How can I process an image? - c++

I'm building a program to convert an image file (whatever file type would be easiest) to G-Code for use on a rep-rap with a pen plotter attachment.
I'm wondering if i wanted to process the image pixel by pixel and check things like pixel color, how could I do this with C++?
I would really like to know how I can process a bitmap image, pixel by pixel, to check the color of the pixel.

The best way is to use a library, like for example Magick++.
When you load an image, you can access it's pixels data with Blob

You will probably want to use an existing library that has been tested.
But for fun/practice/etc, this would be a good exercise and wouldn't be impossible to do. The Bitmap Format is (relatively) simple compared with other image formats. The Wikipedia page has some tons of info, including some C++ code. It looks like once you've gotten past the header information, you get to a pixel array that shouldn't be difficult to parse.
Good luck.

Most image formats consist of a header and the actual raw image data. A bimpap image is no different. If you don't want to use one of the existing libraries, or if you are not allowed to, you should read about bitmap format :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMP_file_format
Once you understand this you could create appropriate structs/classes to store the information you want from the header such as x,y size, bpp etc. And also have a pointer to the raw image data. You could then simpy iterate through every pixel and do whatever you want with it :)

Once you decipher the image file, I suggest you place the pixels into a matrix, for the first pass. (Future revisions can use other methods to access the pixels).
You can apply transformations to the pixels by using matrix multiplication. You can also access the pixels individually by using array indexing.
Search the web and SO for "introduction to graphics c++".

Related

Image with sparse and continuous coordinates in ITK

I have a raw data image which is potentially sparse and has continuous coordinates (e.g. 1000 pixels which are positioned on a spiral, the coordinates are floats). What is the best way to load this data into ITK for further processing and the ability to save the image in physical coordinates?
My research so far: There is itk::SpecialCoordinatesImage which I could inherit to override TransformPhysicalPointToContinuousIndex(…) and TransformPhysicalPointToIndex(…). I do not know the position and pixel number before reading the hole data stream. So for a minimal amount of speed I will need to resort the data "manually". Isn't there a better way?
I am more familiar with vtk than itk, so propably what comes into my mind is a bit biased. You could:
load the raw data into a vtk unstructured grid (see for example the function ReadFinancialData in http://vtk.org/gitweb?p=VTK.git;a=blob;f=Examples/Modelling/Cxx/finance.cxx )
then voxelize it to an image. For example. see http://www.vtkjournal.org/browse/publication/713 (I've never used it, I dont' know if it is compatible with the last versions) or http://www.vtk.org/Wiki/VTK/Examples/Cxx/PolyData/PolyDataContourToImageData

Read image and access bytes in boost::gil

Is it possible to:
read an image given by just a filename (not knowing the image format) to a 2d matrix rgb uncompressed form (e.g. read an JPG to a 2d array)
access the bytes of that image, copy them, change them... (e.g. inverse the colors, I need a pointer to the image bytes, setters/getters won't do )
save those bytes to any given image format (e.g. save the inversed image to PNG)
Is it possible with boost::gil ? Maybe there is a different library more appropriate for such a task?
Sample code would be highly appreciated.
Yes, you can do all that in boost::gil.
What you should know though, is that boost::gil is only a universal interface and doesn't handle reading/writing images all by itself. You still need to use a second library, e.g. libpng..
Yes, yes and yes.
There are functions that enable you to read and write JPEG, TIFF and PNG images: see here.
For the second bullet, it is what just GIL is meant to do. You can manipulate images using its facilities (click here).

Reading Depth map using OpenGL

I have extracted the depth map of 2 images and stored them as .tif file
now I would like to use openGL to join these two images depending on their depth
so I want to read the depth for each image from the .tif file and then use that depth to draw the pixel with the higher depth
to make it more clear the depth map are two images like this
link
so say I have the pervious image and I want to join it with this image
link
my question is how to read this depth from the .tif file
Ok, I'll have a go ;-)
I see the images are just grayscale, so if the "depth" information is just the intensity of the pixel, "joining" them may be just a matter of adding the pixels. This is generally referred to as "blending", but I don't know what else you could mean.
So, you need to;
Read the 2 images into memory
For each pixel (assuming both images the same size):
read the intensity from image A[row,col]
read the intensity from image B[row,col]
write max(A[row,col],B[row,col]) to C[row,col]
Save image C - this is your new "joined" image.
Now OpenGL doesn't have any built-in support for loading/saving images, so you'll need to find a 3rd party library, like FreeImage or similar.
So, that's a lot of work. I wonder if you really want an OpenGL solution or are just assuming OpenGL would be good for graphics work. If the algorithm above is really what you want, you could do it in something like C# in a matter of minutes. It has built-in support for loading (some formats) of image file, and accessing pixels using the Bitmap class. And since your created this images yourself, you may not be bound the the TIFF format.

Making Gradient Images Quickly with C++

I'm currently working with Python to create images of gradients. However, for my uses I'm afraid that Python may just be too slow. I know that Python can be extended with C++ with relative ease.
So what are some quick ways to produce images of gradients in C++?
Writing a bitmap manually is quite easy. For a Windows Bitmap you need a 54 byte header and then an array of colour values. (.bmp file specs)
So, create a file, write the header, supply the pixel array. For a gradient generating the colour values should be fairly simple.
.pgm/.ppm files are even easier as they have much simpler headers.

'creating' images effectively

I'll first tell you the problem and then I'll tell you my solution.
Problem: I have a blank white PNG image approximately 900x900 pixels. I want to copy circles 30x30 pixels in size, which are essentially circles with a different colour. There are 8 different circles, and placed on the image depending on data values which I've created elsewhere.
Solution: I've used ImageMagicK, it's suppose to be good for general purpose image editing etc. I created a blank image
Image.outimage("900x900","white");
I upload all other small 30x30 pixel images with 'read' function.
I upload the data and extract vales.
I place the small 'circle' images on the blank one using the composite command.
outimage.composite("some file.png",pixelx,pixely,InCompositeOp);
This all works fine and the images come up the way I want them too.
However its painfully SLOW. It takes 20 seconds to do one image, and I have 1000 of them. Surely there must be a better way to do this. I've seen other researchers simulate images way more complex and way faster. It's quite possible I took the wrong approach. Maybe I sould be 'drawing' circles instead of 'pasting' them or something. I'm quite baffled. Any input is appreciated.
I suspect that you just need some library that is capable of drawing circles on bitmap and saving that bitmap as png.
For example my Graphin library: http://code.google.com/p/graphin/
Or some such. With Graphin you can also draw one PNG on surface of another as in your case.
You did not give any information about the platform you are using (only "C++"), so if you are looking for a platform independent solution, the CImg library might be worth a try.
http://cimg.sourceforge.net/
By the way, did you try drawing the circles using the ImageMagick C++ API Magick++ instead of "composing" them? I cannot believe that it is that slow.