Develop Reference

cv2.inRange() make it work for all inputs

I'm using OpenCv (4.x) on Anime Sketch dataset from Kaggle to get the image's silhouette. What I found to be the hardest part was to detect that empty areas inside that silhouette, areas between arm-body, legs and hair. The tutorials I followed always use "full filled" objects, like a ball, head or cars and I ended up tunning that code to make it work, but it is too specific so that tunning just work ok on one image.
Playing around in online-image-editor.com I've noticed that I can use the tool called Trans-parency to change one color, just like cv2.inRange() does.
Original image
The code:
image = cv2.imread("2.png",cv2.IMREAD_UNCHANGED)
crop_img = image[:, 0:512]
fuzz_factor = 0.97
maxColor = (crop_img[1,1] * 1).astype(int)
minColor = (maxColor * fuzz_factor).astype(int)
mask = cv2.inRange(crop_img, minColor, maxColor)
cv2.imshow("mask", mask)
cv2.waitKey()
and outputs this (not that bad..)
BUT then trying with another image it doesn't work anymore, output:
So, question(s):
There is some "magic rule" where I can extract a specific fuzz_factor for each image?
How could I use the image's right half to get that silhouette/contour?
Thanks guys

I post to close this question.
Thanks to Micka I made some progress, there are two variables that have high impact on output's quality:
fuzz_factor: which sets the color range for cv2.inRange()
max_contours: number of contours to draw (sorted by size)
High numbers are better until there are white zones that are not background, so next thing could be discard that ones.
import numpy as np
import cv2
# constants
fuzz_factor = 1
max_contours = -10
image_path = "9.png"
image = cv2.imread(image_path)
image = image[:, 0:512]
# background color boundaries
color = image[3,3]
upper = (color).astype(int)
lower = (color * (100 - fuzz_factor/2.0)/100).astype(int)
# create mask with specific colors
mask = cv2.inRange(image, lower, upper)
# get all contours
contours, _ = cv2.findContours(mask, mode = cv2.RETR_EXTERNAL, method = cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_NONE)
if(len(contours) > 1):
# get the [max_contours] biggest areas
contours = sorted(contours, key=cv2.contourArea)[max_contours:]
# mask where contours are filled
mask = np.zeros_like(image)
# draw contours and fill
cv2.drawContours(mask, contours, -1, color=[255,255,255], thickness= -1)
cv2.drawContours(image, contours, -1, 255, 2)
cv2.imshow("Result", np.hstack([image, mask]))
cv2.waitKey(0)

cropping x-ray image to remove background

I have many x-ray scans and need to crop the scanned object from its background noise.
The files are in .png format and I am planning to use OpenCV Python for this task. I have seen some works with FindContours() but unsure that thresholding will work for this case.
Before Image:
After/Cropped Image:
Any suggested solution/code is appreciated.

Here is one way to do that in Python/OpenCV. It assumes you have the same excess border in all your images so that one can sort contours by area and skip the largest contour to get the second largest one.
Input:
import cv2
import numpy as np
# load image
img = cv2.imread("table_xray.jpg")
hh, ww = img.shape[:2]
# convert to gray
gray = cv2.cvtColor(img, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
# median filter
filt = cv2.medianBlur(gray, 15)
# threshold the filtered image and invert
thresh = cv2.threshold(filt, 64, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY)[1]
thresh = 255 - thresh
# find contours and store index with area in list
cntrs_info = []
contours = cv2.findContours(thresh, cv2.RETR_EXTERNAL, cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_SIMPLE)
contours = contours[0] if len(contours) == 2 else contours[1]
index=0
for cntr in contours:
area = cv2.contourArea(cntr)
print(index, area)
cntrs_info.append((index,area))
index = index + 1
# sort contours by area
def takeSecond(elem):
return elem[1]
cntrs_info.sort(key=takeSecond, reverse=True)
# get bounding box of second largest contour skipping large border
index_second = cntrs_info[1][0]
x,y,w,h = cv2.boundingRect(contours[index_second])
print(index_second,x,y,w,h)
# crop input image
results = img[y:y+h,x:x+w]
# write result to disk
cv2.imwrite("table_xray_thresholded.png", thresh)
cv2.imwrite("table_xray_extracted.png", results)
cv2.imshow("THRESH", thresh)
cv2.imshow("RESULTS", results)
cv2.waitKey(0)
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
Filtered and Thresholded Image:
Cropped Result:

This is another possible solution. It uses the K-Channel of your input image, once converted to the CMYK color-space. The K (or Key) channel has most of the information of the black color, so it should be useful for segmenting the input image. After that, you can apply a heavy morphological chain to produce a good mask of the object. After that, cropping the object is very straightforward. Let's see the code:
# Imports
import cv2
import numpy as np
# Read image
imagePath = "D://opencvImages//"
inputImage = cv2.imread(imagePath+"jU6QA.jpg")
# Convert to float and divide by 255:
imgFloat = inputImage.astype(np.float) / 255.
# Calculate channel K:
kChannel = 1 - np.max(imgFloat, axis=2)
# Convert back to uint 8:
kChannel = (255*kChannel).astype(np.uint8)
The first bit of the program converts your image to the CMYK color-space and extracts the K channel. OpenCV has no direct conversion to this color-space, so a manual conversion is necessary. We need to be careful with the data types because there are float operations involved. The resulting image is this:
Pixels with black information are assigned an intensity close to 255. Now, let's threshold this image to get a binary mask. The threshold level is fixed:
# Threshold the image with a fixed thresh level
thresholdLevel = 200
_, binaryImage = cv2.threshold(kChannel, thresholdLevel, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY)
This produces the following binary image:
Alright. We need to isolate the object, however we have both the lines of the background and the "frame" around the image. Let's get rid of the lines first. We will apply a morphological Erosion. Then, we will remove the frame Flood-Filling with black color at two locations: upper left and bottom right of the image. After that, we will apply a Dilation to restore the object's original size. I wrapped these OpenCV functions inside custom functions that save me the typing of a couple of lines - These helper functions are presented at the end of the post. This is the approach:
# Perform Small Erosion:
binaryImage = morphoOperation(binaryImage, 3, 5, "Erode")
# Flood-Fill at two locations: Top left corner and bottom right:
(imageHeight, imageWidth) = binaryImage.shape[:2]
floodPositions = [(0, 0),(imageWidth-1, imageHeight-1)]
binaryImage = floodFill(binaryImage, floodPositions, 0)
# Perform Small Dilate:
binaryImage = morphoOperation(binaryImage, 3, 5, "Dilate")
This is the result:
Nice. We can improve the mask by applying a second morphological chain, this time with more iterations. Let's apply a Dilation to try and join the "holes" of the object, followed with a Erosion to, once again, restore the object's original size:
# Perform Big Dilate:
binaryImage = morphoOperation(binaryImage, 3, 10, "Dilate")
# Perform Big Erode:
binaryImage = morphoOperation(binaryImage, 3, 10, "Erode")
This yields the following result:
The gaps inside the object have been filled. Now, let's retrieve the contours on this mask to find the object's contour. I've additionally included an area filter. The mask is pretty clean by this point, so maybe this filter is not too necessary. Once the contour is located, we can crop the object from the original image:
# Find the contours on the binary image:
contours, hierarchy = cv2.findContours(binaryImage, cv2.RETR_EXTERNAL, cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_SIMPLE)
# BGR image for drawing results:
binaryBGR = cv2.cvtColor(binaryImage, cv2.COLOR_GRAY2BGR)
# Look for the outer bounding boxes (no children):
for _, c in enumerate(contours):
# Get blob area:
currentArea = cv2.contourArea(c)
# Set a min area value:
minArea = 10000
if minArea < currentArea:
# Get the contour's bounding rectangle:
boundRect = cv2.boundingRect(c)
# Get the dimensions of the bounding rect:
rectX = boundRect[0]
rectY = boundRect[1]
rectWidth = boundRect[2]
rectHeight = boundRect[3]
# Set bounding rect:
color = (0, 255, 0)
cv2.rectangle( binaryBGR, (int(rectX), int(rectY)),
(int(rectX + rectWidth), int(rectY + rectHeight)), color, 5 )
cv2.imshow("Rects", binaryBGR)
# Crop original input:
currentCrop = inputImage[rectY:rectY + rectHeight, rectX:rectX + rectWidth]
cv2.imshow("Cropped", currentCrop)
cv2.waitKey(0)
The last step produces the following two images. The first is the object enclosed by a rectangle, the second one is the actual crop:
I also tested the algorithm with your second image, these are the final results:
Wow. Somebody brought a gun to the airport? That's not OK. These are the helper functions used earlier. This first function performs the morphological operations:
def morphoOperation(binaryImage, kernelSize, opIterations, opString):
# Get the structuring element:
morphKernel = cv2.getStructuringElement(cv2.MORPH_RECT, (kernelSize, kernelSize))
# Perform Operation:
if opString == "Dilate":
op = cv2.MORPH_DILATE
else:
if opString == "Erode":
op = cv2.MORPH_ERODE
outImage = cv2.morphologyEx(binaryImage, op, morphKernel, None, None, opIterations,
cv2.BORDER_REFLECT101)
return outImage
The second function performs Flood-Filling given a list of seed-points:
def floodFill(binaryImage, positions, color):
# Loop thru the positions list of tuples:
for p in range(len(positions)):
currentSeed = positions[p]
x = int(currentSeed[0])
y = int(currentSeed[1])
# Apply flood-fill:
cv2.floodFill(binaryImage, mask=None, seedPoint=(x, y), newVal=(color))
return binaryImage

How can I select all black pixels that are contiguous with an edge of the image in PIL?

I have a set of images petri dishes which unfortunately are not the highest quality (example below, axes aren't part of the images).
I'm trying to select the background and calculate its area in pixels with the following:
image = Image.open(path)
black_image = 1 * (np.asarray(image.convert('L')) < 12)
black_region = black_image.sum()
This yields the below:
If I am more stringent with my selection of black pixels, I miss pixels in other images, and if I am looser I end up selecting too much of the petri dish itself. Is there a way I can only select the pixels have a luma value less than 12 AND are contiguous with an edge? I'm open to openCV solutions too.

Hopefully, I'm not oversimplifying the problem, but from my point of view, using OpenCV with simple thresholding, morphological operations, and findContours should do the job.
Please, see the following code:
import cv2
import numpy as np
# Input
input = cv2.imread('images/x0ziO.png', cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)
# Input to grayscale
gray = cv2.cvtColor(input, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
# Binary threshold
_, gray = cv2.threshold(gray, 20, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY)
# Morphological improvements of the mask
gray = cv2.morphologyEx(gray, cv2.MORPH_OPEN, cv2.getStructuringElement(cv2.MORPH_ELLIPSE, (5, 5)))
gray = cv2.morphologyEx(gray, cv2.MORPH_CLOSE, cv2.getStructuringElement(cv2.MORPH_ELLIPSE, (11, 11)))
# Find contours
cnts, _ = cv2.findContours(gray, cv2.RETR_EXTERNAL, cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_NONE)
# Filter large size contours; at the end, there should only be one left
largeCnts = []
for cnt in cnts:
if (cv2.contourArea(cnt) > 10000):
largeCnts.append(cnt)
# Draw (filled) contour(s)
gray = np.uint8(np.zeros(gray.shape))
gray = cv2.drawContours(gray, largeCnts, -1, 255, cv2.FILLED)
# Calculate background pixel area
bgArea = input.shape[0] * input.shape[1] - cv2.countNonZero(gray)
# Put result on input image
input = cv2.putText(input, 'Background area: ' + str(bgArea), (20, 30), cv2.FONT_HERSHEY_COMPLEX_SMALL, 1.0, (255, 255, 255))
cv2.imwrite('images/output.png', input)
The intermediate "mask" image looks like this:
And, the final output looks like this:

Since you are open to OpenCV approaches you could use a
SimpleBlobDetector
Obviously the result I got is also not perfect, since there are a lot of hyperparameters to set. The hyperparameters make it pretty flexible, so it is a decent place to start from.
This is what the Detector does (see details here):
Thresholding: Convert the source images to several binary images by thresholding the source image with thresholds starting at minThreshold. These thresholds are incremented by thresholdStep until maxThreshold. So the first threshold is minThreshold, the second is minThreshold + thresholdStep, the third is minThreshold + 2 x thresholdStep, and so on.
Grouping: In each binary image, connected white pixels are grouped together. Let’s call these binary blobs.
Merging: The centers of the binary blobs in the binary images are computed, and blobs located closer than minDistBetweenBlobs are merged.
Center & Radius Calculation: The centers and radii of the new merged blobs are computed and returned.
Find the code bellow the image.
# Standard imports
import cv2
import numpy as np
# Read image
im = cv2.imread("petri.png", cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)
# Setup SimpleBlobDetector parameters.
params = cv2.SimpleBlobDetector_Params()
# Change thresholds
params.minThreshold = 0
params.maxThreshold = 255
# Set edge gradient
params.thresholdStep = 5
# Filter by Area.
params.filterByArea = True
params.minArea = 10
# Set up the detector with default parameters.
detector = cv2.SimpleBlobDetector_create(params)
# Detect blobs.
keypoints = detector.detect(im)
# Draw detected blobs as red circles.
# cv2.DRAW_MATCHES_FLAGS_DRAW_RICH_KEYPOINTS ensures the size of the circle corresponds to the size of blob
im_with_keypoints = cv2.drawKeypoints(im, keypoints, np.array([]), (0, 0, 255),
cv2.DRAW_MATCHES_FLAGS_DRAW_RICH_KEYPOINTS)
# Show keypoints
cv2.imshow("Keypoints", im_with_keypoints)
cv2.waitKey(0)

If you take the very top line/row of your image and the very bottom line/row and threshold them you will get this diagram where I have placed the top row at the top and the bottom row at the bottom just outside the limits of the original image - there is no need for you to do that, I am just illustrating the technique.
Now look where the lines change from black to white and then white to black (circled in red at the top). Unfortunately, your images have annotations and axes which I had to trim off so your number will not be identically the same. On the top line/row, my image changes from black to white at column 319 and back to black at column 648. If I add those together I get 966 and divide by 2, the image centre on the x-axis is at column 483.
Looking at the bottom line/row the transitions (circled in red) are at columns 234 and 736 which add up to 970 which makes 485 when averaged, so we know the circle centre is on vertical image column 483-485 or say 484.
Then you should now be able to work out the image centre and radius and mask the image to accurately calculate the background.

Try the experimental floodfill() method. https://pillow.readthedocs.io/en/5.1.x/reference/ImageDraw.html?highlight=floodfill#PIL.ImageDraw.PIL.ImageDraw.floodfill
If all your images are like the example, just pick two or four corners of your image to fill with, say, hot pink and count that.
See also Image Segmentation with Watershed Algorithm which is much like flood fill but without relying on a single unique color.

remove background of any image using opencv [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How to remove the background from an image
(3 answers)
Closed 9 months ago.
I have been searching for a technique to remove the background of a any given image. The idea is to detect a face and remove the background of the detected face. I have finished the face part. Now removing the background part still exists.
I used this code.
import cv2
import numpy as np
#== Parameters
BLUR = 21
CANNY_THRESH_1 = 10
CANNY_THRESH_2 = 200
MASK_DILATE_ITER = 10
MASK_ERODE_ITER = 10
MASK_COLOR = (0.0,0.0,1.0) # In BGR format
#-- Read image
img = cv2.imread('SYxmp.jpg')
gray = cv2.cvtColor(img,cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
#-- Edge detection
edges = cv2.Canny(gray, CANNY_THRESH_1, CANNY_THRESH_2)
edges = cv2.dilate(edges, None)
edges = cv2.erode(edges, None)
#-- Find contours in edges, sort by area
contour_info = []
contours, _ = cv2.findContours(edges, cv2.RETR_LIST, cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_NONE)
for c in contours:
contour_info.append((
c,
cv2.isContourConvex(c),
cv2.contourArea(c),
))
contour_info = sorted(contour_info, key=lambda c: c[2], reverse=True)
max_contour = contour_info[0]
#-- Create empty mask, draw filled polygon on it corresponding to largest contour ----
# Mask is black, polygon is white
mask = np.zeros(edges.shape)
cv2.fillConvexPoly(mask, max_contour[0], (255))
#-- Smooth mask, then blur it
mask = cv2.dilate(mask, None, iterations=MASK_DILATE_ITER)
mask = cv2.erode(mask, None, iterations=MASK_ERODE_ITER)
mask = cv2.GaussianBlur(mask, (BLUR, BLUR), 0)
mask_stack = np.dstack([mask]*3) # Create 3-channel alpha mask
#-- Blend masked img into MASK_COLOR background
mask_stack = mask_stack.astype('float32') / 255.0
img = img.astype('float32') / 255.0
masked = (mask_stack * img) + ((1-mask_stack) * MASK_COLOR)
masked = (masked * 255).astype('uint8')
cv2.imshow('img', masked) # Display
cv2.waitKey()
cv2.imwrite("WTF.jpg",masked)
But this code only works for only this image
What should be changed in the code to make it to work for different images

Local Optimal Solution
# Original Code
CANNY_THRESH_2 = 200
# Change to
CANNY_THRESH_2 = 100
####### Change below worth to try but not necessary
# Original Code
mask = np.zeros(edges.shape)
cv2.fillConvexPoly(mask, max_contour[0], (255))
# Change to
for c in contour_info:
cv2.fillConvexPoly(mask, c[0], (255))
Effects
Test Image
Similar color of background, hair and skin
Original Output
original output
original edges
Apply all contour rather than max contour with same edge threshold
slightly better
Canny Thresh 2 set as 100, apply all contour
much better
stronger edges
Canny Thresh 2 set as 40, apply all contour
edges starts to become not so sharp
Reasoning
Program Behavior
The program searches edges and builds contours. Get the max contour and recognize as human face. Then apply mask.
Problem
Not easy to deal with similar color between background and human face. Blond hair and skin color makes it's hard to find correct edges with the original threshold.
Max contour means when images have strong and big vertex like the scarf in test image, it's easy to lose track of some area. But it really depends on what kind of image it is after your human face recognition process.

Extracting text from inside a circular border

I'm trying to develop a script using Python and OpenCV to detect some highlighted regions on a scanned instrumentation diagram and output text using Tesseract's OCR function. My workflow is first to detect the general vicinity of the region of interest, and then apply processing steps to remove everything aside from the blocks of text (lines, borders, noise). The processed image is then feed into Tesseract's OCR engine.
This workflow is works on about half of the images, but fails on the rest due to the text touching the borders. I'll show some examples of what I mean below:
Step 1: Find regions of interest by creating a mask using InRange with the color range of the highlighter.
Step 2: Contour regions of interest, crop and save to file.
--- Referenced code begins here ---
Step 3: Threshold image and apply Canny Edge Detection
Step 4: Contour the edges and filter them into circular shape using cv2.approxPolyDP and looking at ones with vertices greater than 8. Taking the first or second largest contour usually corresponds to the inner edge.
Step 5: Using masks and bitwise operations, everything inside contour is transferred to a white background image. Dilation and erosion is applied to de-noise the image and create the final image that gets fed into the OCR engine.
import cv2
import numpy as np
import pytesseract
pytesseract.pytesseract.tesseract_cmd = 'C:/Program Files (x86)/Tesseract-OCR/tesseract'
d_path = "Test images\\"
img_name = "cropped_12.jpg"
img = cv2.imread(d_path + img_name) # Reads the image
## Resize image before calculating contour
height, width = img.shape[:2]
img = cv2.resize(img,(2*width,2*height),interpolation = cv2.INTER_CUBIC)
img_orig = img.copy() # Makes copy of original image
img = cv2.cvtColor(img,cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY) # Convert to grayscale
# Apply threshold to get binary image and write to file
_, img = cv2.threshold(img,0,255,cv2.THRESH_BINARY+cv2.THRESH_OTSU)
# Edge detection
edges = cv2.Canny(img,100,200)
# Find contours of mask threshold
_, contours, hierarchy = cv2.findContours(edges, cv2.RETR_TREE, cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_SIMPLE)
# Find contours associated w/ polygons with 8 sides or more
cnt_list = []
area_list = [cv2.contourArea(c) for c in contours]
for j in contours:
poly_pts = cv2.approxPolyDP(j,0.01*cv2.arcLength(j,True),True)
area = cv2.contourArea(j)
if (len(poly_pts) > 8) & (area == max(area_list)):
cnt_list.append(j)
cv2.drawContours(img_orig, cnt_list, -1, (255,0,0), 2)
# Show contours
cv2.namedWindow('Show',cv2.WINDOW_NORMAL)
cv2.imshow("Show",img_orig)
cv2.waitKey()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
# Zero pixels outside circle
mask = np.zeros(img.shape).astype(img.dtype)
cv2.fillPoly(mask, cnt_list, (255,255,255))
mask_inv = cv2.bitwise_not(mask)
a = cv2.bitwise_and(img,img,mask = mask)
wh_back = np.ones(img.shape).astype(img.dtype)*255
b = cv2.bitwise_and(wh_back,wh_back,mask = mask_inv)
res = cv2.add(a,b)
# Get rid of noise
kernel = np.ones((2, 2), np.uint8)
res = cv2.dilate(res, kernel, iterations=1)
res = cv2.erode(res, kernel, iterations=1)
# Show final image
cv2.namedWindow('result',cv2.WINDOW_NORMAL)
cv2.imshow("result",res)
cv2.waitKey()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
When code works, these are the images that get outputted:
Working
However, in the instances where the text touches the circular border, the code assumes part of the text is part of the larger contour and ignores the last letter. For example:
Not working
Are there any processing steps that can help me bypass this problem? Or perhaps a different approach? I've tried using Hough Circle Transforms to try to detect the borders, but they're quite finicky and doesn't work as well as contouring.
I'm quite new to OpenCV and Python so any help would be appreciated.

If the Hough circle transform didn't work for you I think you're best option will be to approximate the boarder shape. The best method I know for that is: Douglas-Peucker algorithm which will make your contour simpler by reducing the perimeter on pics.
You can check this reference file from OpenCV to see the type of post processing you can apply to your boarder. They also mention Douglas-Peucker:
OpenCV boarder processing

Just a hunch. After OTSU thresholding. Erode and dilate the image. This will result in vanishing of very thin joints. The code for the same is below.
kernel = np.ones((5,5),np.uint8)
th3 = cv2.erode(th3, kernel,iterations=1)
th3 = cv2.dilate(th3, kernel,iterations=1)
Let me know how it goes. I have couple more idea if this did not work.