.
seed must be a point on the edge of the region.
The seed point is always the first element of the returned edgelist.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

epidist
Distance of point from epipolar line
d = epidist(f, p1, p2) is the distance of the points p2 (2 M ) from the epipolar lines
due to points p1 (2 N ) where f (3 3) is a fundamental matrix relating the views
containing image points p1 and p2.
d (N M ) is the distance matrix where element d(i,j) is the distance from the point
p2(j) to the epipolar line due to point p1(i).

Author
Based on fmatrix code by, Nuno Alexandre Cid Martins, Coimbra, Oct 27, 1998, I.S.R.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

FeatureMatch
Feature correspondence object
This class represents the correspondence between two PointFeature objects. A vector
of FeatureMatch objects can represent the correspondence between sets of points.

Methods
plot
show

Plot corresponding points

Show summary statistics of corresponding points

ransac
inlier
outlier
subset

Determine inliers and outliers

Return inlier matches
Return outlier matches
Return a subset of matches

display
char

Display value of match

Convert value of match to string

Properties
p1
p2
p
distance

Point coordinates in view 1 (2 1)

Point coordinates in view 2 (2 1)
Point coordinates in view 1 and 2 (4 1)
Match strength between the points

Properties of a vector of FeatureMatch objects are returned as a vector. If F is a vector

(N 1) of FeatureMatch objects then F.p1 is a 2 N matrix with each column the
corresponding view 1 point coordinate.

Note
FeatureMatch is a reference object.
FeatureMatch objects can be used in vectors and arrays
Operates with all objects derived from PointFeature, such as ScalePointFeature,
SurfPointFeature and SiftPointFeature.

See also
PointFeature, SurfPointFeature, SiftPointFeature

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

FeatureMatch.FeatureMatch
Create a new FeatureMatch object
m = FeatureMatch(f1, f2, s) is a new FeatureMatch object describing a correspondence between point features f1 and f2 with a strength of s.
m = FeatureMatch(f1, f2) as above but the strength is set to NaN.

Notes
Only the coordinates of the PointFeature are kept.

See also
PointFeature, SurfPointFeature, SiftPointFeature

FeatureMatch.char
Convert to string
s = M.char() is a compact string representation of the match object. If M is a vector
then the string has multiple lines, one per element.

FeatureMatch.display
Display value
M.display() displays a compact human-readable representation of the feature pair. If
M is a vector then the elements are printed one per line.

Notes
This method is invoked implicitly at the command line when the result of an
expression is a FeatureMatch object and the command has no trailing semicolon.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

FeatureMatch.inlier
Inlier features
m2 = M.inlier() is a subset of the FeatureMatch vector M that are considered to be
inliers.

Notes
Inliers are not determined until after RANSAC is run.

See also
FeatureMatch.outlier, FeatureMatch.ransac

FeatureMatch.outlier
Outlier features
m2 = M.outlier() is a subset of the FeatureMatch vector M that are considered to be
outliers.

Notes
Outliers are not determined until after RANSAC is run.

See also
FeatureMatch.inlier, FeatureMatch.ransac

FeatureMatch.p
Feature point coordinate pairs
p = M.p() is a 4 N matrix containing the feature point coordinates. Each column
contains the coordinates of a pair of corresponding points [u1,v1,u2,v2].

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

See also
FeatureMatch.p1, FeatureMatch.p2

FeatureMatch.p1
Feature point coordinates from view 1
p = M.p1() is a 2 N matrix containing the feature points coordinates from view 1.
These are the (u,v) properties of the feature F1 passed to the constructor.

See also
FeatureMatch.FeatureMatch, FeatureMatch.p2, FeatureMatch.p

FeatureMatch.p2
Feature point coordinates from view 2
p = M.p2() is a 2 N matrix containing the feature points coordinates from view 1.
These are the (u,v) properties of the feature F2 passed to the constructor.

See also
FeatureMatch.FeatureMatch, FeatureMatch.p1, FeatureMatch.p

FeatureMatch.plot
Show corresponding points
M.plot() overlays the correspondences in the FeatureMatch vector M on the current
figure. The figure must comprise views 1 and 2 side by side, for example by:
idisp({im1,im2})
m.plot()

M.plot(ls) as above but the optional line style arguments ls are passed to plot.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Notes
Using IDISP as above adds UserData to the figure, and an error is created if this
UserData is not found.

See also
idisp

FeatureMatch.ransac
Apply RANSAC
M.ransac(func, options) applies the RANSAC algorithm to fit the point correspondences to the model described by the function func. The options are passed to the
RANSAC() function. Elements of the FeatureMatch vector have their status updated
in place to indicate whether they are inliers or outliers.

Example
f1 = isurf(im1);
f2 = isurf(im2);
m = f1.match(f2);
m.ransac( @fmatrix, 1e-4);

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

FeatureMatch.subset
Subset of matches
m2 = M.subset(n) is a FeatureMatch vector with no more than n elements sampled
uniformly from M.

filt1d
1-dimensional rank filter
y = filt1d(x, options) is the minimum, maximum or median value (1 N ) of the vector
x (1 N ) compute over an odd length sliding window.

Options
max
min
median
width, W

Compute maximum value over the window (default)

Compute minimum value over the window
Compute minimum value over the window
Width of the window (default 5)

Notes
If the window width is even, it is incremented by one.
The first and last elements of x are replicated so the output vector is the same
length as the input vector.

FishEyeCamera
Fish eye camera class
A concrete class a fisheye lense projection camera.
The camera coordinate system is:

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

This camera model assumes central projection, that is, the focal point is at z=0 and the
image plane is at z=f. The image is not inverted.

Methods
project

project world points to image plane

plot
hold
ishold
clf
figure
mesh
point
line
plot camera

plot/return world point on image plane

rpy
move
centre

set camera attitude

copy of Camera after motion
get world coordinate of camera centre

delete
char
display

object destructor
convert camera parameters to string
display camera parameters

Properties (read/write)
npix
pp
f
rho
T

image dimensions in pixels (2 1)

intrinsic: principal point (2 1)
intrinsic: focal length [metres]
intrinsic: pixel dimensions (2 1) [metres]
extrinsic: camera pose as homogeneous transformation

Properties (read only)

nu
nv

number of pixels in u-direction

number of pixels in v-direction

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Notes
Camera is a reference object.
Camera objects can be used in vectors and arrays

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

FishEyeCamera.project
Project world points to image plane
uv = C.project(p, options) are the image plane coordinates for the world points p.
The columns of p (3 N ) are the world points and the columns of uv (2 N ) are the
corresponding image plane points.

Options
Tobj, T
Tcam, T

Transform all points by the homogeneous transformation T before projecting them to

the camera image plane.
Set the camera pose to the homogeneous transformation T before projecting points to
the camera image plane. Temporarily overrides the current camera pose C.T.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Author
Based on fundamental matrix code by Peter Kovesi, School of Computer Science &
Software Engineering, The University of Western Australia, http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/,

See also
ransac, homography, epiline, epidist

gauss2d
Gaussian kernel
out = gauss2d(im, sigma, C) is a unit volume Gaussian kernel rendered into matrix
out (W H) the same size as im (W H). The Gaussian has a standard deviation of
sigma. The Gaussian is centered at C=[U,V].

gaussfunc
kernel
k = gauss1(, c, sigma)
Returns a unit volume Gaussian smoothing kernel. The Gaussian has a standard deviation of sigma, and the convolution kernel has a half size of w, that is, k is (2W+1) x
(2W+1).

h2e
Homogeneous to Euclidean
E = h2e(H) is the Euclidean version (K-1 N ) of the homogeneous points H (K N )
where each column represents one point in PK .

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

h(i,j) = number of data points

satisfying vx(j) <= x < vx(j+1) and vy(i) <= y < vy(i+1).
vx
vy

bin lower x-ordinates (one for each column of h)

bin lower y-ordinates (one for each row of h)

Notes
Data vectors x and y must be double

Author
Michael Maurer, 7 October 1994. Copyright 1994 by Michael Maurer.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

hitormiss
Hit or miss transform
H = hitormiss(im, se) is the hit-or-miss transform of the binary image im with the
structuring element se. Unlike standard morphological operations S has three possible
values: 0, 1 and dont care (represented by NaN).

References
Robotics, Vision & Control, Section 12.5.3, P. Corke, Springer 2011.

See also
imorph, ithin, itriplepoint, iendpoint

homline
Homogeneous line from two points
L = homline(x1, y1, x2, y2) is a vector (3 1) which describes a line in homogeneous
form that contains the two Euclidean points (x1,y1) and (x2,y2).
Homogeneous points X (3 1) on the line must satisfy L*X = 0.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Notes
The points must be corresponding, no outlier rejection is performed.
The points must be projections of points lying on a world plane
Contains a RANSAC driver, which means it can be passed to ransac().

Author
Based on homography code by Peter Kovesi, School of Computer Science & Software
Engineering, The University of Western Australia, http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/,

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

homwarp
Warp image by an homography
out = homwarp(H, im, options) is a warp of the image im obtained by applying the
homography H to the coordinates of every input pixel.
[out,offs] = homwarp(H, im, options) as above but offs is the offset of the warped tile
out with respect to the origin of im.

Options
full
extrapval, V
roi, R
scale, S
dimension, D
size, S
coords, U,V

output image contains all the warped pixels, but its position with respect to the input
image is given by the second return value offs.
set unmapped pixels to this value (default NaN)
output image contains the specified ROI in the input image
scale the output by this factor
ensure output image is D D
size of output image S=[W,H]
coordinate matrices for im, each same size as im.

Notes
The edges of the resulting output image will in general not be be vertical and
horizontal lines.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

where theta is the angle the line makes to horizontal axis, and d is the perpendicular
distance between (0,0) and the line. A horizontal line has theta = 0, a vertical line has
theta = pi/2 or -pi/2.
The voting array is 2-dimensional, with columns corresponding to theta and rows corresponding to offset (d). Theta spans the range -pi/2 to pi/2 in Ntheta steps. Offset is
in the range -rho max to rho max where rho max=max(W,H).

Methods
plot
show
lines
char
display

Overlay detected lines

Display the Hough accumulator
Return line features
Convert Hough parameters to string
Display Hough parameters

Properties
Nrho
Ntheta
A
rho
theta
edgeThresh
houghThresh
suppress
interpWidth

Number of bins in rho direction

Number of bins in theta direction
The Hough accumulator (Nrho x Ntheta)
rho values for the centre of each bin vertically
Theta values for the centre of each bin horizontally
Threshold on relative edge pixel strength
Threshold on relative peak strength
Radius of accumulator cells cleared around peak
Width of region used for peak interpolation

Notes
Hough is a reference object.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

the edge strength but votes can be made equal with the option equal. The threshold is
determined from the maximum edge strength value x ht.edgeThresh.

Options
equal
points
interpwidth, W
houghthresh, T
edgethresh, T
suppress, W
nbins, N

All edge pixels have equal weight, otherwise the edge pixel value is the vote strength
Pass set of points rather than an edge image, in this case E (2 N ) is a set of N points,
or E (3 N ) is a set of N points with corresponding vote strengths as the third row
Interpolation width (default 3)
Set ht.houghThresh (default 0.5)
Set ht.edgeThresh (default 0.1);
Set ht.suppress (default 0)
Set number of bins, if N is scalar set Nrho=Ntheta=N, else N = [Ntheta, Nrho]. Default
400 401.

Hough.char
Convert to string
s = HT.char() is a compact string representation of the Hough transform parameters.

Hough.display
Display value
HT.display() displays a compact human-readable string representation of the Hough
transform parameters.

Notes
This method is invoked implicitly at the command line when the result of an
expression is a Hough object and the command has no trailing semicolon.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Hough.lines
Find lines
L = HT.lines() is a vector of LineFeature objects that represent the dominant lines in
the Hough accumulator.
L = HT.lines(n) as above but returns no more than n LineFeature objects.
Lines are the coordinates of peaks in the Hough accumulator. The highest peak is
found, refined to subpixel precision, then all elements in an HT.suppress radius around
are zeroed so as to eliminate multiple close minima. The process is repeated for all
peaks.
The peak detection loop breaks early if the remaining peak has a strength less than
HT.houghThresh times the maximum vote value.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Examples
Animate image sequence:
ianimate(seq);

Animate image sequence with overlaid corner features:

c = icorner(im, nfeat, 200); % computer corners
ianimate(seq, c, gs); % features shown as green squares

Options
fps, F
loop
movie, M
npoints, N
only, I
title, T

set the frame rate (default 5 frames/sec)

endlessly loop over the sequence
save the animation as a series of PNG frames in the folder M
plot no more than N features per frame (default 100)
display only the Ith frame from the sequence
displays the specified title on each frame, T is a cell array (1 N ) of strings.

Notes
If titles are not specified the title is frame N
If the movie is used the frames can be converted to a movie using a utility like
ffmpeg, for instance:
ffmpeg -i *.png -r 5 movie.mp4

or to set the bit rate explicitly

ffmpeg -i *.png -b:v 64k movie.mp4

See also
PointFeature, iharris, isurf, idisp

ibbox
Find bounding box
box = ibbox(p) is the minimal bounding box that contains the points described by the
columns of p (2 N ).
box = ibbox(im) as above but the box minimally contains the non-zero pixels in the
image im.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Notes
The bounding box is a 2 2 matrix [XMIN XMAX; YMIN YMAX].

iblobs
features
f = iblobs(im, options) is a vector of RegionFeature objects that describe each connected region in the image im.

Options
aspect, A
connect, C
greyscale
boundary
area, [A1,A2]
shape, [S1,S2]
touch, T
class, C

set pixel aspect ratio, default 1.0

set connectivity, 4 (default) or 8
compute greyscale moments 0 (default) or 1
compute boundary (default off)
accept only blobs with area in the interval A1 to A2
accept only blobs with shape in the interval S1 to S2
accept only blobs that touch (1) or do not touch (0) the edge (default accept all)
accept only blobs of pixel value C (default all)

The RegionFeature object has many properties including:

uc
vc
p
umin
umax
vmin
vmax
area
class
label
children
edgepoint
edge
perimeter
touch
a
b
theta
shape
circularity
moments

centroid, horizontal coordinate

centroid, vertical coordinate
centroid (uc, vc)
bounding box, minimum horizontal coordinate
bounding box, maximum horizontal coordinate
bounding box, minimum vertical coordinate
bounding box, maximum vertical coordinate
the number of pixels
the value of the pixels forming this region
the label assigned to this region
a list of indices of features that are children of this feature
coordinate of a point on the perimeter
a list of edge points 2 N matrix
edge length (pixels)
true if region touches edge of the image
major axis length of equivalent ellipse
minor axis length of equivalent ellipse
angle of major ellipse axis to horizontal axis
aspect ratio b/a (always <= 1.0)
1 for a circle, less for other shapes
a structure containing moments of order 0 to 2
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

References
Robotics, Vision & Control, Section 13.1, P. Corke, Springer 2011.

icanny
edge detection
E = icanny(im, options) is an edge image obtained using the Canny edge detector
algorithm. Hysteresis filtering is applied to the gradient image: edge pixels > th1 are
connected to adjacent pixels > th0, those below th0 are set to zero.

Options
sd, S
th0, T
th1, T

set the standard deviation for smoothing (default 1)

set the lower hysteresis threshold (default 0.1 x strongest edge)
set the upper hysteresis threshold (default 0.5 x strongest edge)

Reference
A Computational Approach To Edge Detection, J. Canny, IEEE Trans. Pattern
Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 8(6):679698, 1986.

Notes
Produces a zero image with single pixel wide edges having non-zero values.
Larger values correspond to stronger edges.
If th1 is zero then no hysteresis filtering is performed.
A color image is automatically converted to greyscale first.

Author
Oded Comay, Tel Aviv University, 1996-7.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

iclose
closing
out = iclose(im, se, options) is the image im after morphological closing with the
structuring element se. This is a morphological dilation followed by an erosion.
out = iclose(im, se, n, options) as above but the structuring element se is applied n
times, that is n erosions followed by n dilations.

Notes
For binary image a closing operation can be used to eliminate small black holes
in white regions.
Cheaper to apply a smaller structuring element multiple times than one large
one, the effective structuring element is the Minkowski sum of the structuring
element with itself n times.
Windowing options of IMORPH can be passed. By default output image is same
size as input image.

each set pixel in im is set to [1 1 1] in the output.

Create an rose tinted version of the greyscale image
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

c = icolor(im, colorname(pink));

each set pixel in im is set to [0 1 1] in the output.

Notes
Can convert a monochrome sequence (H W N ) to a color image sequence
(HxWx3xN).

direction of concatenation: horizontal (default) or vertical.

value of padding pixels (default NaN)

Examples
Horizontally concatenate three images
c = iconcat({im1, im2, im3}, h);

Find the first column of each of the three images

[c,u] = iconcat({im1, im2, im3}, h);

where u is a 3-vector such that im3 starts in the u(3)rd column of c.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Notes
The images do not have to be of the same size, and smaller images are surrounded
by background pixels which can be specified.
Works for color or greyscale images.
Direction can be abbreviated to first character, h or v.
In vertical mode all images are right justified.
In horizontal mode all images are top justified.

See also
idisp

iconv
Image convolution
C = iconv(im1, im2, options) is the convolution of images im1 and im2. The smaller
image is taken as the kernel and convolved with the larger image.

Options
same
full
valid

output image is same size as largest input image (default)

output image is larger than the input image
output image is smaller than the input image, and contains only valid pixels

Notes
If the larger image is color (has multiple planes) the kernel is applied to each
plane, resulting in an output image with the same number of planes.
The kernel must be greyscale.
This function is a convenience wrapper for the MATLAB function CONV2.
Works for double, uint8 or uint16 images. Image and kernel must be of the same
type and the result is of the same type.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

See PointFeature for full details

Options
detector, D
sigma, S
deriv, D
cmin, CM
cminthresh, CT
edgegap, E
suppress, R
nfeat, N
k, K
patch, P
color

choose the detector where D is one of harris (default), noble or klt

kernel width for smoothing (default 2)
kernel for gradient (default kdgauss(2))
minimum corner strength
minimum corner strength as a fraction of maximum corner strength
dont return features closer than E pixels to the edge of image (default 2)
dont return a feature closer than R pixels to an earlier feature (default 0)
return the N strongest corners (default Inf)
set the value of k for the Harris detector
use a P P patch of surrounding pixel values as the feature vector. The vector has
zero mean and unit norm.
specify that im is a color image not a sequence

Example
Compute the 100 strongest Harris features for the image
c = icorner(im, nfeat, 100);

and overlay them on the image

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

idisp(im);
c.plot();

Notes
Corners are processed in order from strongest to weakest.
The function stops when:
the corner strength drops below cmin, or
the corner strength drops below cMinThresh x strongest corner, or
the list of corners is exhausted
Features are returned in descending strength order
If im has more than 2 dimensions it is either a color image or a sequence
If im is N M P it is taken as an image sequence and f is a cell array whose
elements are feature vectors for the corresponding image in the sequence.
If im is N M 3 it is taken as a sequence unless the option color is given
If im is NxMx3xP it is taken as a sequence of color images and f is a cell array whose elements are feature vectors for the corresponding color image in the
sequence.
The default descriptor is a vector [Ix* Iy* Ixy*] which are the unique elements
of the structure tensor, where * denotes squared and smoothed.
The descriptor is a vector of float types to save space

References
A combined corner and edge detector, C.G. Harris and M.J. Stephens, Proc.
Fourth Alvey Vision Conf., Manchester, pp 147-151, 1988.
Finding corners, J.Noble, Image and Vision Computing, vol.6, pp.121-128,
May 1988.
Good features to track, J. Shi and C. Tomasi, Proc. Computer Vision and
Pattern Recognition, pp. 593-593, IEEE Computer Society, 1994.
Robotics, Vision & Control, Section 13.3, P. Corke, Springer 2011.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

icp
Point cloud alignment
T = icp(p1, p2, options) is the homogeneous transformation that best transforms the
set of points p1 to p2 using the iterative closest point algorithm.
[T,d] = icp(p1, p2, options) as above but also returns the norm of the error between
the transformed point set p2 and p1.

Options
dplot, d
plot
maxtheta, T
maxiter, N
mindelta, T
distthresh, T

show the points p1 and p2 at each iteration, with a delay of d [sec].

show the points p1 and p2 at each iteration, with a delay of 0.5 [sec].
limit the change in rotation at each step to T (default 0.05 rad)
stop after N iterations (default 100)
stop when the relative change in error norm is less than T (default 0.001)
eliminate correspondences more than T x the median distance at each iteration.

Example
Create a 3D point cloud
p1 = randn(3,20);

Transform it by an arbitrary amount

T = transl(1,2,3)*eul2tr(0.1, 0.2, 0.3)
p2 = homtrans( T, p1);

Perform icp to determine the transformation that maps p1 to p2

icp(p1, p2)

Notes
Does not require knowledge of correspondence between the points.
The point sets may have different numbers of points.
Points in either set may have no corresponding point.
Points can be 2- or 3-dimensional.
For noisy data setting distthresh and maxtheta can help to prevent the solution
from diverging.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Reference
A method for registration of 3D shapes, P.Besl and H.McKay, IEEETrans.
Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell., vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 239-256, Feb. 1992.

idecimate
an image
s = idecimate(im, m) is a decimated version of the image im whose size is reduced by
m (an integer) in both dimensions. The image is smoothed with a Gaussian kernel with
standard deviation m/2 then subsampled.
s = idecimate(im, m, sd) as above but the standard deviation of the smoothing kernel
is set to sd.
s = idecimate(im, m, []) as above but no smoothing is applied prior to decimation.

Notes
If the image has multiple planes, each plane is decimated.
Smoothing is used to eliminate aliasing artifacts and the standard deviation should
be chosen as a function of the maximum spatial frequency in the image.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Options
border
none
trim
wrap

the border value is replicated (default)

pixels beyond the border are not included in the window
output is not computed for pixels where the structuring element crosses the image
border, hence output image had reduced dimensions.
the image is assumed to wrap around, left to right, top to bottom.

Notes
Cheaper to apply a smaller structuring element multiple times than one large
one, the effective structuring element is the Minkowski sum of the structuring
element with itself n times.
Windowing options of IMORPH can be passed.

Reference
Robotics, Vision & Control, Section 12.5, P. Corke, Springer 2011.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

The zoom button requires a left-click and drag to specify a box which defines
the zoomed view.

Options
nogui
noaxes
noframe
plain
axis, A
here
title, T
clickfunc, F
ncolors, N
bar
print, F
square
wide
flatten
ynormal
histeq
cscale, C
xydata, XY
colormap, C
grey
invert
signed
invsigned
random
dark
new

dont display the GUI

dont display axes on the image
dont display axes or frame on the image
dont display axes, frame or GUI
display the image in the axes given by handle A, the nogui option is enforced.
display the image in the current axes
put the text T in the title bar of the window
invoke the function handle F(x,y) on a down-click in the window
number of colors in the color map (default 256)
add a color bar to the image
write the image to file F in EPS format
display aspect ratio so that pixels are squate
make figure full screen width, useful for displaying stereo pair
display image planes (colors or sequence) as horizontally adjacent images
y-axis increases upward, image is inverted
apply histogram equalization
C is a 2-vector that specifies the grey value range that spans the colormap.
XY is a cell array whose elements are vectors that span the x- and y-axes respectively.
set the colormap to C (N 3)
color map: greyscale unsigned, zero is black, maximum value is white
color map: greyscale unsigned, zero is white, maximum value is black
color map: greyscale signed, positive is blue, negative is red, zero is black
color map: greyscale signed, positive is blue, negative is red, zero is white
color map: random values, highlights fine structure
color map: greyscale unsigned, darker than grey, good for superimposed graphics
create a new figure

Notes
Is a wrapper around the MATLAB builtin function IMAGE. See the MATLAB
help on Display Bit-Mapped Images for details of color mapping.
Color images are displayed in MATLAB true color mode: pixel triples map to
display RGB values. (0,0,0) is black, (1,1,1) is white.
Greyscale images are displayed in indexed mode: the image pixel value is mapped
through the color map to determine the display pixel value.
For grey scale images the minimum and maximum image values are mapped to
the first and last element of the color map, which by default (greyscale) is the
range black to white. To set your own scaling between displayed grey level and
pixel value use the cscale option.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Examples
Display 2 images side by side
idisp({im1, im2})

Display image in a subplot

subplot(211)
idisp(im, axis, gca);

Call a user function when you click a pixel

idisp(im, clickfunc, @(x,y) fprintf(hello %d %d\n, x,y))

Set a colormap, in this case a MATLAB builtin one

idisp(im, colormap, cool);

Display an image which contains a map of a region, perhaps an obstacle grid, that spans
real world dimensions x, y in the range -10 to 10.
idisp(map, xyscale, {[-10 10], [-10 10]});

See also
image, caxis, colormap, iconcat

idisplabel
Display an image with mask
idisplabel(im, labelimage, labels) displays only those image pixels which belong to a
specific class. im is a greyscale (H W ) or color (H W 3) image, and labelimage
(H W ) contains integer pixel class labels for the corresponding pixels in im. The
pixel classes to be displayed are given by labels which is either a scalar or a vector of
class labels. Non-selected pixels are displayed as white by default.
idisplabel(im, labelimage, labels, bg) as above but the grey level of the non-selected
pixels is specified by bg in the range 0 to 1 for a float image or 0 to 255 for a uint8
image..

Example
We will segment the image flowers into 7 color classes
cls = colorkemans(flowers, 7);

where the matrix cls is the same size as flowers and the elements are the corresponding
pixel class, a value in the range 1 to 7. To display pixels of class 5 we use

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

idisplabel(flowers, cls, 5)

and to display pixels belong to class 1 or 5 we use

idisplabel(flowers, cls, [1 5])

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

References
Robotics, Vision & Control, Section 12.5.3 P. Corke, Springer 2011.

the border value is replicated (default)

Notes
Cheaper to apply a smaller structuring element multiple times than one large one,
the effective structuing element is the Minkowski sum of the structuring element
with itself n times.
Windowing options of IMORPH can be passed.

Reference
Robotics, Vision & Control, Section 12.5, P. Corke, Springer 2011.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

igraphseg
Graph-based image segmentation
L = igraphseg(im, k, min) is a graph-based segmentation of the color image im (H
W 3). L (H W ) is an image where each element is the label assigned to the
corresponding pixel in im. k is the scale parameter, and a larger value indicates a
preference for larger regions, min is the minimum region size (pixels).
L = igraphseg(im, k, min, sigma) as above and sigma is the width of a Gaussian
which is used to initially smooth the image (default 0.5).
[L,nreg] = igraphseg(im, k, min, sigma) as above but nreg is the number of regions
found.

Example
im = iread(58060.jpg);
[labels,maxval] = igraphseg(im, 1500, 100, 0.5);
idisp(labels)

Reference
Efficient graph-based image segmentation, P. Felzenszwalb and D. Huttenlocher, Int.
Journal on Computer Vision, vol. 59, pp. 167181, Sept. 2004.

Notes
Requires a color uint8 image.
The hardwork is done by a MEX file in contrib/graphseg.
With zero smoothing the number of regions can be massive and can crash MATLAB.

Author
Pedro Felzenszwalb, 2006.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

ihist
Image histogram
ihist(im, options) displays the image histogram. For an image with multiple planes
the histogram of each plane is given in a separate subplot.
H = ihist(im, options) is the image histogram as a column vector. For an image with
multiple planes H is a matrix with one column per image plane.
[H,x] = ihist(im, options) as above but also returns the bin coordinates as a column
vector x.

Options
nbins
cdf
normcdf
sorted

number of histogram bins (default 256)

compute a cumulative histogram
compute a normalized cumulative histogram, whose maximum value is one
histogram but with occurrence sorted in descending magnitude order. Bin coordinates
x reflect this sorting.

Example
[h,x] = ihist(im);
bar(x,h);
[h,x] = ihist(im, normcdf);
plot(x,h);

Notes
For a uint8 image the MEX function FHIST is used (if available)
The histogram always contains 256 bins
The bins spans the greylevel range 0-255.
For a floating point image the histogram spans the greylevel range 0-1.
For floating point images all NaN and Inf values are first removed.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

iint
Convert image to integer class
out = iint(im) is an image with unsigned 8-bit integer elements in the range 0 to 255
corresponding to the elements of the image im.
out = iint(im, class) as above but the output pixels belong to the integer class class.

Examples
Convert double precision image to 8-bit unsigned integer
im = rand(50, 50);
out = iint(im);

Convert double precision image to 16-bit unsigned integer

im = rand(50, 50);
out = iint(im, uint16);

Convert 8-bit unsigned integer image to 16-bit unsigned integer

im = randi(255, 50, 50, uint8);
out = iint(im, uint16);

Notes
Works for an image with arbitrary number of dimensions, eg. a color image or
image sequence.
If the input image is floating point (single or double) the pixel values are scaled
from an input range of [0,1] to a range spanning zero to the maximum positive
value of the output integer class.
If the input image is an integer class then the pixels are cast to change type but
not their value.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

iisum
Sum of integral image
s = iisum(ii, u1, v1, u2, v2) is the sum of pixels in the rectangular image region defined
by its top-left (u1,v1) and bottom-right (u2,v2). ii is a precomputed integral image.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

The image can be binary or greyscale.

Connectivity is only performed in 2 dimensions.
Connectivity is performed using 4 nearest neighbours by default.
To use 8-way connectivity pass a second argument of 8, eg. ilabel(im, 8).
8-way connectivity introduces ambiguities, a chequerboard is two blobs.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

im2col
Convert an image to pixel per row format
out = im2col(im) is a matrix (N P ) where each row represents a single of the image
im (H W P ). The pixels are in image column order (ie. column 1, column 2 etc)
and there are N=W H rows.
out = im2col(im, mask) as above but only includes pixels if:
the corresponding element of mask (H W ) is non-zero
the corresponding element of mask (N) is non-zero where N=H W
the pixel index is included in the vector mask

Aquire and return the next image

Close the image source
True if image is color
Size of image
Convert image source parameters to human readable string
Display image source parameters in human readable form

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

ImageSource.ImageSource
Image source constructor
i = ImageSource(options) is an ImageSource object that holds parameters related to
acquisition from some particular image source.

Options
width, W
height, H
uint8
float
double
grey
gamma, G
scale, S

Set image width to W

Set image height to H
Return image with uint8 pixels (default)
Return image with float pixels
Return image with double precision pixels
Return image is greyscale
Apply gamma correction with gamma=G
Subsample the image by S in both directions.

ImageSource.display
Display value
I.display() displays the state of the image source object in human readable form.

Notes
This method is invoked implicitly at the command line when the result of an
expression is an ImageSource object and the command has no trailing semicolon.

imatch
Template matching
xm = imatch(im1, im2, u, v, H, s) is the position of the matching subimage of im1
(template) within the image im2. The template in im1 is centred at (u,v) and its halfwidth is H.
The template is searched for within im2 inside a rectangular region, centred at (u,v)
and whose size is a function of s. If s is a scalar the search region is [-s, s, -s, s] relative
to (u,v). More generally s is a 4-vector s=[umin, umax, vmin, vmax] relative to (u,v).
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

The return value is xm=[DU,DV,CC] where (DU,DV) are the u- and v-offsets relative
to (u,v) and CC is the similarity score for the best match in the search region.
[xm,score] = imatch(im1, im2, u, v, H, s) as above but also returns a matrix of matching score values for each template position tested. The rows correspond to horizontal
positions of the template, and columns the vertical position. The centre element corresponds to (u,v).

Example
Consider a sequence of images im(:,:,N) and we find corner points in the kth image
corners = icorner(im(:,:,k), nfeat, 20);

Now, for each corner we look for the 11 11 patch of surrounding pixels in the next
image, by searching within a 21 21 region
for corner=corners
xm = imatch(im(:,:,k), im(:,:,k+1), 5, 10);
if xm(3) > 0.8
fprintf(feature (%f,%f) moved by (%f,%f) pixels)\n, ...
corner.u, corner.v, xm(1), xm(2) );
end
end

Notes
Useful for tracking a template in an image sequence where im1 and im2 are
consecutive images in a template and (u,v) is the coordinate of a corner point in
im1.
Is a MEX file.
im1 and im2 must be the same size.
ZNCC (zero-mean normalized cross correlation) matching is used as the similarity measure. A perfect match score is 1.0 but anything above 0.8 is typically
considered to be a good match.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 100

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

imeshgrid
Domain matrices for image
[u,v] = imeshgrid(im) are matrices that describe the domain of image im and can be
used for the evaluation of functions over the image. u and v are the same szie as im.
The element u(v,u) = u and v(v,u) = v.
[u,v] = imeshgrid(im, n) as above but...
[u,v] = imeshgrid(w, H) as above but the domain is w H.
[u,v] = imeshgrid(size) as above but the domain is described size which is scalar size
size or a 2-vector [w H].

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 101

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

uc
vc
area
a
b
theta
shape
moments

centroid, horizontal coordinate

centroid, vertical coordinate
the number of pixels
major axis length of equivalent ellipse
minor axis length of equivalent ellipse
angle of major ellipse axis to horizontal axis
aspect ratio b/a (always <= 1.0)
a structure containing moments of order 0 to 2, the elements are m00, m10, m01, m20,
m02, m11.

See RegionFeature help for more details.

Notes
For a binary image the zeroth moment is the number of non-zero pixels, or its
area.
This function does not perform connectivity it considers all non-zero pixels in
the image. If connected regions are required then use IBLOBS instead.

ITU recommendation 601 (default)

ITU recommendation 709
HSV value component

Notes
This function returns a greyscale image whether passed a color or a greyscale
image. If a greyscale image is passed it is simply returned.
Can convert a color image sequence (HxWx3xN) to a monochrome sequence
(H W N ).
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 102

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

minimum value over the structuring element

maximum value over the structuring element
maximum - minimum value over the structuring element
the minimum of the pixel value and the pixelwise sum of the structuring element and
source neighbourhood.

out = imorph(im, se, op, edge) as above but performance of edge pixels can be controlled. The value of edge is:
border
none
trim
wrap

the border value is replicated (default)

Notes
Is a MEX file.
Performs greyscale morphology.
The structuring element should have an odd side length.
For binary image min = EROSION, max = DILATION.
The plusmin operation can be used to compute the distance transform.
The input can be logical, uint8, uint16, float or double, the output is always
double

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 103

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

See also
irank, ivar, hitormiss, iopen, iclose, dtransform

imser
Maximally stable extremal regions
label = imser(im, options) is a segmentation of the greyscale image im (H W )
based on maximally stable extremal regions. label (H W ) is an image where each
element is the integer label assigned to the corresponding pixel in im. The labels are
consecutive integers starting at zero.
[label,nreg] = imser(im, options) as above but nreg is the number of regions found,
or one plus the maximum value of label.

Options
dark
light

looking for dark features against a light background (default)

looking for light features against a dark background

Example
im = iread(castle_sign2.png, grey, double);
[label,n] = imser(im, light);
idisp(label)

Notes
Is a wrapper for vl mser, part of VLFeat (vlfeat.org), by Andrea Vedaldi and
Brian Fulkerson.
vl mser is a MEX file.

Reference
Robust wide-baseline stereo from maximally stable extremal regions, J. Matas, O.
Chum, M. Urban, and T. Pajdla, Image and Vision Computing, vol. 22, pp. 761-767,
Sept. 2004.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 104

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 105

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Since only f.sx and f.sy can be estimated we set sx = 1.

REF: Multiple View Geometry, Hartley&Zisserman, p 163-164
SEE ALSO: camera

iopen
Morphological opening
out = iopen(im, se, options) is the image im after morphological opening with the
structuring element se. This is a morphological erosion followed by dilation.
out = iopen(im, se, n, options) as above but the structuring element se is applied n
times, that is n erosions followed by n dilations.

Notes
For binary image an opening operation can be used to eliminate small white
noise regions.
It is cheaper to apply a smaller structuring element multiple times than one large
one, the effective structuring element is the Minkowski sum of the structuring
element with itself n times.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 106

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Windowing options of IMORPH can be passed. By default output image is same

size as input image.

See also
iclose, idilate, ierode, imorph

ipad
Pad an image with constants
out = ipad(im, sides, n) is a padded version of the image im with a block of NaN
values n pixels wide on the sides of im as specified by sides.
out = ipad(im, sides, n, v) as above but pads with pixels of value v.
sides is a string containing one or more of the characters:
t
b
l
r

top
bottom
left
right

Examples
Add a band of zero pixels 20 pixels high across the top of the image:
ipad(im, t, 20, 0)

Add a band of white pixels 10 pixels wide on all sides of the image:
ipad(im, tblr, 10, 255)

Notes
Not a tablet computer.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 107

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

ipaste
Paste an image into an image
out = ipaste(im, im2, p, options) is the image im with the subimage im2 pasted in at
the position p=[U,V].

Options
centre
zero
set
add
mean

The pasted image is centred at p, otherwise p is the top-left corner of the subimage in
im (default)
the coordinates of p start at zero, by default 1 is assumed
im2 overwrites the pixels in im (default)
im2 is added to the pixels in im
im2 is set to the mean of pixel values in im2 and im

Notes
Pixels outside the pasted in region are unaffected.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 108

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Example
Read a uint8 image
im = iread(lena.pgm);

and set high valued pixels to red

a = ipixswitch(im>120, im, uint8([255 0 0]));

The result is a uint8 image since both arguments are uint8 images.
a = ipixswitch(im>120, im, [1 0 0]);

The result is a double precision image since the color specification is a double.
a = ipixswitch(im>120, im, red);

The result is a double precision image since the result of colorname is a double precision 3-vector.

Notes
im1, im2 and mask must all have the same number of rows and columns.
If im1 and im2 are both greyscale then out is greyscale.
If either of im1 and im2 are color then out is color.
If either one image is double and one is integer then the integer image is first
converted to a double image.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 109

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Notes
The Bresenham algorithm is used to find points along the line.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 110

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

out = irank(image, se, op, nbins) as above but the number of histogram bins can be
specified.
out = irank(image, se, op, nbins, edge) as above but the processing of edge pixels can
be controlled. The value of edge is:
border
none
trim
wrap

the border value is replicated (default)

pixels beyond the border are not included in the window
output is not computed for pixels whose window crosses the border, hence output
image had reduced dimensions.
the image is assumed to wrap around left-right, top-bottom.

Examples
5 5 median filter, 25 elements in the window, the median is the 12thn in rank
irank(im, 12, ones(5,5));

3 3 non-local maximum, find where a pixel is greater than its eight neighbours
se = ones(3,3); se(2,2) = 0;
im > irank(im, 1, se);

Notes
The structuring element should have an odd side length.
Is a MEX file.
The median is estimated from a histogram with nbins (default 256).
The input can be logical, uint8, uint16, float or double, the output is always
double

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 111

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

im = iread(path, options) as above but the GUI is set to the folder specified by path.
If the path is not absolute it is searched for on the MATLAB search path.
im = iread(file, options) reads the specified image file and returns a matrix. If the path
is not absolute it is searched for on MATLAB search path.
The image can be greyscale or color in any of a wide range of formats supported by the
MATLAB IMREAD function.
Wildcards are allowed in file names. If multiple files match a 3D or 4D image is
returned where the last dimension is the number of images in the sequence.

Options
uint8
single
double
grey
grey 709
gamma, G
reduce, R
roi, R

return an image with 8-bit unsigned integer pixels in the range 0 to 255
return an image with single precision floating point pixels in the range 0 to 1.
return an image with double precision floating point pixels in the range 0 to 1.
convert image to greyscale, if its color, using ITU rec 601
convert image to greyscale, if its color, using ITU rec 709
apply this gamma correction, either numeric or sRGB
decimate image by R in both dimensions
apply the region of interest R to each image, where R=[umin umax; vmin vmax].

Examples
Read a color image and display it
>>
>>
im
>>

im = iread(lena.png);
about im
[uint8] : 512x512x3 (786.4 kB)
idisp(im);

Read a greyscale image sequence

>>
>>
im
>>

im = iread(seq/*.png);
about im
[uint8] : 512x512x9 (2.4 MB)
ianimate(im, loop);

Notes
A greyscale image is returned as an H W matrix
A color image is returned as an H W 3 matrix
A greyscale image sequence is returned as an H W N matrix where N is
the sequence length
A color image sequence is returned as an HxWx3xN matrix where N is the sequence length

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 112

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

See also
idisp, ianimate, imono, igamma, imread, imwrite, path

irectify
Rectify stereo image pair
[out1,out2] = irectify(f, m, im1, im2) is a rectified pair of images corresponding to
im1 and im2. f (3 3) is the fundamental matrix relating the two views and m is a
FeatureMatch object containing point correspondences between the images.
[out1,out2,h1,h2] = irectify(f, m, im1, im2) as above but also returns the homographies h1 and h2 that warp im1 to out1 and im2 to out2 respectively.

Notes
The resulting image pair are epipolar aligned, equivalent to the view if the two
original camera axes were parallel.
Rectified images are required for dense stereo matching.
The effect of lense distortion is not removed, use the camera calibration toolbox
to unwarp each image prior to rectification.
The resulting images may have negative disparity.
Some output pixels may have no corresponding input pixels and will be set to
NaN.

See also
FeatureMatch, istereo, homwarp, CentralCamera

ireplicate
Expand image
out = ireplicate(im, k) is an expanded version of the image (H W ) where each pixel
is replicated into a k k tile. If im is H W the result is (KH)x(KW).

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 113

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

See also
idisp

irotate
Rotate image
out = irotate(im, angle, options) is a version of the image im that has been rotated
about its centre.

Options
outsize, S
crop
scale, S
extrapval, V
smooth, S

set size of output image to H W where S=[W,H]

return central part of image, same size as im
scale the image size by S (default 1)
set background pixels to V (default 0)
initially smooth the image with a Gaussian of standard deviation S

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 114

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Notes
Rotation is defined with respect to a z-axis which is into the image.
Counter-clockwise is a positive angle.
The pixels in the corners of the resulting image will be undefined and set to the
extrapval.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 115

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Options
outsize, s
smooth, s

set size of out to H W where s=[W,H]

initially smooth image with Gaussian of standard deviation s (default 1). s=[] for no
smoothing.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 116

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

g (H W n) is the scale sequence, L (H W n) is the absolute value of the

Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG) of the scale sequence, corresponding to each step of the
sequence, and s (n 1) is the vector of scales.
[g,L,s] = iscalespace(im, n) as above but sigma=1.

Examples
Create a scale-space image sequence
im = iread(lena.png, double, grey);
[G,L,s] = iscalespace(im, 50, 2);

Then find scale-space maxima, an array of ScalePointFeature objects.

f = iscalemax(L, s);

Look at the scalespace volume

slice(L, [], [], 5:10:50); shading interp

Notes
The Laplacian is approximated by the the difference of adjacent Gaussians.

See also
iscalemax, ismooth, ilaplace, klog

iscolor
Test for color image
iscolor(im) is true (1) if im is a color image, that is, it its third dimension is equal to
three.

isift
SIFT feature extractor
sf = isift(im, options) is a vector of SiftPointFeature objects representing scale and
rotationally invariant interest points in the image im.
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 117

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Options
nfeat, N
suppress, R
id, V

set the number of features to return (default Inf)

set the suppression radius (default 0)
set the image id of all features

Properties and methods

The SiftPointFeature object has many properties including:
u
v
strength
descriptor
sigma
theta
image id

horizontal coordinate
vertical coordinate
feature strength
feature descriptor (128 1)
feature scale
feature orientation [rad]
a value passed as an option to isift

The SiftPointFeature object has many methods including:

plot
plot scale
distance
match
ncc

Plot feature position

Plot feature scale
Descriptor distance
Match features
Descriptor similarity

See SiftPointFeature and PointFeature classes for more details.

Notes
Greyscale images only, double or integer pixel format.
Features are returned in descending strength order.
Wraps a MEX file from www.vlfeat.org
Corners are processed in order from strongest to weakest.
If im is H W N it is considered to be an image sequence and F is a cell
array with N elements, each of which is the feature vectors for the corresponding
image in the sequence.
The SIFT algorithm is covered by US Patent 6,711,293 (March 23, 2004) held
by the Univerity of British Columbia.
ISURF is a functional equivalent.

Reference
Distinctive image features from scale-invariant keypoints, David G. Lowe, International Journal of Computer Vision, 60, 2 (2004), pp. 91-110.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 118

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

See also
SiftPointFeature, isurf, icorner

isimilarity
Locate template in image
s = isimilarity(T, im) is an image where each pixel is the ZNCC similarity of the
template T (M M ) to the M M neighbourhood surrounding the corresonding
input pixel in im. s is same size as im.
s = isimilarity(T, im, metric) as above but the similarity metric is specified by the
function metric which can be any of @sad, @ssd, @ncc, @zsad, @zssd.

Example
Load an image of Wally/Waldo (the template)
T = iread(wally.png, double);

then load an image of the crowd where he is hiding

crowd = iread(wheres-wally.png, double);

Now search for him using the ZNCC matching measure

S = isimilarity(T, crowd, @zncc);

and display the similarity

idisp(S, colormap, jet, bar)

The magnitude at each pixel indicates how well the template centred on that point
matches the surrounding pixels. The locations of the maxima are
[,p] = peak2(S, 1, npeaks, 5);

Now we can display the original scene

idisp(crowd)

and highlight the most likely places that Wally/Waldo is hiding

plot_circle(p, 30, fillcolor, b, alpha, 0.3, ...
edgecolor, none)
plot_point(p, sequence, bold, textsize, 24, ...
textcolor, k, Marker, none)

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 119

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

References
Robotics, Vision & Control, Section 12.4, P. Corke, Springer 2011.

Notes
For NCC and ZNCC the maximum in s corresponds to the most likely template
location. For SAD, SSD, ZSAD and ZSSD the minimum value corresponds to
the most likely location.
Similarity is not computed for those pixels where the template crosses the image
boundary, and these output pixels are set to NaN.
The ZNCC function is a MEX file and therefore the fastest
User provided similarity metrics can be used, the function accepts two regions
and returns a scalar similarity score.

See also
imatch, sad, ssd, ncc, zsad, zssd, zncc

isize
Size of image
n = isize(im,d) is the size of the dth dimension of im.
[w,H] = isize(im) is the image width w and height H.
wh = isize(im) is the image size wh = [w H].
[w,H,p] = isize(im) is the image width w, height H and and number of planes p. Even
if the image has only two dimensions p will be one.

Notes
A simple convenience wrapper on the MATLAB function SIZE.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 120

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

ismooth
Gaussian smoothing
out = ismooth(im, sigma) is the image im after convolution with a Gaussian kernel of
standard deviation sigma.
out = ismooth(im, sigma, options) as above but the options are passed to CONV2.

Options
full
same
valid

returns the full 2-D convolution (default)

returns out the same size as im
returns the valid pixels only, those where the kernel does not exceed the bounds of the
image.

Notes
By default (option full) the returned image is larger than the passed image.
Smooths all planes of the input image.
The Gaussian kernel has a unit volume.
If input image is integer it is converted to float, convolved, then converted back
to integer.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 121

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

and the vertical gradient kernel is the transpose.

[gx,gy] = isobel(im) as above but returns the gradient images rather than the gradient
magnitude.
out = isobel(im,dx) as above but applies the kernel dx and dx to compute the horizontal and vertical gradients respectively.
[gx,gy] = isobel(im,dx) as above but returns the gradient images rather than the gradient magnitude.

Notes
Tends to produce quite thick edges.
The resulting image is the same size as the input image.
If the kernel dx is provided it can be of any size, not just 3 3, and could be
generated using KDGAUSS.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 122

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

[d,sim,p] = istereo(iml, imr, w, range, options) if the interp option is given then
disparity is estimated to sub-pixel precision using quadratic interpolation. In this case
d is the interpolated disparity and p is a structure with elements A, B, dx. The interpolation polynomial is s = Ad2 + Bd + C where s is the similarity score and d is disparity
relative to the integer disparity at which s is maximum. p.A and p.B are matrices the
same size as d whose elements are the per pixel values of the interpolation polynomial
coefficients. p.dx is the peak of the polynomial with respect to the integer disparity at
which s is maximum (in the range -0.5 to +0.5).

Options
metric, M
interp

string that specifies the similarity metric to use which is one of zncc (default), ncc,
ssd or sad.
enable subpixel interpolation and d contains non-integer values (default false)

Example
Load the left and right images
L = iread(rocks2-l.png, reduce, 2);
R = iread(rocks2-r.png, reduce, 2);

then compute stereo disparity and display it

d = istereo(L, R, [40, 90], 3);
idisp(d);

References
Robotics, Vision & Control, Section 14.3, p. Corke, Springer 2011.

Notes
Images must be greyscale.
Disparity values pixels within a half-window dimension (H) of the edges will
not be valid and are set to NaN.
The C term of the interpolation polynomial is not computed or returned.
The A term is high where the disparity function has a sharp peak.
Disparity and similarity score can be obtained from the disparity space image by
[sim,d] = max(dsi, [], 3)

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 123

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Pixels are mapped to the range 0 to M

R(1) is mapped to zero, R(2) is mapped to 1 (or max value).

Notes
For an integer image the result is a double image in the range 0 to max value.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 124

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

u
v
strength
descriptor
sigma
theta

horizontal coordinate
vertical coordinate
feature strength
feature descriptor (64 1 or 128 1)
feature scale
feature orientation [rad]

Options
nfeat, N
thresh, T
octaves, N
extended
upright
suppress, R

set the number of features to return (default Inf)

set Hessian threshold. Increasing the threshold reduces the number of features computed and reduces computation time.
number of octaves to process (default 5)
return 128-element descriptor (default 64)
dont compute rotation invariance
set the suppression radius (default 0). Features are not returned if they are within R
[pixels] of an earlier (stronger) feature.

Example
Load the image
im = iread(lena.pgm);

Find the 10 strongest SURF features

sf = isurf(im, nfeat, 10);

and overlay them on the original image as blue circles

idisp(im);
sf.plot_scale()

Notes
Color images, or sequences, are first converted to greyscale.
Features are returned in descending strength order
If im is H W N it is considered to be an image sequence and F is a cell
array with N elements, each of which is the feature vectors for the corresponding
image in the sequence.
Wraps an M-file implementation of OpenSurf by D. Kroon (U. Twente) or a
MEX-file OpenCV wrapper by Petter Strandmark.
The sign of the Laplacian is not retained.
The SURF algorithm is covered by an extensive suite of international patents
including US 8,165,401, EP 1850270 held by Toyota, KU Leuven and ETHZ.
See http://www.kooaba.com/en/plans and pricing/ip licensing

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 125

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Reference
SURF: Speeded Up Robust Features, Herbert Bay, Andreas Ess, Tinne Tuytelaars,
Luc Van Gool, Computer Vision and Image Understanding (CVIU), Vol. 110, No. 3,
pp. 346359, 2008

See also
SurfPointFeature, isift, icorner

ithin
Morphological skeletonization
out = ithin(im) is the binary skeleton of the binary image im. Any non-zero region is
replaced by a network of single-pixel wide lines.
out = ithin(im,delay) as above but graphically displays each iteration of the skeletonization algorithm with a pause of delay seconds between each iteration.

References
Robotics, Vision & Control, Section 12.5.3, P. Corke, Springer 2011.

See also
hitormiss, itriplepoint, iendpoint

ithresh
Interactive image threshold
ithresh(im) displays the image im in a window with a slider which adjusts the binary
threshold.
ithresh(im, T) as above but the initial threshold is set to T.
im2 = ithresh(im) as above but returns the thresholded image after the done button
in the GUI is pressed.
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 126

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

[im2,T] = ithresh(im) as above but also returns the threshold value.

Notes
Greyscale image only.
For a uint8 class image the slider range is 0 to 255.
For a floating point class image the slider range is 0 to 1.0
The GUI only displays the done button if output arguments are requested,
otherwise the threshold window operates independently.

See also
idisp

itrim
Trim images
This function has two different modes of functionality.
out = itrim(im, sides, n) is the image im with n pixels removed from the image sides
as specified by sides which is a string containing one or more of the characters:
t
b
l
r

top
bottom
left
right

[out1,out2] = itrim(im1,im2) returns the central parts of images im1 and im2 as out1
and out2 respectively. When images are rectified or warped the shapes can become
quite distorted and are embedded in rectangular images surrounded by black of NaN
values. This function crops out the central rectangular region of each. It assumes that
the undefined pixels in im1 and im2 have values of NaN. The same cropping is applied
to each input image.
[out1,out2] = itrim(im1,im2,T) as above but the threshold T in the range 0 to 1 is
used to adjust the level of cropping. The default is 0.5, a higher value will include
fewer NaN value in the result (smaller region), a lower value will include more (larger
region). A value of 0 will ensure that there are no NaN values in the returned region.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 127

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 128

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

border
none
trim
wrap

the border value is replicated (default)

Notes
Is a MEX file.
The structuring element should have an odd side length.
The input can be logical, uint8, uint16, float or double, the output is always
double

the border value is replicated (default)

Example
Compute the maximum value over a 5 5 window:
iwindow(im, ones(5,5), @max);

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 129

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Compute the standard deviation over a 3 3 window:

iwindow(im, ones(3,3), @std);

Notes
Is a MEX file.
The structuring element should have an odd side length.
Is slow since the function func must be invoked once for every output pixel.
The input can be logical, uint8, uint16, float or double, the output is always
double

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 130

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

kdgauss
Derivative of Gaussian kernel
k = kdgauss(sigma) is a 2-dimensional derivative of Gaussian kernel (W W ) of
width (standard deviation) sigma and centred within the matrix k whose half-width H
= 3 sigma and W=2 H+1.
k = kdgauss(sigma, H) as above but the half-width is explictly specified.

Notes
This kernel is the horizontal derivative of the Gaussian, dG/dx.
The vertical derivative, dG/dy, is k.
This kernel is an effective edge detector.

See also
kgauss, kdog, klog, isobel, iconv

kdog
Difference of Gaussian kernel
k = kdog(sigma1) is a 2-dimensional difference of Gaussian kernel equal to KGAUSS(sigma1)
- KGAUSS(SIGMA2), where sigma1 > SIGMA2. By default SIGMA2 = 1.6*sigma1.
The kernel is centred within the matrix k whose half-width H = 3 SIGM A and
W=2 H+1.
k = kdog(sigma1, sigma2) as above but sigma2 is specified directly.
k = kdog(sigma1, sigma2, H) as above but the kernel half-width is specified.

Notes
This kernel is similar to the Laplacian of Gaussian and is often used as an efficient approximation.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 131

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 132

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 133

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Reference
Pattern Recognition Principles, Tou and Gonzalez, Addison-Wesley 1977, pp 94

ksobel
Sobel edge detector
k = ksobel() is the Sobel x-derivative kernel:
|-1
|-2
|-1

0
0
0

1|
2|
1|

Notes
This kernel is an effective horizontal edge detector
The Sobel vertical derivative is k

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 134

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 135

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Plot the line segment

Determine length of line segment
Display value
Convert value to string

Properties
rho
theta
strength
length

Offset of the line

Orientation of the line
Feature strength
Length of the line

Properties of a vector of LineFeature objects are returned as a vector. If L is a vector

(N 1) of LineFeature objects then L.rho is an N 1 vector of the rho element of
each feature.

Note
LineFeature is a reference object.
LineFeature objects can be used in vectors and arrays

See also
Hough, RegionFeature, PointFeature

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 136

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

LineFeature.LineFeature
Create a line feature object
L = LineFeature() is a line feature object with null parameters.
L = LineFeature(rho, theta, strength) is a line feature object with the specified properties. LENGTH is undefined.
L = LineFeature(rho, theta, strength, length) is a line feature object with the specified properties.
L = LineFeature(l2) is a deep copy of the line feature l2.

LineFeature.char
Convert to string
s = L.char() is a compact string representation of the line feature. If L is a vector then
the string has multiple lines, one per element.

LineFeature.display
Display value
L.display() displays a compact human-readable representation of the feature. If L is a
vector then the elements are printed one per line.

Notes
This method is invoked implicitly at the command line when the result of an
expression is a LineFeature object and the command has no trailing semicolon.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 137

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

LineFeature.plot
Plot line
L.plot() overlay the line on current plot.
L.plot(ls) as above but the optional line style arguments ls are passed to plot.

Notes
If L is a vector then each element is plotted.

LineFeature.points
Return points on line segments
p = L.points(edge) is the set of points that lie along the line in the edge image edge
are determined.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 138

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

loadspectrum
Load spectrum data
s = loadspectrum(lambda, filename) is spectral data (N D) from file filename
interpolated to wavelengths [metres] specified in lambda (N 1). The spectral data
can be scalar (D=1) or vector (D>1) valued.
[s,lambda] = loadspectrum(lambda, filename) as above but also returns the passed
wavelength lambda.

Notes
The file is assumed to have its first column as wavelength in metres, the remainding columns are linearly interpolated and returned as columns of s.
The files are kept in the private folder inside the MVTB folder.

References
Robotics, Vision & Control, Section 14.3, P. Corke, Springer 2011.

luminos
Photopic luminosity function
p = luminos(lambda) is the photopic luminosity function for the wavelengths in lambda
[m]. If lambda is a vector (N 1), then p (N 1) is a vector whose elements are the
luminosity at the corresponding elements of lambda.
Luminosity has units of lumens which are the intensity with which wavelengths are
perceived by the light-adapted human eye.

References
Robotics, Vision & Control, Section 10.1, p. Corke, Springer 2011.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 139

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

mkcube
Create cube
p = mkcube(s, options) is a set of points (3 8) that define the vertices of a cube of
side length s and centred at the origin.
[x,y,z] = mkcube(s, options) as above but return the rows of p as three vectors.
[x,y,z] = mkcube(s, edge, options) is a mesh that defines the edges of a cube.

Options
facepoint
centre, C
T, T
edge

Add an extra point in the middle of each face, in this case the returned value is 3 14
(8 vertices + 6 face centres).
The cube is centred at C (3 1) not the origin
The cube is arbitrarily transformed by the homogeneous transform T
Return a set of cube edges in MATLAB mesh format rather than points.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 140

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

mlabel
for mplot style graph
mlabel(lab1 lab2 lab3)

morphdemo
Demonstrate morphology using animation
morphdemo(im, se, options) displays an animation to show the principles of the mathematical morphology operations dilation or erosion. Two windows are displayed side
by side, input binary image on the left and output image on the right. The structuring
element moves over the input image and is colored red if the result is zero, else blue.
Pixels in the output image are initially all grey but change to black or white as the
structuring element moves.
out = morphdemo(im, se, options) as above but returns the output image.

Options
dilate
erode
delay
scale, S
movie, M

Perform morphological dilation

Perform morphological erosion
Time between animation frames (default 0.5s)
Scale factor for output image (default 64)
Write image frames to the folder M

Notes
This is meant for small images, say 10 10 pixels.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 141

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Movie
Class to read movie file
A concrete subclass of ImageSource that acquires images from a web camera built by
Axis Communications (www.axis.com).

Methods
grab
size
close
char

Aquire and return the next image

Size of image
Close the image source
Convert the object parameters to human readable string

Properties
curFrame
totalDuration

The index of the frame just read

The running time of the movie (seconds)

See also
ImageSource, Video
SEE ALSO: Video

Movie.Movie
Image source constructor
m = Movie(file, options) is an Movie object that returns frames from the movie file
file.

Options
uint8
float
double
grey
gamma, G
scale, S
skip, S

Return image with uint8 pixels (default)

Return image with float pixels
Return image with double precision pixels
Return greyscale image
Apply gamma correction with gamma=G
Subsample the image by S in both directions
Read every Sth frame from the movie

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 142

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Movie.char
Convert to string
M.char() is a string representing the state of the movie object in human readable form.

Movie.close
Close the image source
M.close() closes the connection to the movie.

Movie.grab
Acquire next frame from movie
im = M.grab() acquires the next image from the movie
im = M.grab(options) as above but allows the next frame to be specified.

Options
skip, S
frame, F

Skip frames, and return current+S frame

Return frame F within the movie

Notes
If no output argument given the image is displayed using IDISP.

mplot
multiple data
Plot y versus t in multiple windows.
MPLOT(y)
MPLOT(y, n)
MPLOT(y, n, {labels})

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 143

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Where y is multicolumn data and first column is time. n is a row vector specifying
which variables to plot (1 is first data column, or y(:,2)). labels is a cell array of labels
for the subplots.
MPLOT(t, y)
MPLOT(t, y, n)
MPLOT(t, y, {labels})

Where y is multicolumn data and t is time. n is a row vector specifying which variables
to plot (1 is first data column, or y(:,2)). labels is a cell array of labels for the subplots.
MPLOT(S)

Where S is a structure and one element t is assumed to be time. Plot

all other vectors versus time in subplots. Subplots are labelled as per the data fields.

mpq
Image moments
m = mpq(im, p, q) is the PQth moment of the image im. That is, the sum of
I(x,y).xp .yq .

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 144

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

If the first and last point in the list are the same, they are considered to be a single
vertex.

See also
mpq, npq poly, upq poly, Polygon

mtools
simple/useful tools to all windows in figure

ncc
Normalized cross correlation
m = ncc(i1, i2) is the normalized cross-correlation between the two equally sized image
patches i1 and i2. The result m is a scalar in the interval -1 (non match) to 1 (perfect
match) that indicates similarity.

Notes
A value of 1 indicates identical pixel patterns.
The ncc similarity measure is invariant to scale changes in image intensity.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 145

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

niblack
Adaptive thresholding
T = niblack(im, k, w2) is the per-pixel (local) threshold to apply to image im. T has
the same dimensions as im. The threshold at each pixel is a function of the mean and
standard deviation computed over a W W window, where W=2*w2+1.
[T,m,s] = niblack(im, k, w2) as above but returns the per-pixel mean m and standard
deviation s.

Example
t = niblack(im, -0.2, 20);
idisp(im >= t);

Notes
This is an efficient algorithm very well suited for binarizing text.
w2 should be chosen to be half the size of the features to be segmented, for
example, in text segmentation, the height of a character.
A common choice of k=-0.2

Reference
An Introduction to Digital Image Processing, W. niblack, Prentice-Hall, 1986.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 146

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Notes
The normalized central moments are invariant to translation and scale.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 147

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 148

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Number of peaks to return (default all)

Only consider as peaks the largest value in the horizontal range +/- S points.
Order of interpolation polynomial (default no interpolation)
Display the interpolation polynomial overlaid on the point data

Notes
To find minima, use peak(-V).
The interp options fits points in the neighbourhood about the peak with an Nth
order polynomial and its peak position is returned. Typically choose N to be
odd.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 149

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

peak2
Find peaks in a matrix
zp = peak2(z, options) are the peak values in the 2-dimensional signal z.
[zp,ij] = peak2(z, options) as above but also returns the indices of the maxima in the
matrix z. Use SUB2IND to convert these to row and column coordinates

Options
npeaks, N
scale, S
interp
plot

Number of peaks to return (default all)

Only consider as peaks the largest value in the horizontal and vertical range +/- S
points.
Interpolate peak (default no interpolation)
Display the interpolation polynomial overlaid on the point data

Notes
To find minima, use peak2(-V).
The interp options fits points in the neighbourhood about the peak with a paraboloid
and its peak position is returned.

create a 2D, planar, undirected graph

create an n-d, undirected graph

Provides support for graphs that:

are undirected
are embedded in coordinate system
have symmetric cost edges (A to B is same cost as B to A)
have no loops (edges from A to A)

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 150

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

have vertices are represented by integers vid

have edges are represented by integers, eid

Methods
Constructing the graph
g.add node(coord)
g.add edge(v1, v2)
g.setcost(e, c)
g.setdata(v, u)
g.data(v)
g.clear()

add vertex, return vid

add edge from v1 to v2, return eid
set cost for edge e
set user data for vertex v
get user data for vertex v
remove all vertices and edges from the graph

Information from graph

g.edges(v)
g.cost(e)
g.neighbours(v)
g.component(v)
g.connectivity()

list of edges for vertex v

cost of edge e
neighbours of vertex v
component id for vertex v
number of edges for all vertices

Display
g.plot()
g.highlight
g.highlight
g.highlight
g.highlight

node(v)
edge(e)
component(c)
path(p)

g.pick(coord)
g.char()
g.display()

set goal vertex for path planning

highlight vertex v
highlight edge e
highlight all nodes in component c
highlight nodes and edge along path p

vertex closest to coord

convert graph to string
display summary of graph

Matrix representations
g.adjacency()
g.incidence()
g.degree()
g.laplacian()

adjacency matrix
incidence matrix
degree matrix
Laplacian matrix

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 151

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Planning paths through the graph

g.Astar(s, g)
g.goal(v)
g.path(v)

shortest path from s to g

set goal vertex, and plan paths
list of vertices from v to goal

Graph and world points

g.coord(v)
g.distance(v1, v2)
g.distances(coord)
g.closest(coord)

coordinate of vertex v
distance between v1 and v2
return sorted distances from coord to all vertices
vertex closest to coord

Object properties (read only)

g.n
g.ne
g.nc

number of vertices
number of edges
number of components

Notes
Graph connectivity is maintained by a labeling algorithm and this is updated
every time an edge is added.
Nodes and edges cannot be deleted.

PGraph.PGraph
Graph class constructor
g=PGraph(d, options) is a graph object embedded in d dimensions.

Options
distance, M
verbose

Use the distance metric M for path planning which is either Euclidean (default) or
SE2.
Specify verbose operation

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 152

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Note
Number of dimensions is not limited to 2 or 3.
The distance metric SE2 is the sum of the squares of the difference in position
and angle modulo 2pi.
To use a different distance metric create a subclass of PGraph and override the
method distance metric().

PGraph.add edge
Add an edge
E = G.add edge(v1, v2) adds an edge between vertices with id v1 and v2, and returns
the edge id E. The edge cost is the distance between the vertices.
E = G.add edge(v1, v2, C) as above but the edge cost is C. cost C.

Note
Graph connectivity is maintained by a labeling algorithm and this is updated
every time an edge is added.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 153

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

PGraph.adjacency
Adjacency matrix of graph
a = G.adjacency() is a matrix (N N ) where element a(i,j) is the cost of moving from
vertex i to vertex j.

Notes
Matrix is symmetric.
Eigenvalues of a are real and are known as the spectrum of the graph.
The element a(I,J) can be considered the number of walks of one edge from
vertex I to vertex J (either zero or one). The element (I,J) of aN are the number
of walks of length N from vertex I to vertex J.

See also
PGraph.degree, PGraph.incidence, PGraph.laplacian

PGraph.Astar
path finding
path = G.Astar(v1, v2) is the lowest cost path from vertex v1 to vertex v2. path is a
list of vertices starting with v1 and ending v2.
[path,C] = G.Astar(v1, v2) as above but also returns the total cost of traversing path.

Notes
Uses the efficient A* search algorithm.

References
Correction to A Formal Basis for the Heuristic Determination of Minimum Cost
Paths. Hart, P. E.; Nilsson, N. J.; Raphael, B. SIGART Newsletter 37: 28-29,
1972.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 154

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 155

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

PGraph.connectivity
Graph connectivity
C = G.connectivity() is a vector (N 1) with the number of edges per vertex.
The average vertex connectivity is
mean(g.connectivity())

and the minimum vertex connectivity is

min(g.connectivity())

PGraph.coord
Coordinate of node
x = G.coord(v) is the coordinate vector (D 1) of vertex id v.

PGraph.cost
Cost of edge
C = G.cost(E) is the cost of edge id E.

PGraph.data
Get user data for node
u = G.data(v) gets the user data of vertex v which can be of any type such as number,
struct, object or cell array.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 156

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

PGraph.degree
Degree matrix of graph
d = G.degree() is a diagonal matrix (N N ) where element d(i,i) is the number of
edges connected to vertex id i.

See also
PGraph.adjacency, PGraph.incidence, PGraph.laplacian

PGraph.display
Display graph
G.display() displays a compact human readable representation of the state of the graph
including the number of vertices, edges and components.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 157

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

[d,w] = G.distances(p) as above but also returns w (1 N ) with the corresponding

vertex id.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 158

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

PGraph.get.ne
Number of edges
G.ne is the number of edges in the graph.

Size of vertex circle (default 12)

Node circle color (default yellow)
Node circle edge color (default blue)

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 159

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

See also
PGraph.highlight node, PGraph.highlight edge, PGraph.highlight component

PGraph.highlight edge
Highlight a node
G.highlight edge(v1, v2) highlights the edge between vertices v1 and v2.
G.highlight edge(E) highlights the edge with id E.

Options
EdgeColor, C
EdgeThickness, T

Edge edge color (default black)

Edge thickness (default 1.5)

See also
PGraph.highlight node, PGraph.highlight path, PGraph.highlight component

PGraph.highlight node
Highlight a node
G.highlight node(v, options) highlights the vertex v with a yellow marker. If v is a
list of vertices then all are highlighted.

Options
NodeSize, S
NodeFaceColor, C
NodeEdgeColor, C

Size of vertex circle (default 12)

Node circle color (default yellow)
Node circle edge color (default blue)

See also
PGraph.highlight edge, PGraph.highlight path, PGraph.highlight component

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 160

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

PGraph.highlight path
Highlight path
G.highlight path(p, options) highlights the path defined by vector p which is a list of
vertices comprising the path.

Options
NodeSize, S
NodeFaceColor, C
NodeEdgeColor, C
EdgeColor, C

Size of vertex circle (default 12)

Node circle color (default yellow)
Node circle edge color (default blue)
Node circle edge color (default black)

See also
PGraph.highlight node, PGraph.highlight edge, PGraph.highlight component

PGraph.incidence
Incidence matrix of graph
in = G.incidence() is a matrix (N N E) where element in(i,j) is non-zero if vertex id
i is connected to edge id j.

See also
PGraph.adjacency, PGraph.degree, PGraph.laplacian

PGraph.laplacian
Laplacian matrix of graph
L = G.laplacian() is the Laplacian matrix (N N ) of the graph.

Notes
L is always positive-semidefinite.
L has at least one zero eigenvalue.
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 161

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

The number of zero eigenvalues is the number of connected components in the

graph.

See also
PGraph.adjacency, PGraph.incidence, PGraph.degree

PGraph.merge
the dominant and submissive labels

PGraph.neighbours
Neighbours of a vertex
n = G.neighbours(v) is a vector of ids for all vertices which are directly connected
neighbours of vertex v.
[n,C] = G.neighbours(v) as above but also returns a vector C whose elements are the
edge costs of the paths corresponding to the vertex ids in n.

PGraph.path
Find path to goal node
p = G.path(vs) is a vector of vertex ids that form a path from the starting vertex vs to
the previously specified goal. The path includes the start and goal vertex id.
To compute path to goal vertex 5
g.goal(5);

then the path, starting from vertex 1 is

p1 = g.path(1);

and the path starting from vertex 2 is

p2 = g.path(2);

Notes
Pgraph.goal must have been invoked first.
Can be used repeatedly to find paths from different starting points to the goal
specified to Pgraph.goal().
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 162

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Display vertex id (default false)

Display edges (default true)
Display edge id (default false)
Size of vertex circle (default 8)
Node circle color (default blue)
Node circle edge color (default blue)
Node label text sizer (default 16)
Node label text color (default blue)
Edge color (default black)
Edge label text size (default black)
Edge label text color (default black)
Node color is a function of graph component

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 163

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

PGraph.setcost
Set cost of edge
G.setcost(E, C) set cost of edge id E to C.

PGraph.setdata
Set user data for node
G.setdata(v, u) sets the user data of vertex v to u which can be of any type such as
number, struct, object or cell array.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 164

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 165

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Options
edgecolor
fillcolor
alpha

the color of the circles edge, Matlab color spec

the color of the circles interior, Matlab color spec
transparency of the filled circle: 0=transparent, 1=solid.

plot ellipse
Draw an ellipse on the current plot
plot ellipse(a, ls) draws an ellipse defined by XAX = 0 on the current plot, centred at
the origin, with Matlab line style ls.
plot ellipse(a, C, ls) as above but centred at C=[X,Y]. current plot. If C=[X,Y,Z] the
ellipse is parallel to the XY plane but at height Z.

plot ellipse inv

Plot an ellipse
plot ellipse(a, xc, ls)
ls is the standard line styles.

plot homline
Draw a line in homogeneous form
H = plot homline(L, ls) draws a line in the current figure L.X = 0. The current axis
limits are used to determine the endpoints of the line. Matlab line specification ls can
be set.
The return argument is a vector of graphics handles for the lines.
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 166

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Specify color of text

Specify size of text
Text in bold font.
Label points according to printf format string and corresponding element of data
Label points sequentially

Additional options are passed through to PLOT for creating the marker.

Examples
Simple point plot
P = rand(2,4);
plot_point(P);

Plot points with markers

plot_point(P, *);

Plot points with square markers and labels

plot_point(P, sequence, s);

Plot points with circles and annotations

data = [1 2 4 8];
plot_point(P, printf, { P%d, data}, o);

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 167

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

plot poly
Plot a polygon
plotpoly(p, options) plot a polygon defined by columns of p which can be 2 N or
3 N.

options
fill
alpha

the color of the circles interior, Matlab color spec

transparency of the filled circle: 0=transparent, 1=solid.

and now turn on a full lighting model

lighting gouraud
light

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 168

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

NOTES
The sphere is always added, irrespective of figure hold state.
The number of vertices to draw the sphere is hardwired.

plotp
Plot trajectories
plotp(p) plots a set of points p, which by Toolbox convention are stored one per column. p can be N 2 or N 3. By default a linestyle of bx is used.
plotp(p, ls) as above but the line style arguments ls are passed to plot.

Return Plucker line coordinates (1 6)

Side operator

Operators
*

Multiple Plucker matrix by a general matrix

Side operator

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 169

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Notes
This is reference class object
Link objects can be used in vectors and arrays

Plucker.Plucker
Create Plucker object
p = Plucker(p1, p2) create a Plucker object that represents the line joining the 3D
points p1 (3 1) and p2 (3 1).

Plucker.char
Convert to string
s = P.char() is a string showing Plucker parameters in a compact single line format.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 170

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Plucker.line
Plucker liner coordinates
P.line() is a 6-vector representation of the Plucker coordinates of the line.

Plucker.mtimes
Plucker composition
P * M is the product of the Plucker matrix and M (4 N ).
M * P is the product of M (N 4) and the Plucker matrix.

Plucker.or
P2 is the side operator which is zero whenever
the lines P1 and P2 intersect or are parallel.

Plucker.side
Side operator
SIDE(p1, p2) is the side operator which is zero whenever the lines p1 and p2 intersect
or are parallel.

pnmfilt
Pipe image through PNM utility
out = pnmfilt(cmd) runs the external program given by the string cmd and the output
(assumed to be PNM format) is returned as out.
out = pnmfilt(cmd, im) pipes the image im through the external program given by the
string cmd and the output is returned as out. The external program must accept and
return images in PNM format.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 171

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Examples
im = pnmfilt(ppmforge -cloud);
im = pnmfilt(pnmrotate 30, lena);

Notes
Provides access to a large number of Unix command line utilities such as ImageMagick and netpbm.
The input image is passed as stdin, the output image is assumed to come from
stdout.
MATLAB doesnt support i/o to pipes so the image is written to a temporary file,
the command run to another temporary file, and that is read into MATLAB.

Plot feature position

Descriptor distance
Descriptor similarity
Return feature coordinate
Display value
Convert value to string

Properties
u
v
strength
descriptor

horizontal coordinate
vertical coordinate
feature strength
feature descriptor (vector)

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 172

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Properties of a vector of PointFeature objects are returned as a vector. If F is a vector (N 1) of PointFeature objects then F.u is a 2 N matrix with each column the
corresponding point coordinate.

See also
ScalePointFeature, SurfPointFeature, SiftPointFeature

PointFeature.PointFeature
Create a point feature object
f = PointFeature() is a point feature object with null parameters.
f = PointFeature(u, v) is a point feature object with specified coordinates.
f = PointFeature(u, v, strength) as above but with specified strength.

PointFeature.char
Convert to string
s = F.char() is a compact string representation of the point feature. If F is a vector then
the string has multiple lines, one per element.

PointFeature.display
Display value
F.display() displays a compact human-readable representation of the feature. If F is a
vector then the elements are printed one per line.

Notes
This method is invoked implicitly at the command line when the result of an
expression is a PointFeature object and the command has no trailing semicolon.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 173

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

PointFeature.distance
Distance between feature descriptors
d = F.distance(f1) is the distance between feature descriptors, the norm of the Euclidean distance.
If F is a vector then d is a vector whose elements are the distance between the corresponding element of F and f1.

PointFeature.match
Match point features
m = F.match(f2, options) is a vector of FeatureMatch objects that describe candidate
matches between the two vectors of point features F and f2.
[m,C] = F.match(f2, options) as above but returns a correspodence matrix where each
row contains the indices of corresponding features in F and f2 respectively.

Options
thresh, T
median

match threshold (default 0.05)

Threshold at the median distance

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 174

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

PointFeature.plot
Plot feature
F.plot() overlay a marker at the feature position.
F.plot(ls) as above but the optional line style arguments ls are passed to plot.
If F is a vector then each element is plotted.

polydiff
pd = polydiff(p)
Return the coefficients of the derivative of polynomial p

Polygon
Polygon class
A general class for manipulating polygons and vectors of polygons.

Methods
plot
area
moments
centroid
perimeter
transform
inside
intersection
difference
union
xor
display
char

plot polygon
Area of polygon
Moments of polygon
Centroid of polygon
Perimter of polygon
Transform polygon
Test if points are inside polygon
Intersection of two polygons
Difference of two polygons
Union of two polygons
Exclusive or of two polygons
print the polygon in human readable form
convert the polgyon to human readable string

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 175

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Properties
vertices
extent
n

List of polygon vertices, one per column

Bounding box [minx maxx; miny maxy]
Number of vertices

Notes
This is reference class object
Polygon objects can be used in vectors and arrays

Acknowledgement
The methods inside, intersection, difference, union, and xor are based on code written
by:
Kirill K. Pankratov, [email protected], http://puddle.mit.edu/ glenn/kirill/saga.html
and require a licence. However the author does not respond to email regarding the
licence, so use with care, and modify with acknowledgement.

Polygon.Polygon
Polygon class constructor
p = Polygon(v) is a polygon with vertices given by v, one column per vertex.
p = Polygon(C, wh) is a rectangle centred at C with dimensions wh=[WIDTH, HEIGHT].

Polygon.area
Area of polygon
a = P.area() is the area of the polygon.

Polygon.centroid
Centroid of polygon
x = P.centroid() is the centroid of the polygon.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 176

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Polygon.char
String representation
s = P.char() is a compact representation of the polgyon in human readable form.

Polygon.difference
Difference of polygons
d = P.difference(q) is polygon P minus polygon q.

Notes
If polygons P and q are not intersecting, returns coordinates of P.
If the result d is not simply connected or consists of several polygons, resulting
vertex list will contain NaNs.

Polygon.display
Display polygon
P.display() displays the polygon in a compact human readable form.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 177

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Polygon.intersect
Intersection of polygon with list of polygons
i = P.intersect(plist) indicates whether or not the Polygon P intersects with
i(j) = 1 if p intersects polylist(j), else 0.

Polygon.intersect line
Intersection of polygon and line segment
i = P.intersect line(L) is the intersection points of a polygon P with the line segment
L=[x1 x2; y1 y2]. i is an N 2 matrix with one column per intersection, each column
is [x y].

Polygon.intersection
Intersection of polygons
i = P.intersection(q) is a Polygon representing the intersection of polygons P and q.

Notes
If these polygons are not intersecting, returns empty polygon.
If intersection consist of several disjoint polygons (for non-convex P or q) then
vertices of i is the concatenation of the vertices of these polygons.

Polygon.linechk
Input checking for line segments.

Polygon.moments
Moments of polygon
a = P.moments(p, q) is the pqth moment of the polygon.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 178

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 179

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Polygon.xor
Exclusive or of polygons
i = P.union(q) is a Polygon representing the union of polygons P and q.

radgrad
Radial gradient
[gr,gt] = radgrad(im) is the radial and tangential gradient of the image im. At each
pixel the image gradient vector is resolved into the radial and tangential directions.
[gr,gt] = radgrad(im, centre) as above but the centre of the image is specified as
centre=[X,Y] rather than the centre pixel of im.
radgrad(im) as above but the result is displayed graphically.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 180

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

maximum number of iterations (default 2000)

maximum number of attempts to select a non-degenerate data set (default 100)

Model function
out = func(R) is the function passed to RANSAC and it must accept a single argument
R which is a structure:
R.cmd
R.debug
R.x
R.t
R.theta
R.misc

the operation to perform which is either (string)

display whats going on (logical)
data to work on, N point pairs (6 N )
threshold (1 1)
estimated quantity to test (3 3)
private data (cell array)

The function return value is also a structure:

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 181

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

out.s
out.x
out.misc
out.inlier
out.valid
out.theta
out.resid

sample size (1 1)
conditioned data (2D N )
private data (cell array)
list of inliers (1 m)
if data is valid for estimation (logical)
estimated quantity (3 3)
model fit residual (1 1)

The values of R.cmd are:

size
condition
decondition
valid
estimate

error

out.s is the minimum number of points required to compute an estimate to out.s

out.x = CONDITION(R.x) condition the point data
out.theta = DECONDITION(R.theta) decondition the estimated model data
out.valid is true if a set of points is not degenerate, that is they will produce a model.
This is used to discard random samples that do not result in useful models.
[out.theta,out.resid] = EST(R.x) returns the best fit model and residual for the subset
of points R.x. If this function cannot fit a model then out.theta = []. If multiple models
are found out.theta is a cell array.
[out.inlier,out.theta] = ERR(R.theta,R.x,T) evaluates the distance from the model(s)
R.theta to the points R.x and returns the best model out.theta and the subset of R.x
that best supports (most inliers) that model.

Notes
For some algorithms (eg. fundamental matrix) it is necessary to condition the
data to improve the accuracy of model estimation. For efficiency the data is
conditioned once, and the data transform parameters are kept in the .misc element. The inverse conditioning operation is applied to the model to transform
the estimate based on conditioned data to a model applicable to the original data.
The functions FMATRIX and HOMOG are written so as to be callable from
RANSAC, that is, they detect a structure argument.

References
m.A. Fishler and R.C. Boles. Random sample concensus: A paradigm for
model fitting with applications to image analysis and automated cartography.
Comm. Assoc. Comp, Mach., Vol 24, No 6, pp 381-395, 1981
Richard Hartley and Andrew Zisserman. Multiple View Geometry in Computer
Vision. pp 101-113. Cambridge University Press, 2001

Author
Peter Kovesi School of Computer Science & Software Engineering The University of
Western Australia pk at csse uwa edu au http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/ pk

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 182

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Intersection of ray with plane or ray

Closest distance between point and ray
Ray parameters as human readable string
Display ray parameters in human readable form

Properties
P0
d

A point on the ray (3 1)

Direction of the ray, unit vector (3 1)

Notes
Ray3D objects can be used in vectors and arrays

Ray3D.Ray3D
Ray constructor
R = Ray3D(p0, d) is a new Ray3D object defined by a point on the ray p0 and a
direction vector d.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 183

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Ray3D.char
Convert to string
s = R.char() is a compact string representation of the Ray3Ds value. If R is a vector
then the string has multiple lines, one per element.

Ray3D.closest
Closest distance between point and ray
x = R.closest(p) is the point on the ray R closest to the point p.
[x,E] = R.closest(p) as above but also returns the distance E between x and p.

Ray3D.display
Display value
R.display() displays a compact human-readable representation of the Ray3Ds value.
If R is a vector then the elements are printed one per line.

Notes
This method is invoked implicitly at the command line when the result of an
expression is a Ray3D object and the command has no trailing semicolon.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 184

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

x = R.intersect(p) returns the point of intersection between the ray R and the plane
p=(a,b,c,d) where aX + bY + cZ + d = 0. If R is a vector then x has multiple columns,
corresponding to the intersection of R(i) with p.

RegionFeature
Region feature class
This class represents a region feature.

Methods
boundary
box
plot
plot boundary
plot box
plot ellipse
display
char

Return the boundary as a list

Return the bounding box
Plot the centroid
Plot the boundary
Plot the bounding box
Plot the equivalent ellipse
Display value
Convert value to string

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 185

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Properties
uc
vc
p
umin
umax
vmin
vmax
area
class
label
children
edgepoint
edge
perimeter
touch
a
b
theta
shape
circularity
moments
bbox

centroid, horizontal coordinate

Note
Properties uc, vc, p, class, label, touch, theta, shape, circularity, perimeter can be
referenced from a vector of RegionFeature objects and return a vector of values
(not a list).
RegionFeature is a reference object.
RegionFeature objects can be used in vectors and arrays
This class behaves differently to LineFeature and PointFeature when getting
properties of a vector of RegionFeature objects. For example R.u will be a
list not a vector.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 186

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

RegionFeature.RegionFeature
Create a region feature object
R = RegionFeature() is a region feature object with null parameters.

RegionFeature.boundary
Boundary in polar form
[d,th] = R.boundary() is a polar representation of the boundary with respect to the
centroid. d(i) and th(i) are the distance to the boundary point and the angle respectively. These vectors have 400 elements irrespective of region size.

RegionFeature.box
Return bounding box
b = R.box() is the bounding box in standard Toolbox form [xmin,xmax; ymin, ymax].

RegionFeature.char
Convert to string
s = R.char() is a compact string representation of the region feature. If R is a vector
then the string has multiple lines, one per element.

RegionFeature.display
Display value
R.display() is a compact string representation of the region feature. If R is a vector
then the elements are printed one per line.

Notes
this method is invoked implicitly at the command line when the result of an
expression is a RegionFeature object and the command has no trailing semicolon.
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 187

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 188

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

RegionFeature.plot ellipse
Plot equivalent ellipse
R.plot ellipse() overlay the the equivalent ellipse of the region on current plot.
R.plot ellipse(ls) as above but the optional line style arguments ls are passed to plot.
If R is a vector then each element is plotted.

rg addticks
Label spectral locus
rg addticks() adds wavelength ticks to the spectral locus.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 189

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

rluminos
Relative photopic luminosity function
p = rluminos(lambda) is the relative photopic luminosity function for the wavelengths
in lambda [m]. If lambda is a vector (N 1), then p (N 1) is a vector whose elements
are the luminosity at the corresponding elements of lambda.
Relative luminosity lies in the interval 0 to 1 which indicate the intensity with which
wavelengths are perceived by the light-adapted human eye.

References
Robotics, Vision & Control, Section 10.1, p. Corke, Springer 2011.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 190

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Methods
plot
plot scale
distance
ncc
uv
display
char

Plot feature position

Plot feature scale
Descriptor distance
Descriptor similarity
Return feature coordinate
Display value
Convert value to string

Properties
u
v
strength
scale
descriptor

horizontal coordinate
vertical coordinate
feature strength
feature scale
feature descriptor (vector)

Properties of a vector of ScalePointFeature objects are returned as a vector. If F is a

vector (N 1) of ScalePointFeature objects then F.u is a 2 N matrix with each
column the corresponding point coordinate.

See also
PointFeature, SurfPointFeature, SiftPointFeature

ScalePointFeature.ScalePointFeature
Create a scale point feature object
f = ScalePointFeature() is a point feature object with null parameters.
f = ScalePointFeature(u, v) is a point feature object with specified coordinates.
f = ScalePointFeature(u, v, strength) as above but with specified strength.
f = ScalePointFeature(u, v, strength, scale) as above but with specified feature scale.

ScalePointFeature.plot scale
Plot feature scale
F.plot scale(options) overlay a marker at the feature position.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 191

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

F.plot scale(options, ls) as above but the optional line style arguments ls are passed to
plot.
If F is a vector then each element is plotted.

Options
circle
disk
color, C
alpha, A

Indicate scale by a circle (default)

Indicate scale by a translucent disk
Color of circle or disk (default green)
Transparency of disk, 1=opaque, 0=transparent (default 0.2)

SiftPointFeature
SIFT point corner feature object
A subclass of PointFeature for SIFT features.

Methods
plot
plot scale
distance
match
ncc
uv
display
char

Plot feature position

Plot feature scale
Descriptor distance
Match features
Descriptor similarity
Return feature coordinate
Display value
Convert value to string

Properties
u
v
strength
theta
scale
descriptor
image id

horizontal coordinate
vertical coordinate
feature strength
feature orientation [rad]
feature scale
feature descriptor (vector)
index of image containing feature

Properties of a vector of SiftCornerFeature objects are returned as a vector. If F is a

vector (N 1) of SiftCornerFeature objects then F.u is a 2N matrix with each column
the corresponding u coordinate.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 192

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Notes
SiftCornerFeature is a reference object.
SiftCornerFeature objects can be used in vectors and arrays
The SIFT algorithm is patented and not distributed with this toolbox. You can
download a SIFT implementation which this class can utilize. See README.SIFT.

References
Distinctive image features from scale-invariant keypoints, D.Lowe, Int. Journal on
Computer Vision, vol.60, pp.91-110, Nov. 2004.

See also
isift, PointFeature, ScalePointFeature, SurfPointFeature

SiftPointFeature.SiftPointFeature
Create a SIFT point feature object
f = SiftPointFeature() is a point feature object with null parameters.
f = PointFeature(u, v) is a point feature object with specified coordinates.
f = PointFeature(u, v, strength) as above but with specified strength.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 193

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

SiftPointFeature.plot scale
Plot feature scale
F.plot scale(options) overlay a marker to indicate feature point position and scale.
F.plot scale(options, ls) as above but the optional line style arguments ls are passed to
plot.
If F is a vector then each element is plotted.

Options
circle
clock
arrow
disk
color, C
alpha, A

Indicate scale by a circle (default)

Indicate scale by circle with one radial line for orientation
Indicate scale and orientation by an arrow
Indicate scale by a translucent disk
Color of circle or disk (default green)
Transparency of disk, 1=opaque, 0=transparent (default 0.2)

SiftPointFeature.support
Support region of feature
out = F.support(im, w) is an image of the support region of the feature F, extracted
from the image im in which the feature appears. The support region is scaled to w w
and rotated so that the features orientation axis is upward.
out = F.support(images, w) as above but if the features were extracted from an image
sequence images then the feature is extracted from the appropriate image in the same
sequence.
[out,T] = F.support(images, w) as above but returns the pose of the feature as a 3 3
homogeneous transform in SE(2) that comprises the feature position and orientation.
F.support(im, w) as above but the support region is displayed.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 194

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

SphericalCamera
Spherical camera class
A concrete class a spherical-projection camera.

Methods
project

project world points

plot
hold
ishold
clf
figure
mesh
point
line
plot camera

plot/return world point on image plane

rpy
move
centre

set camera attitude

copy of Camera after motion
get world coordinate of camera centre

delete
char
display

object destructor
convert camera parameters to string
display camera parameters

Properties (read/write)
npix
pp
rho
T

image dimensions in pixels (2 1)

intrinsic: principal point (2 1)
intrinsic: pixel dimensions (2 1) in metres
extrinsic: camera pose as homogeneous transformation

Properties (read only)

nu
nv

number of pixels in u-direction

number of pixels in v-direction

Note
SphericalCamera is a reference object.
SphericalCamera objects can be used in vectors and arrays

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 195

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Transform all points by the homogeneous transformation T before projecting them to

the camera image plane.
Set the camera pose to the homogeneous transformation T before projecting points to
the camera image plane. Overrides the current camera pose C.T.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 196

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

- the side length of the target in world units (0.5)

target center - center of the target in world coords (0,0,2)

niter
eterm
lambda
ci
depth

- the number of iterations to run the simulation (500)

- a stopping criteria on feature error norm (0)
- gain, can be scalar or diagonal 6 6 matrix (0.01)
- camera intrinsic structure (camparam)
- depth of points to use for Jacobian, scalar for

all points, of 4-vector. If null take actual value

from simulation
([])

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 197

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Simulate IBVS with for a square target comprising 4 points is placed in the world XY
plane. The camera/robot is initially at pose T and is driven to the orgin.
Two windows are shown and animated:
1. The camera view, showing the desired view (*) and the
current view (o)

- the side length of the target in world units (0.5)

target center - center of the target in world coords (0,0,3)

niter
eterm
lambda
ci
depth

- the number of iterations to run the simulation (500)

- a stopping criteria on feature error norm (0)
- gain, can be scalar or diagonal 6 6 matrix (0.01)
- camera intrinsic structure (camparam)
- depth of points to use for Jacobian, scalar for

all points, of 4-vector. If null take actual value

from simulation
([])

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 198

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

See also
CentralCamera.visjac p polar, CentralCamera.visjac l, CentralCamera.visjac e

ssd
Sum of squared differences
m = ssd(i1, i2) is the sum of squared differences between the two equally sized image
patches i1 and i2. The result m is a scalar that indicates image similarity, a value of
0 indicates identical pixel patterns and is increasingly positive as image dissimilarity
increases.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 199

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

SurfPointFeature
SURF point corner feature object
A subclass of PointFeature for SURF features.

Methods
plot
plot scale
distance
match
ncc
uv
display
char

Plot feature position

Plot feature scale
Descriptor distance
Match features
Descriptor similarity
Return feature coordinate
Display value
Convert value to string

Properties
u
v
strength
scale
theta
descriptor
image id

horizontal coordinate
vertical coordinate
feature strength
feature scale
feature orientation [rad]
feature descriptor (vector)
index of image containing feature

Properties of a vector of SurfCornerFeature objects are returned as a vector. If F is a

vector (N 1) of SurfCornerFeature objects then F.u is a 2 N matrix with each
column the corresponding u coordinate.

Notes
SurfCornerFeature is a reference object.
SurfCornerFeature objects can be used in vectors and arrays

Reference
Herbert Bay, Andreas Ess, Tinne Tuytelaars, Luc Van Gool, SURF: Speeded Up Robust Features, Computer Vision and Image Understanding (CVIU), Vol. 110, No. 3,
pp. 346359, 2008

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 200

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

See also
isurf, PointFeature, ScalePointFeature, SiftPointFeature

SurfPointFeature.SurfPointFeature
Create a SURF point feature object
f = SurfPointFeature() is a point feature object with null parameters.
f = PointFeature(u, v) is a point feature object with specified coordinates.
f = PointFeature(u, v, strength) as above but with specified strength.

match threshold (default 0.05)

Threshold at the median distance

Notes
for no threshold set to [].

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 201

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

SurfPointFeature.plot scale
Plot feature scale
F.plot scale(options) overlay a marker to indicate feature point position and scale.
F.plot scale(options, ls) as above but the optional line style arguments ls are passed to
plot.
If F is a vector then each element is plotted.

Options
circle
clock
arrow
disk
color, C
alpha, A

Indicate scale by a circle (default)

SurfPointFeature.support
Support region of feature
out = F.support(im, w) is an image of the support region of the feature F, extracted
from the image im in which the feature appears. The support region is scaled to w w
and rotated so that the features orientation axis is upward.
out = F.support(images, w) as above but if the features were extracted from an image
sequence images then the feature is extracted from the appropriate image in the same
sequence.
[out,T] = F.support(images, w) as above but returns the pose of the feature as a 3 3
homogeneous transform in SE(2) that comprises the feature position and orientation.
F.support(im, w) as above but the support region is displayed.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 202

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

tb optparse
Standard option parser for Toolbox functions
[optout,args] = tb optparse(opt, arglist) is a generalized option parser for Toolbox
functions. It supports options that have an assigned value, boolean or enumeration
types (string or int).
The software pattern is:
function(a, b, c, varargin)
opt.foo = true;
opt.bar = false;
opt.blah = [];
opt.choose = {this, that, other};
opt.select = {#no, #yes};
opt = tb_optparse(opt, varargin);

Optional arguments to the function behave as follows:

foo
nobar
blah, 3
blah, x,y
that
yes

sets opt.foo <- true

sets opt.foo <- false
sets opt.blah <- 3
sets opt.blah <- x,y
sets opt.choose <- that
sets opt.select <- 2 (the second element)

and can be given in any combination.

If neither of this, that or other are specified then opt.choose <- this. Alternatively
if:
opt.choose = {[], this, that, other};

then if neither of this, that or other are specified then opt.choose <- []
If neither of no or yes are specified then opt.select <- 1.
Note:
That the enumerator names must be distinct from the field names.
That only one value can be assigned to a field, if multiple values
are required they must be converted to a cell array.

To match an option that starts with a digit, prefix it with d , so the field d 3d
matches the option 3d.
The allowable options are specified by the names of the fields in the structure opt. By
default if an option is given that is not a field of opt an error is declared.
Sometimes it is useful to collect the unassigned options and this can be achieved using
a second output argument
[opt,arglist] = tb_optparse(opt, varargin);

which is a cell array of all unassigned arguments in the order given in varargin.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 203

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

The return structure is automatically populated with fields: verbose and debug. The
following options are automatically parsed:
sets opt.verbose <- true
sets opt.verbose <- 2 (very verbose)
sets opt.verbose <- 3 (extremeley verbose)
sets opt.verbose <- 4 (ridiculously verbose)
sets opt.debug <- N
sets opt <- S
displays opt and arglist

verbose
verbose=2
verbose=3
verbose=4
debug, N
setopt, S
showopt

testpattern
Create test images
im = testpattern(type, w, args) creates a test pattern image. If w is a scalar the image
is w w else w(2)xW(1). The image is specified by the string type and one or two
(type specific) arguments:
rampx
rampy
sinx
siny
dots
squares
line

intensity ramp from 0 to 1 in the x-direction. args is the number of cycles.

intensity ramp from 0 to 1 in the y-direction. args is the number of cycles.
sinusoidal intensity pattern (from -1 to 1) in the x-direction. args is the number of
cycles.
sinusoidal intensity pattern (from -1 to 1) in the y-direction. args is the number of
cycles.
binary dot pattern. args are dot pitch (distance between centres); dot diameter.
binary square pattern. args are pitch (distance between centres); square side length.
a line. args are theta (rad), intercept.

Examples
A 256 256 image with 2 cycles of a horizontal sawtooth intensity ramp:
testpattern(rampx, 256, 2);

A 256 256 image with a grid of dots on 50 pixel centres and 20 pixels in diameter:
testpattern(dots, 256, 50, 25);

Notes
With no output argument the testpattern in displayed using idisp.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 204

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

See also
idisp

Tracker
Track points in image sequence
This class assigns each new feature a unique identifier and tracks it from frame to frame
until it is lost. A complete history of all tracks is maintained.

Methods
plot
tracklengths

Plot all tracks

Length of all tracks

Properties
track
history

A vector of structures, one per active track.

A vector of track history structures with elements id and uv which is the path of the
feature.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 205

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Options
radius, R
nslots, N
thresh, T
movie, M

Search radius for feature in next frame (default 20)

Maximum number of tracks (default 800)
Similarity threshold (default 0.8)
Write the frames as images into the folder M as with sequential filenames.

Notes
The movie options saves frames as files NNNN.png.
When using movie option ensure that the window is fully visible.
To convert frames to a movie use a command like:
ffmpeg -r 10 -i %04d.png out.avi

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 206

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Tracker.plot
Show feature trajectories
T.plot() overlays the tracks of all features on the current plot.

Tracker.tracklengths
Length of all tracks
T.tracklengths() is a vector containing the length of every track.

tristim2cc
Tristimulus to chromaticity coordinates
cc = tristim2cc(tri) is the chromaticity coordinate (1 2) corresponding to the tristimulus tri (1 3). If tri is RGB then cc is rg, if tri is XYZ then cc is xy. Multiple
tristimulus values can be given as rows of tri (N 3) in which case the chromaticity
coordinates are the corresponding rows of cc (N 2).
[c1,C2] = tristim2cc(tri) as above but the chromaticity coordinates are returned in
separate vectors, each N 1.
out = tristim2cc(im) is the chromaticity coordinates corresponding to every pixel in
the tristimulus image im (H W 3). out (H W 2) has planes corresponding to
r and g, or x and y.
[o1,o2] = tristim2cc(im) as above but the chromaticity is returned as separate images
(H W ).

upq
Central image moments
m = upq(im, p, q) is the PQth central moment of the image im. That is, the sum of
I(x,y).(x-x0)p .(y-y0)q where (x0,y0) is the centroid.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 207

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Notes
The central moments are invariant to translation.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 208

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

This class is not intended to be used directly, instead use the factory method Video
which will return an instance of this class if the Image Acquisition Toolbox is installed,
for example
vid = VideoCamera();

Methods
grab
size
close
char

Aquire and return the next image

Size of image
Close the image source
Convert the object parameters to human readable string

See also
videocamera, ImageSource, AxisWebCamera, Movie

VideoCamera fg
Class to read from local video camera
A concrete subclass of ImageSource that acquires images from a local camera using a
simple open-source frame grabber interface.
This class is not intended to be used directly, instead use the factory method VideoCamera.which will return an instance of this class if the interface is supported on your
platform (Mac or Linux), for example
vid = VideoCamera.amera();

Methods
grab
size
close
char

Aquire and return the next image

Size of image
Close the image source
Convert the object parameters to human readable string

See also
ImageSource, AxisWebCamera, Movie

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 209

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

VideoCamera fg.VideoCamera fg
Video camera constructor
V = VideoCamera fg.CAMERA, OPTIONS) is a VideoCamera fg.object that acquires images from the local video camera specified by the string CAMERA.
If CAMERA is ? a list of available cameras, and their characteristics is displayed.

Options
uint8
float
double
grey
gamma, G
scale, S
resolution, S
id, I

Return image with uint8 pixels (default)

Notes:
The specified resolution must match one that the camera is capable of, otherwise the result is not predictable.

VideoCamera fg.char
Convert to string
V.char() is a string representing the state of the camera object in human readable form.

VideoCamera fg.close
Close the image source
V.close() closes the connection to the camera.

VideoCamera fg.grab
Acquire image from the camera
im = V.grab() acquires an image from the camera.
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 210

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Notes
the function will block until the next frame is acquired.

VideoCamera IAT
Class to read from local video camera
A concrete subclass of ImageSource that acquires images from a local camera using the
MATLAB Image Acquisition Toolbox (imaq). This Toolbox provides a multiplatform
interface to a range of cameras, and this class provides a simple wrapper.
This class is not intended to be used directly, instead use the factory method Video
which will return an instance of this class if the Image Acquisition Toolbox is installed,
for example
vid = VideoCamera();

Methods
grab
size
close
char

Aquire and return the next image

Size of image
Close the image source
Convert the object parameters to human readable string

See also
videocamera, ImageSource, AxisWebCamera, Movie

VideoCamera IAT.VideoCamera IAT

Video camera constructor
v = Video IAT(camera, options) is a Video object that acquires images from the local
video camera specified by the string camera.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 211

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Options
uint8
float
double
grey
gamma, G
scale, S
resolution, S
id, I

Return image with uint8 pixels (default)

Notes:
The specified resolution must match one that the camera is capable of, otherwise the result is not predictable.

VideoCamera IAT.char
Convert to string
V.char() is a string representing the state of the camera object in human readable form.

VideoCamera IAT.close
Close the image source
V.close() closes the connection to the camera.

VideoCamera IAT.grab
Acquire image from the camera
im = V.grab() acquires an image from the camera.

Notes
the function will block until the next frame is acquired.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 212

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

VideoCamera IAT.list
available adaptors and cameras

VideoCamera IAT.preview
Control image preview
V.preview(true) enables camera preview in a separate window

xaxis
Set X-axis scaling
xaxis(max) set x-axis scaling from 0 to max.
xaxis(min, max) set x-axis scaling from min to max.
xaxis([min max]) as above.
xaxis restore automatic scaling for x-axis.

xycolorspace
Display spectral locus
xycolorspace() display a fully colored spectral locus in terms of CIE x and y coordinates.
xycolorspace(p) as above but plot the points whose xy-chromaticity is given by the
columns of p.
[im,ax,ay] = xycolorspace() as above returns the spectral locus as an image im, with
corresponding x- and y-axis coordinates ax and ay respectively.

Notes
The colors shown within the locus only approximate the true colors, due to the
gamut of the display device.
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 213

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Aquire and return the next image

Size of image
Close the image source
Convert the object parameters to human readable string

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 214

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

Properties
curFrame

The index of the frame just read

See also
ImageSource, Video
SEE ALSO: Video

YUV.YUV
YUV4MPEG sequence constructor
y = YUV(file, options) is a YUV4MPEG object that returns frames from the yuv4mpeg
format file file. This file contains uncompressed color images in 4:2:0 format, with a
full resolution luminance plane followed by U and V planes at half resolution both
directions.

Options
uint8
float
double
grey
gamma, G
scale, S
skip, S

Return image with uint8 pixels (default)

YUV.char
Convert to string
M.char() is a string representing the state of the movie object in human readable form.

YUV.close
Close the image source
M.close() closes the connection to the movie.
R

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 215

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

YUV.grab
Acquire next frame from movie
im = Y.grab(options) is the next frame from the file.
[y,u,v] = y.grab(options) is the next frame from the file

Options
skip, S
rgb
rgb2
yuv

Skip frames, and return current+S frame (default 1)

Return as an RGB image, y image is downsized by two (default).
Return as an RGB image, u and v images are upsized by two.
Return y, u and v images.

Notes
If no output argument given the image is displayed using IDISP.
For the yuv option three output arguments must be given.

zcross
Zero-crossing detector
iz = zcross(im) is a binary image with pixels set where the corresponding pixels in the
signed image im have a zero crossing, a positive pixel adjacent to a negative pixel.

Notes
Can be used in association with a Lapalacian of Gaussian image to determine
edges.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 216

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

zncc
Normalized cross correlation
m = zncc(i1, i2) is the zero-mean normalized cross-correlation between the two equally
sized image patches i1 and i2. The result m is a scalar in the interval -1 to 1 that
indicates similarity. A value of 1 indicates identical pixel patterns.

Notes
The zncc similarity measure is invariant to affine changes in image intensity
(brightness offset and scale).

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 217

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONS AND CLASSES

zssd
Sum of squared differences
m = zssd(i1, i2) is the zero-mean sum of squared differences between the two equally
sized image patches i1 and i2. The result m is a scalar that indicates image similarity,
a value of 0 indicates identical pixel patterns and is increasingly positive as image
dissimilarity increases.

Notes
The zssd similarity measure is invariant to changes in image brightness offset.

Machine Vision Toolbox for MATLAB 218

c
Copyright Peter
Corke 2011

Discuss The Impact of Globalization On The Hospitality Industry
83% (6)
Discuss The Impact of Globalization On The Hospitality Industry
3 pages
Principles of Motion Howie Choset, Kevin M. Lynch, Seth Hutchinson
100% (3)
Principles of Motion Howie Choset, Kevin M. Lynch, Seth Hutchinson
616 pages
Solution 2
0% (1)
Solution 2
4 pages
English in Workplace
No ratings yet
English in Workplace
154 pages
Taro 2l Engine Manual
No ratings yet
Taro 2l Engine Manual
158 pages
CSE Robotics PPT - YMK
No ratings yet
CSE Robotics PPT - YMK
23 pages
Robot Drive Systems and End Effectors
No ratings yet
Robot Drive Systems and End Effectors
96 pages
CS312 Intro To Robotics
100% (1)
CS312 Intro To Robotics
25 pages
Advanced Strategies For Robot Manipulators
No ratings yet
Advanced Strategies For Robot Manipulators
438 pages
Diode Resistance & Diode Equivalent Circuits
No ratings yet
Diode Resistance & Diode Equivalent Circuits
42 pages
Matlab Simulink Tutorial
No ratings yet
Matlab Simulink Tutorial
64 pages
Advanced Strategies For Robot Manipulators PDF
No ratings yet
Advanced Strategies For Robot Manipulators PDF
440 pages
Mech3460 Robotics 11 12
No ratings yet
Mech3460 Robotics 11 12
100 pages
The Ultimate Guide To ML For Embedded Systems
No ratings yet
The Ultimate Guide To ML For Embedded Systems
22 pages
Sea PHD Thesis
No ratings yet
Sea PHD Thesis
123 pages
Tanner EDA Tutorials PDF
100% (2)
Tanner EDA Tutorials PDF
53 pages
Instant Access to Modern Statistics: A Computer-Based Approach with Python (Statistics for Industry, Technology, and Engineering) Ron S. Kenett ebook Full Chapters
100% (2)
Instant Access to Modern Statistics: A Computer-Based Approach with Python (Statistics for Industry, Technology, and Engineering) Ron S. Kenett ebook Full Chapters
40 pages
Analog Computation of Chaotic Oscillator
No ratings yet
Analog Computation of Chaotic Oscillator
115 pages
Robotic Vision Systems: Dr. A. R. Jayan, ECE Dept., GEC Sreekrishnapuram
No ratings yet
Robotic Vision Systems: Dr. A. R. Jayan, ECE Dept., GEC Sreekrishnapuram
22 pages
Magnetic Bearing Analysis
100% (1)
Magnetic Bearing Analysis
72 pages
Unit II Energy Management For Motors and Cogeneration
No ratings yet
Unit II Energy Management For Motors and Cogeneration
7 pages
Engineering Applications of The Laplace Transform
No ratings yet
Engineering Applications of The Laplace Transform
7 pages
Antenna Arrays Part 1
No ratings yet
Antenna Arrays Part 1
19 pages
Download Full Deep Learning 1st Edition Dulani Meedeniya PDF All Chapters
100% (2)
Download Full Deep Learning 1st Edition Dulani Meedeniya PDF All Chapters
50 pages
Chapter 01 Introduction To Neural Networks
No ratings yet
Chapter 01 Introduction To Neural Networks
9 pages
PDF Nonlinear Fiber Optics 6th Edition Govind P. Agrawal Download
100% (3)
PDF Nonlinear Fiber Optics 6th Edition Govind P. Agrawal Download
52 pages
Cordic SVD HW
No ratings yet
Cordic SVD HW
6 pages
Machines
No ratings yet
Machines
2 pages
Complete Download Image Processing The Fundamentals Second Edition Maria Petrou PDF All Chapters
100% (1)
Complete Download Image Processing The Fundamentals Second Edition Maria Petrou PDF All Chapters
67 pages
CV Ajay Mittal
No ratings yet
CV Ajay Mittal
4 pages
000003
No ratings yet
000003
444 pages
Backpropagation: Fundamentals and Applications for Preparing Data for Training in Deep Learning
From Everand
Backpropagation: Fundamentals and Applications for Preparing Data for Training in Deep Learning
Fouad Sabry
No ratings yet
An Introduction To Mathematics Behind Neural Networks
No ratings yet
An Introduction To Mathematics Behind Neural Networks
5 pages
AI Neuromorphic-Computing
0% (1)
AI Neuromorphic-Computing
40 pages
Yagawa-Oishi2021 Book ComputationalMechanicsWithNeur
No ratings yet
Yagawa-Oishi2021 Book ComputationalMechanicsWithNeur
233 pages
Virtual Laboratory: Iit Kharagpur
No ratings yet
Virtual Laboratory: Iit Kharagpur
19 pages
Chapter2 - Intensity Transformations and Spatial Filtering
No ratings yet
Chapter2 - Intensity Transformations and Spatial Filtering
115 pages
Dzone Rc251 Gettingstartedwithtensorflow
No ratings yet
Dzone Rc251 Gettingstartedwithtensorflow
5 pages
Neuro Robotics
No ratings yet
Neuro Robotics
5 pages
Intelligent Vision Systems For Industry
No ratings yet
Intelligent Vision Systems For Industry
473 pages
Visual Control of Wheeled Mobile Robots Unifying Vision and Control in Generic Approaches by Héctor - M Becerra, Carlos Sagüés (Auth.)
No ratings yet
Visual Control of Wheeled Mobile Robots Unifying Vision and Control in Generic Approaches by Héctor - M Becerra, Carlos Sagüés (Auth.)
127 pages
Machine Learning: Short Hand Book
No ratings yet
Machine Learning: Short Hand Book
14 pages
Mach-Effect Thruster Model: Acta Astronautica September 2017
No ratings yet
Mach-Effect Thruster Model: Acta Astronautica September 2017
36 pages
Introduction To Robotics: Analysis, Systems, Applications
No ratings yet
Introduction To Robotics: Analysis, Systems, Applications
28 pages
Simulation Lab Manual 3107
No ratings yet
Simulation Lab Manual 3107
30 pages
P C Krause PDF
No ratings yet
P C Krause PDF
632 pages
ECE5710 Notes02
No ratings yet
ECE5710 Notes02
33 pages
Robot Anatomy
No ratings yet
Robot Anatomy
8 pages
Introduction To Robotics
No ratings yet
Introduction To Robotics
17 pages
Rotation Matrix
No ratings yet
Rotation Matrix
22 pages
Illustrated Guide To LSTM's and GRU'S - A Step by Step Explanation - by Michael Phi - Towards Data Science
No ratings yet
Illustrated Guide To LSTM's and GRU'S - A Step by Step Explanation - by Michael Phi - Towards Data Science
15 pages
MATLAB数值计算 (2013修订版·中译本) ( (美) Cleve B. Moler)
No ratings yet
MATLAB数值计算 (2013修订版·中译本) ( (美) Cleve B. Moler)
442 pages
Robotics Vision Lecture1
No ratings yet
Robotics Vision Lecture1
258 pages
Active Magnetic Bearings (AMB) : Seminar On
100% (1)
Active Magnetic Bearings (AMB) : Seminar On
14 pages
Amplifier Frequency Response
No ratings yet
Amplifier Frequency Response
33 pages
Image Analysis and Markov Random Fields (MRFS)
No ratings yet
Image Analysis and Markov Random Fields (MRFS)
22 pages
Microwave Lab Manual
No ratings yet
Microwave Lab Manual
42 pages
DATA MINING and MACHINE LEARNING. PREDICTIVE TECHNIQUES: ENSEMBLE METHODS, BOOSTING, BAGGING, RANDOM FOREST, DECISION TREES and REGRESSION TREES.: Examples with MATLAB
From Everand
DATA MINING and MACHINE LEARNING. PREDICTIVE TECHNIQUES: ENSEMBLE METHODS, BOOSTING, BAGGING, RANDOM FOREST, DECISION TREES and REGRESSION TREES.: Examples with MATLAB
César Pérez López
No ratings yet
Vision PDF
No ratings yet
Vision PDF
242 pages
Machine Vision Toolbox For MATLAB PDF
No ratings yet
Machine Vision Toolbox For MATLAB PDF
242 pages
Machine Vision Toolbox For MATLABr3
No ratings yet
Machine Vision Toolbox For MATLABr3
189 pages
Vision
No ratings yet
Vision
219 pages
BIBLE v3
100% (1)
BIBLE v3
163 pages
A Paper On Parallel CRC Generation For High Speed Application
No ratings yet
A Paper On Parallel CRC Generation For High Speed Application
3 pages
Ubuntu Interface Bonding
No ratings yet
Ubuntu Interface Bonding
4 pages
C.G. Haenel mp-43 mp-44 stg.44 (Germany)
No ratings yet
C.G. Haenel mp-43 mp-44 stg.44 (Germany)
3 pages
Hilti HIT RE 500 Post Installed Rebars PDF
No ratings yet
Hilti HIT RE 500 Post Installed Rebars PDF
12 pages
TEMS Investigation 10 DC Exercises
No ratings yet
TEMS Investigation 10 DC Exercises
15 pages
1300 Edi Full Aug 2006 First Part (Shrunk+)
100% (24)
1300 Edi Full Aug 2006 First Part (Shrunk+)
84 pages
Consumer Electronics Servicing Learning Module 130610203451 Phpapp02
80% (10)
Consumer Electronics Servicing Learning Module 130610203451 Phpapp02
145 pages
BBA Cert 12-H182 For RECo Geostrap Reinforcement For Reinforced Soil Retaining Walls
No ratings yet
BBA Cert 12-H182 For RECo Geostrap Reinforcement For Reinforced Soil Retaining Walls
12 pages
Call For Papers IJPR
No ratings yet
Call For Papers IJPR
2 pages
Manual SA-AKX76LM-K - Audio
No ratings yet
Manual SA-AKX76LM-K - Audio
111 pages
JBL CWT Brochure
No ratings yet
JBL CWT Brochure
4 pages
865 3411 1 PB
No ratings yet
865 3411 1 PB
6 pages
Microstrip Patch Antenna Calculator for RF Designers
No ratings yet
Microstrip Patch Antenna Calculator for RF Designers
7 pages
Ficha de Trabalho Inglês Técnico Telephoning
No ratings yet
Ficha de Trabalho Inglês Técnico Telephoning
8 pages
Metrology Question Bank
100% (1)
Metrology Question Bank
2 pages
B10-Internet of Things - Rev 01
No ratings yet
B10-Internet of Things - Rev 01
27 pages
X65SCH
No ratings yet
X65SCH
540 pages
Column-Footing Size 3
No ratings yet
Column-Footing Size 3
8 pages
Buck PFC
No ratings yet
Buck PFC
37 pages
Source Code Delphi
No ratings yet
Source Code Delphi
6 pages
Casting Defect in Slab PDF
No ratings yet
Casting Defect in Slab PDF
55 pages
Control of Motorcycles by Variable Geometry Rear Suspension
No ratings yet
Control of Motorcycles by Variable Geometry Rear Suspension
8 pages
Mappings Between ISO 12207, IsO 15504 (SPICE), Software CMM
No ratings yet
Mappings Between ISO 12207, IsO 15504 (SPICE), Software CMM
7 pages
Grinding PDF
100% (1)
Grinding PDF
3 pages
Clock Spring Guide Coil Pass Web 20180709a
No ratings yet
Clock Spring Guide Coil Pass Web 20180709a
29 pages
A90C Female Check Snoot: Standard Equipment
No ratings yet
A90C Female Check Snoot: Standard Equipment
2 pages