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Inverse FFT returns negative values when it should not

I have several points (x,y,z coordinates) in a 3D box with associated masses. I want to draw an histogram of the mass-density that is found in spheres of a given radius R.
I have written a code that, providing I did not make any errors which I think I may have, works in the following way:
My "real" data is something huge thus I wrote a little code to generate non overlapping points randomly with arbitrary mass in a box.
I compute a 3D histogram (weighted by mass) with a binning about 10 times smaller than the radius of my spheres.
I take the FFT of my histogram, compute the wave-modes (kx, ky and kz) and use them to multiply my histogram in Fourier space by the analytic expression of the 3D top-hat window (sphere filtering) function in Fourier space.
I inverse FFT my newly computed grid.
Thus drawing a 1D-histogram of the values on each bin would give me what I want.
My issue is the following: given what I do there should not be any negative values in my inverted FFT grid (step 4), but I get some, and with values much higher that the numerical error.
If I run my code on a small box (300x300x300 cm3 and the points of separated by at least 1 cm) I do not get the issue. I do get it for 600x600x600 cm3 though.
If I set all the masses to 0, thus working on an empty grid, I do get back my 0 without any noted issues.
I here give my code in a full block so that it is easily copied.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import random
from numba import njit
# 1. Generate a bunch of points with masses from 1 to 3 separated by a radius of 1 cm
radius = 1
rangeX = (0, 100)
rangeY = (0, 100)
rangeZ = (0, 100)
rangem = (1,3)
qty = 20000 # or however many points you want
# Generate a set of all points within 1 of the origin, to be used as offsets later
deltas = set()
for x in range(-radius, radius+1):
for y in range(-radius, radius+1):
for z in range(-radius, radius+1):
if x*x + y*y + z*z<= radius*radius:
deltas.add((x,y,z))
X = []
Y = []
Z = []
M = []
excluded = set()
for i in range(qty):
x = random.randrange(*rangeX)
y = random.randrange(*rangeY)
z = random.randrange(*rangeZ)
m = random.uniform(*rangem)
if (x,y,z) in excluded: continue
X.append(x)
Y.append(y)
Z.append(z)
M.append(m)
excluded.update((x+dx, y+dy, z+dz) for (dx,dy,dz) in deltas)
print("There is ",len(X)," points in the box")
# Compute the 3D histogram
a = np.vstack((X, Y, Z)).T
b = 200
H, edges = np.histogramdd(a, weights=M, bins = b)
# Compute the FFT of the grid
Fh = np.fft.fftn(H, axes=(-3,-2, -1))
# Compute the different wave-modes
kx = 2*np.pi*np.fft.fftfreq(len(edges[0][:-1]))*len(edges[0][:-1])/(np.amax(X)-np.amin(X))
ky = 2*np.pi*np.fft.fftfreq(len(edges[1][:-1]))*len(edges[1][:-1])/(np.amax(Y)-np.amin(Y))
kz = 2*np.pi*np.fft.fftfreq(len(edges[2][:-1]))*len(edges[2][:-1])/(np.amax(Z)-np.amin(Z))
# I create a matrix containing the values of the filter in each point of the grid in Fourier space
R = 5
Kh = np.empty((len(kx),len(ky),len(kz)))
#njit(parallel=True)
def func_njit(kx, ky, kz, Kh):
for i in range(len(kx)):
for j in range(len(ky)):
for k in range(len(kz)):
if np.sqrt(kx[i]**2+ky[j]**2+kz[k]**2) != 0:
Kh[i][j][k] = (np.sin((np.sqrt(kx[i]**2+ky[j]**2+kz[k]**2))*R)-(np.sqrt(kx[i]**2+ky[j]**2+kz[k]**2))*R*np.cos((np.sqrt(kx[i]**2+ky[j]**2+kz[k]**2))*R))*3/((np.sqrt(kx[i]**2+ky[j]**2+kz[k]**2))*R)**3
else:
Kh[i][j][k] = 1
return Kh
Kh = func_njit(kx, ky, kz, Kh)
# I multiply each point of my grid by the associated value of the filter (multiplication in Fourier space = convolution in real space)
Gh = np.multiply(Fh, Kh)
# I take the inverse FFT of my filtered grid. I take the real part to get back floats but there should only be zeros for the imaginary part.
Density = np.real(np.fft.ifftn(Gh,axes=(-3,-2, -1)))
# Here it shows if there are negative values the magnitude of the error
print(np.min(Density))
D = Density.flatten()
N = np.mean(D)
# I then compute the histogram I want
hist, bins = np.histogram(D/N, bins='auto', density=True)
bin_centers = (bins[1:]+bins[:-1])*0.5
plt.plot(bin_centers, hist)
plt.xlabel('rho/rhom')
plt.ylabel('P(rho)')
plt.show()
Do you know why I'm getting these negative values? Do you think there is a simpler way to proceed?
Sorry if this is a very long post, I tried to make it very clear and will edit it with your comments, thanks a lot!
-EDIT-
A follow-up question on the issue can be found [here].1

The filter you create in the frequency domain is only an approximation to the filter you want to create. The problem is that we are dealing with the DFT here, not the continuous-domain FT (with its infinite frequencies). The Fourier transform of a ball is indeed the function you describe, however this function is infinitely large -- it is not band-limited!
By sampling this function only within a window, you are effectively multiplying it with an ideal low-pass filter (the rectangle of the domain). This low-pass filter, in the spatial domain, has negative values. Therefore, the filter you create also has negative values in the spatial domain.
This is a slice through the origin of the inverse transform of Kh (after I applied fftshift to move the origin to the middle of the image, for better display):
As you can tell here, there is some ringing that leads to negative values.
One way to overcome this ringing is to apply a windowing function in the frequency domain. Another option is to generate a ball in the spatial domain, and compute its Fourier transform. This second option would be the simplest to achieve. Do remember that the kernel in the spatial domain must also have the origin at the top-left pixel to obtain a correct FFT.
A windowing function is typically applied in the spatial domain to avoid issues with the image border when computing the FFT. Here, I propose to apply such a window in the frequency domain to avoid similar issues when computing the IFFT. Note, however, that this will always further reduce the bandwidth of the kernel (the windowing function would work as a low-pass filter after all), and therefore yield a smoother transition of foreground to background in the spatial domain (i.e. the spatial domain kernel will not have as sharp a transition as you might like). The best known windowing functions are Hamming and Hann windows, but there are many others worth trying out.
Unsolicited advice:
I simplified your code to compute Kh to the following:
kr = np.sqrt(kx[:,None,None]**2 + ky[None,:,None]**2 + kz[None,None,:]**2)
kr *= R
Kh = (np.sin(kr)-kr*np.cos(kr))*3/(kr)**3
Kh[0,0,0] = 1
I find this easier to read than the nested loops. It should also be significantly faster, and avoid the need for njit. Note that you were computing the same distance (what I call kr here) 5 times. Factoring out such computation is not only faster, but yields more readable code.

Just a guess:
Where do you get the idea that the imaginary part MUST be zero? Have you ever tried to take the absolute values (sqrt(re^2 + im^2)) and forget about the phase instead of just taking the real part? Just something that came to my mind.

Regrid 2D data onto larger 2D grid at given coordinates in Python

I have a square 2D array data that I would like to add to a larger 2D array frame at some given set of non-integer coordinates coords. The idea is that data will be interpolated onto frame with it's center at the new coordinates.
Some toy data:
# A gaussian to add to the frame
x, y = np.meshgrid(np.linspace(-1,1,10), np.linspace(-1,1,10))
data = 50*np.exp(-np.sqrt(x**2+y**2)**2)
# The frame to add the gaussian to
frame = np.random.normal(size=(100,50))
# The desired (x,y) location of the gaussian center on the new frame
coords = 23.4, 22.6
Here's the idea. I want to add this:
to this:
to get this:
If the coordinates were integers (indexes), of course I could simply add them like this:
frame[23:33,22:32] += data
But I want to be able to specify non-integer coordinates so that data is regridded and added to frame.
I've looked into PIL.Image methods but my use case is just for 2D data, not images. Is there a way to do this with just scipy? Can this be done with interp2d or a similar function? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

Scipy's shift function from scipy.ndimage.interpolation is what you are looking for, as long as the grid spacings between data and frame overlap. If not, look to the other answer. The shift function can take floating point numbers as input and will do a spline interpolation. First, I put the data into an array as large as frame, then shift it, and then add it. Make sure to reverse the coordinate list, as x is the rightmost dimension in numpy arrays. One of the nice features of shift is that it sets to zero those values that go out of bounds.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from scipy.ndimage.interpolation import shift
# A gaussian to add to the frame.
x, y = np.meshgrid(np.linspace(-1,1,10), np.linspace(-1,1,10))
data = 50*np.exp(-np.sqrt(x**2+y**2)**2)
# The frame to add the gaussian to
frame = np.random.normal(size=(100,50))
x_frame = np.arange(50)
y_frame = np.arange(100)
# The desired (x,y) location of the gaussian center on the new frame.
coords = np.array([23.4, 22.6])
# First, create a frame as large as the frame.
data_large = np.zeros(frame.shape)
data_large[:data.shape[0], :data.shape[1]] = data[:,:]
# Subtract half the distance as the bottom left is at 0,0 instead of the center.
# The shift of 4.5 is because data is 10 points wide.
# Reverse the coords array as x is the last coordinate.
coords_shift = -4.5
data_large = shift(data_large, coords[::-1] + coords_shift)
frame += data_large
# Plot the result and add lines to indicate to coordinates
plt.figure()
plt.pcolormesh(x_frame, y_frame, frame, cmap=plt.cm.jet)
plt.axhline(coords[1], color='w')
plt.axvline(coords[0], color='w')
plt.colorbar()
plt.gca().invert_yaxis()
plt.show()
The script gives you the following figure, which has the desired coordinates indicated with white dotted lines.

One possible solution is to use scipy.interpolate.RectBivariateSpline. In the code below, x_0 and y_0 are the coordinates of a feature from data (i.e., the position of the center of the Gaussian in your example) that need to be mapped to the coordinates given by coords. There are a couple of advantages to this approach:
If you need to "place" the same object into multiple locations in the output frame, the spline needs to be computed only once (but evaluated multiple times).
In case you actually need to compute integrated flux of the model over a pixel, you can use the integral method of scipy.interpolate.RectBivariateSpline.
Resample using spline interpolation:
from scipy.interpolate import RectBivariateSpline
x = np.arange(data.shape[1], dtype=np.float)
y = np.arange(data.shape[0], dtype=np.float)
kx = 3; ky = 3; # spline degree
spline = RectBivariateSpline(
x, y, data.T, kx=kx, ky=ky, s=0
)
# Define coordinates of a feature in the data array.
# This can be the center of the Gaussian:
x_0 = (data.shape[1] - 1.0) / 2.0
y_0 = (data.shape[0] - 1.0) / 2.0
# create output grid, shifted as necessary:
yg, xg = np.indices(frame.shape, dtype=np.float64)
xg += x_0 - coords[0] # see below how to account for pixel scale change
yg += y_0 - coords[1] # see below how to account for pixel scale change
# resample and fill extrapolated points with 0:
resampled_data = spline.ev(xg, yg)
extrapol = (((xg < -0.5) | (xg >= data.shape[1] - 0.5)) |
((yg < -0.5) | (yg >= data.shape[0] - 0.5)))
resampled_data[extrapol] = 0
Now plot the frame and resampled data:
plt.figure(figsize=(14, 14));
plt.imshow(frame+resampled_data, cmap=plt.cm.jet,
origin='upper', interpolation='none', aspect='equal')
plt.show()
If you also want to allow for scale changes, then replace code for computing xg and yg above with:
coords = 20, 80 # change coords to easily identifiable (in plot) values
zoom_x = 2 # example scale change along X axis
zoom_y = 3 # example scale change along Y axis
yg, xg = np.indices(frame.shape, dtype=np.float64)
xg = (xg - coords[0]) / zoom_x + x_0
yg = (yg - coords[1]) / zoom_y + y_0
Most likely this is what you actually want based on your example. Specifically, the coordinates of pixels in data are "spaced" by 0.222(2) distance units. Therefore it actually seems that for your particular example (whether accidental or intentional), you have a zoom factor of 0.222(2). In that case your data image would shrink to almost 2 pixels in the output frame.
Comparison to #Chiel answer
In the image below, I compare the results from my method (left), #Chiel's method (center) and difference (right panel):
Fundamentally, the two methods are quite similar and possibly even use the same algorithm (I did not look at the code for shift but based on the description - it also uses splines). From comparison image it is visible that the biggest differences are at the edges and, for unknown to me reasons, shift seems to truncate the shifted image slightly too soon.
I think the biggest difference is that my method allows for pixel scale changes and it also allows re-use of the same interpolator to place the original image at different locations in the output frame. #Chiel's method is somewhat simpler but (what I did not like about it is that) it requires creation of a larger array (data_large) into which the original image is placed in the corner.

While the other answers have gone into detail, but here's my lazy solution:
xc,yc = 23.4, 22.6
x, y = np.meshgrid(np.linspace(-1,1,10)-xc%1, np.linspace(-1,1,10)-yc%1)
data = 50*np.exp(-np.sqrt(x**2+y**2)**2)
frame = np.random.normal(size=(100,50))
frame[23:33,22:32] += data
And it's the way you liked it. As you mentioned, the coordinates of both are the same, so the origin of data is somewhere between the indices. Now just simply shift it by the amount you want it to be off a grid point (remainder to one) in the second line and you're good to go (you might need to flip the sign, but I think this is correct).

Moving average produces array of different length?

This question has a lot of useful answers on how to get a moving average.
I have tried the two methods of numpy convolution and numpy cumsum and both worked fine on an example dataset, but produced a shorter array on my real data.
The data are spaced by 0.01. The example dataset has a length of 50, the real data tens of thousands. So it must be something about the window size that is causing the problem and I don't quite understand what is going on in the functions.
This is how I define the functions:
def smoothMAcum(depth,temp, scale): # Moving average by cumsum, scale = window size in m
dz = np.diff(depth)
N = int(scale/dz[0])
cumsum = np.cumsum(np.insert(temp, 0, 0))
smoothed=(cumsum[N:] - cumsum[:-N]) / N
return smoothed
def smoothMAconv(depth,temp, scale): # Moving average by numpy convolution
dz = np.diff(depth)
N = int(scale/dz[0])
smoothed=np.convolve(temp, np.ones((N,))/N, mode='valid')
return smoothed
Then I implement it:
scale = 5.
smooth = smoothMAconv(dep,data, scale)
but print len(dep), len(smooth)
returns 81071 80572
and the same happens if I use the other function.
How can I get the smooth array of the same length as the data?
And why did it work on the small dataset? Even if I try different scales (and use the same for the example and for the data), the result in the example has the same length as the original data, but not in the real application.
I considered an effect of nan values, but if I have a nan in the example, it doesn't make a difference.
So where is the problem, if possible to tell without the full dataset?

The second of your approaches is easy to modify to preserve the length, because numpy.convolve supports the parameter mode='same'.
np.convolve(temp, np.ones((N,))/N, mode='same')
This is made possible by zero-padding the data set temp on both sides, -
which will inevitably have some effect at the boundaries unless your data happens to be 0 near the boundaries. Example:
N = 10
x = np.linspace(0, 2, 100)
y = x**2 + np.random.uniform(size=x.shape)
y_smooth = np.convolve(y, np.ones((N,))/N, mode='same')
plt.plot(x, y, 'r.')
plt.plot(x, y_smooth)
plt.show()
The boundary effect of zero-padding is very visible at the right end, where the data points are about 4-5 but are padded by 0.
To reduce this undesired effect, use numpy.pad for more intelligent padding; reverting to mode='valid' for convolution. The pad width must be such that in total N-1 elements are added, where N is the size of moving window.
y_padded = np.pad(y, (N//2, N-1-N//2), mode='edge')
y_smooth = np.convolve(y_padded, np.ones((N,))/N, mode='valid')
Padding by edge values of an array looks much better.

Python fractal box count - fractal dimension

I have some images for which I want to calculate the Minkowski/box count dimension to determine the fractal characteristics in the image. Here are 2 example images:
10.jpg:
24.jpg:
I'm using the following code to calculate the fractal dimension:
import numpy as np
import scipy
def rgb2gray(rgb):
r, g, b = rgb[:,:,0], rgb[:,:,1], rgb[:,:,2]
gray = 0.2989 * r + 0.5870 * g + 0.1140 * b
return gray
def fractal_dimension(Z, threshold=0.9):
# Only for 2d image
assert(len(Z.shape) == 2)
# From https://github.com/rougier/numpy-100 (#87)
def boxcount(Z, k):
S = np.add.reduceat(
np.add.reduceat(Z, np.arange(0, Z.shape[0], k), axis=0),
np.arange(0, Z.shape[1], k), axis=1)
# We count non-empty (0) and non-full boxes (k*k)
return len(np.where((S > 0) & (S < k*k))[0])
# Transform Z into a binary array
Z = (Z < threshold)
# Minimal dimension of image
p = min(Z.shape)
# Greatest power of 2 less than or equal to p
n = 2**np.floor(np.log(p)/np.log(2))
# Extract the exponent
n = int(np.log(n)/np.log(2))
# Build successive box sizes (from 2**n down to 2**1)
sizes = 2**np.arange(n, 1, -1)
# Actual box counting with decreasing size
counts = []
for size in sizes:
counts.append(boxcount(Z, size))
# Fit the successive log(sizes) with log (counts)
coeffs = np.polyfit(np.log(sizes), np.log(counts), 1)
return -coeffs[0]
I = rgb2gray(scipy.misc.imread("24.jpg"))
print("Minkowski–Bouligand dimension (computed): ", fractal_dimension(I))
From the literature I've read, it has been suggested that natural scenes (e.g. 24.jpg) are more fractal in nature, and thus should have a larger fractal dimension value
The results it gives me are in the opposite direction than what the literature would suggest:
10.jpg: 1.259
24.jpg: 1.073
I would expect the fractal dimension for the natural image to be larger than for the urban
Am I calculating the value incorrectly in my code? Or am I just interpreting the results incorrectly?

With fractal dimension of something physical the dimension might converge at different stages to different values. For example, a very thin line (but of finite width) would initially seem one dimensional, then eventual two dimensional as its width becomes of comparable size to the boxes used.
Lets see the dimensions that you have produced:
What do you see? Well the linear fits are not so good. And the dimensions is going towards a value of two.
To diagnose, lets take a look at the grey-scale images produced, with the threshold that you have (that is, 0.9):
The nature picture has almost become an ink blob. The dimensions would go to a value of 2 very soon, as the graphs told us. That is because we pretty much lost the image.
And now with a threshold of 50?
With new linear fits that are much better, the dimensions are 1.6 and 1.8 for urban and nature respectively. Keep in mind, that the urban picture actually has a lot of structure to it, in particular on the textured walls.
In future good threshold values would be ones closer to the mean of the grey scale images, that way your image does not turn into a blob of ink!
A good text book on this is "Fractals everywhere" by Michael F. Barnsley.

Peak detection in a noisy 2d array

I'm trying to get python to return, as close as possible, the center of the most obvious clustering in an image like the one below:
In my previous question I asked how to get the global maximum and the local maximums of a 2d array, and the answers given worked perfectly. The issue is that the center estimation I can get by averaging the global maximum obtained with different bin sizes is always slightly off than the one I would set by eye, because I'm only accounting for the biggest bin instead of a group of biggest bins (like one does by eye).
I tried adapting the answer to this question to my problem, but it turns out my image is too noisy for that algorithm to work. Here's my code implementing that answer:
import numpy as np
from scipy.ndimage.filters import maximum_filter
from scipy.ndimage.morphology import generate_binary_structure, binary_erosion
import matplotlib.pyplot as pp
from os import getcwd
from os.path import join, realpath, dirname
# Save path to dir where this code exists.
mypath = realpath(join(getcwd(), dirname(__file__)))
myfile = 'data_file.dat'
x, y = np.loadtxt(join(mypath,myfile), usecols=(1, 2), unpack=True)
xmin, xmax = min(x), max(x)
ymin, ymax = min(y), max(y)
rang = [[xmin, xmax], [ymin, ymax]]
paws = []
for d_b in range(25, 110, 25):
# Number of bins in x,y given the bin width 'd_b'
binsxy = [int((xmax - xmin) / d_b), int((ymax - ymin) / d_b)]
H, xedges, yedges = np.histogram2d(x, y, range=rang, bins=binsxy)
paws.append(H)
def detect_peaks(image):
"""
Takes an image and detect the peaks usingthe local maximum filter.
Returns a boolean mask of the peaks (i.e. 1 when
the pixel's value is the neighborhood maximum, 0 otherwise)
"""
# define an 8-connected neighborhood
neighborhood = generate_binary_structure(2,2)
#apply the local maximum filter; all pixel of maximal value
#in their neighborhood are set to 1
local_max = maximum_filter(image, footprint=neighborhood)==image
#local_max is a mask that contains the peaks we are
#looking for, but also the background.
#In order to isolate the peaks we must remove the background from the mask.
#we create the mask of the background
background = (image==0)
#a little technicality: we must erode the background in order to
#successfully subtract it form local_max, otherwise a line will
#appear along the background border (artifact of the local maximum filter)
eroded_background = binary_erosion(background, structure=neighborhood, border_value=1)
#we obtain the final mask, containing only peaks,
#by removing the background from the local_max mask
detected_peaks = local_max - eroded_background
return detected_peaks
#applying the detection and plotting results
for i, paw in enumerate(paws):
detected_peaks = detect_peaks(paw)
pp.subplot(4,2,(2*i+1))
pp.imshow(paw)
pp.subplot(4,2,(2*i+2) )
pp.imshow(detected_peaks)
pp.show()
and here's the result of that (varying the bin size):
Clearly my background is too noisy for that algorithm to work, so the question is: how can I make that algorithm less sensitive? If an alternative solution exists then please let me know.
EDIT
Following Bi Rico advise I attempted smoothing my 2d array before passing it on to the local maximum finder, like so:
H, xedges, yedges = np.histogram2d(x, y, range=rang, bins=binsxy)
H1 = gaussian_filter(H, 2, mode='nearest')
paws.append(H1)
These were the results with a sigma of 2, 4 and 8:
EDIT 2
A mode ='constant' seems to work much better than nearest. It converges to the right center with a sigma=2 for the largest bin size:
So, how do I get the coordinates of the maximum that shows in the last image?

Answering the last part of your question, always you have points in an image, you can find their coordinates by searching, in some order, the local maximums of the image. In case your data is not a point source, you can apply a mask to each peak in order to avoid the peak neighborhood from being a maximum while performing a future search. I propose the following code:
import matplotlib.image as mpimg
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
import copy
def get_std(image):
return np.std(image)
def get_max(image,sigma,alpha=20,size=10):
i_out = []
j_out = []
image_temp = copy.deepcopy(image)
while True:
k = np.argmax(image_temp)
j,i = np.unravel_index(k, image_temp.shape)
if(image_temp[j,i] >= alpha*sigma):
i_out.append(i)
j_out.append(j)
x = np.arange(i-size, i+size)
y = np.arange(j-size, j+size)
xv,yv = np.meshgrid(x,y)
image_temp[yv.clip(0,image_temp.shape[0]-1),
xv.clip(0,image_temp.shape[1]-1) ] = 0
print xv
else:
break
return i_out,j_out
#reading the image
image = mpimg.imread('ggd4.jpg')
#computing the standard deviation of the image
sigma = get_std(image)
#getting the peaks
i,j = get_max(image[:,:,0],sigma, alpha=10, size=10)
#let's see the results
plt.imshow(image, origin='lower')
plt.plot(i,j,'ro', markersize=10, alpha=0.5)
plt.show()
The image ggd4 for the test can be downloaded from:
http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/gallery/spr99/ggd4.jpg
The first part is to get some information about the noise in the image. I did it by computing the standard deviation of the full image (actually is better to select an small rectangle without signal). This is telling us how much noise is present in the image.
The idea to get the peaks is to ask for successive maximums, which are above of certain threshold (let's say, 3, 4, 5, 10, or 20 times the noise). This is what the function get_max is actually doing. It performs the search of maximums until one of them is below the threshold imposed by the noise. In order to avoid finding the same maximum many times it is necessary to remove the peaks from the image. In the general way, the shape of the mask to do so depends strongly on the problem that one want to solve. for the case of stars, it should be good to remove the star by using a Gaussian function, or something similar. I have chosen for simplicity a square function, and the size of the function (in pixels) is the variable "size".
I think that from this example, anybody can improve the code by adding more general things.
EDIT:
The original image looks like:
While the image after identifying the luminous points looks like this:

Too much of a n00b on Stack Overflow to comment on Alejandro's answer elsewhere here. I would refine his code a bit to use a preallocated numpy array for output:
def get_max(image,sigma,alpha=3,size=10):
from copy import deepcopy
import numpy as np
# preallocate a lot of peak storage
k_arr = np.zeros((10000,2))
image_temp = deepcopy(image)
peak_ct=0
while True:
k = np.argmax(image_temp)
j,i = np.unravel_index(k, image_temp.shape)
if(image_temp[j,i] >= alpha*sigma):
k_arr[peak_ct]=[j,i]
# this is the part that masks already-found peaks.
x = np.arange(i-size, i+size)
y = np.arange(j-size, j+size)
xv,yv = np.meshgrid(x,y)
# the clip here handles edge cases where the peak is near the
# image edge
image_temp[yv.clip(0,image_temp.shape[0]-1),
xv.clip(0,image_temp.shape[1]-1) ] = 0
peak_ct+=1
else:
break
# trim the output for only what we've actually found
return k_arr[:peak_ct]
In profiling this and Alejandro's code using his example image, this code about 33% faster (0.03 sec for Alejandro's code, 0.02 sec for mine.) I expect on images with larger numbers of peaks, it would be even faster - appending the output to a list will get slower and slower for more peaks.

I think the first step needed here is to express the values in H in terms of the standard deviation of the field:
import numpy as np
H = H / np.std(H)
Now you can put a threshold on the values of this H. If the noise is assumed to be Gaussian, picking a threshold of 3 you can be quite sure (99.7%) that this pixel can be associated with a real peak and not noise. See here.
Now the further selection can start. It is not exactly clear to me what exactly you want to find. Do you want the exact location of peak values? Or do you want one location for a cluster of peaks which is in the middle of this cluster?
Anyway, starting from this point with all pixel values expressed in standard deviations of the field, you should be able to get what you want. If you want to find clusters you could perform a nearest neighbour search on the >3-sigma gridpoints and put a threshold on the distance. I.e. only connect them when they are close enough to each other. If several gridpoints are connected you can define this as a group/cluster and calculate some (sigma-weighted?) center of the cluster.
Hope my first contribution on Stackoverflow is useful for you!

The way I would do it:
1) normalize H between 0 and 1.
2) pick a threshold value, as tcaswell suggests. It could be between .9 and .99 for example
3) use masked arrays to keep only the x,y coordinates with H above threshold:
import numpy.ma as ma
x_masked=ma.masked_array(x, mask= H < thresold)
y_masked=ma.masked_array(y, mask= H < thresold)
4) now you can weight-average on the masked coordinates, with weight something like (H-threshold)^2, or any other power greater or equal to one, depending on your taste/tests.
Comment:
1) This is not robust with respect to the type of peaks you have, since you may have to adapt the thresold. This is the minor problem;
2) This DOES NOT work with two peaks as it is, and will give wrong results if the 2nd peak is above threshold.
Nonetheless, it will always give you an answer without crashing (with pros and cons of the thing..)

I'm adding this answer because it's the solution I ended up using. It's a combination of Bi Rico's comment here (May 30 at 18:54) and the answer given in this question: Find peak of 2d histogram.
As it turns out using the peak detection algorithm from this question Peak detection in a 2D array only complicates matters. After applying the Gaussian filter to the image all that needs to be done is to ask for the maximum bin (as Bi Rico pointed out) and then obtain the maximum in coordinates.
So instead of using the detect-peaks function as I did above, I simply add the following code after the Gaussian 2D histogram is obtained:
# Get 2D histogram.
H, xedges, yedges = np.histogram2d(x, y, range=rang, bins=binsxy)
# Get Gaussian filtered 2D histogram.
H1 = gaussian_filter(H, 2, mode='nearest')
# Get center of maximum in bin coordinates.
x_cent_bin, y_cent_bin = np.unravel_index(H1.argmax(), H1.shape)
# Get center in x,y coordinates.
x_cent_coor , y_cent_coord = np.average(xedges[x_cent_bin:x_cent_bin + 2]), np.average(yedges[y_cent_g:y_cent_g + 2])