Main Content

bwpropfilt

Extract objects from binary image using properties

Description

example

BW2 = bwpropfilt(BW,prop,range) extracts all connected components (objects) from a binary image BW whose value of property prop is in the specified range. bwpropfilt returns a binary image BW2 containing only those objects that meet the criteria.

example

BW2 = bwpropfilt(BW,prop,n) sorts the objects based on the value of the specified property, prop, returning a binary image that contains only the top n largest objects. In the event of a tie for n-th place, bwpropfilt keeps only the first n objects in BW2.

BW2 = bwpropfilt(BW,prop,n,keep) specifies whether to keep the n largest objects or the n smallest objects when sorted by property prop.

BW2 = bwpropfilt(BW,I,prop,___) sorts objects based on the intensity values in the grayscale image I and the property prop.

BW2 = bwpropfilt(___,conn) specifies the pixel connectivity, conn.

Examples

collapse all

Read image and display it.

BW = imread('text.png');
figure
imshow(BW)
title('Original Image')

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object with title Original Image contains an object of type image.

Use filtering to create a second image that contains only those regions in the original image that do not have holes. For these regions, the Euler number property is equal to 1. Display filtered image.

BW2 = bwpropfilt(BW,'EulerNumber',[1 1]);
figure
imshow(BW2)
title('Regions with Euler Number == 1')

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object with title Regions with Euler Number == 1 contains an object of type image.

Read image.

BW = imread('text.png');

Find the ten objects in the image with the largest perimeters and display filtered image.

BW2 = bwpropfilt(BW,'perimeter',10);
figure;
imshow(BW2)
title('Objects with the Largest Perimeters')

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object with title Objects with the Largest Perimeters contains an object of type image.

Input Arguments

collapse all

Image to be filtered, specified as a binary image.

Data Types: logical

Name of property on which to filter, specified as one of these values.

Pixel Value Measurements

Property NameDescription
"Area"Number of pixels in the region.
"ConvexArea"Number of pixels in the convex hull. The convex hull is the smallest convex polygon that can contain the region. For more information about classifying pixels on the boundary of the hull, see Classify Pixels That Are Partially Enclosed by ROI.
"Eccentricity"Eccentricity of the ellipse that has the same second-moments as the region. The eccentricity is the ratio of the distance between the foci of the ellipse and its major axis length. Values are numbers in the range [0, 1]. (0 and 1 are degenerate cases. An ellipse whose eccentricity is 0 is actually a circle, while an ellipse whose eccentricity is 1 is a line segment.)
"EquivDiameter"Diameter (in pixels) of a circle with the same area as the region, calculated as sqrt(4*Area/pi).
"EulerNumber"Euler number (also known as the Euler characteristic), calculated as 1 minus the number of holes in the region.
"Extent"Ratio of pixels in the region to pixels in the total bounding box, calculated as Area divided by the area of the bounding box.
"FilledArea"Number of pixels in the region after filling all holes in the region.
"MajorAxisLength"Length (in pixels) of the major axis of the ellipse that has the same normalized second central moments as the region.
"MinorAxisLength"Length (in pixels) of the minor axis of the ellipse that has the same normalized second central moments as the region.
"Orientation"

Angle (in degrees) between the x-axis and the major axis of the ellipse that has the same second-moments as the region. The value is in the range (–90, 90].

This figure illustrates the axes and orientation of the ellipse. The left side of the figure shows an image region and its corresponding ellipse. The right side shows the same ellipse with the solid blue lines representing the axes. The red dots are the foci. The orientation is the angle between the horizontal dotted line and the major axis.

Axes and orientation of ellipse surrounding an image region

"Perimeter"

Distance (in pixels) around the boundary of the region, calculated by adding the distance between each adjoining pair of pixels around the border of the region. This figure illustrates the pixels included in the perimeter calculation for a sample region.

Perimeter pixels of a region

"Solidity"Proportion of the pixels in the convex hull that are also in the region, calculated as Area/ConvexArea.

You can specify a pixel value measurement property from this table when you include a marker image, I, as an input argument to the function.

Pixel Value Measurements

Property Name Description
"MaxIntensity"Value of the pixel with the greatest intensity in the region.
"MeanIntensity"Mean of all the intensity values in the region.
"MinIntensity"Value of the pixel with the lowest intensity in the region.

Data Types: char | string

Minimum and maximum property values, specified as a 2-element numeric vector of the form [low high]. Values must be nondecreasing.

Data Types: single | double | int8 | int16 | int32 | int64 | uint8 | uint16 | uint32 | uint64

Number of objects to return, specified as a positive integer.

Data Types: double

Objects to retain, specified as "largest" or "smallest".

Data Types: char | string

Marker image, specified as a grayscale image of the same size as the input binary image. Intensity values in the grayscale image define regions in the input binary image.

Data Types: single | double | int8 | int16 | int32 | int64 | uint8 | uint16 | uint32 | uint64

Pixel connectivity, specified as one of these values.

Value

Meaning

Two-Dimensional Connectivities

4

Pixels are connected if their edges touch. Two adjoining pixels are part of the same object if they are both on and are connected along the horizontal or vertical direction.

Center pixel connected to four pixels

Current pixel is shown in gray.

8

Pixels are connected if their edges or corners touch. Two adjoining pixels are part of the same object if they are both on and are connected along the horizontal, vertical, or diagonal direction.

Center pixel connected to eight pixels

Current pixel is shown in gray.

Connectivity can also be defined in a more general way by specifying a 3-by-3 matrix of 0s and 1s. The 1-valued elements define neighborhood locations relative to the center element of conn. The matrix must be symmetric about its center element.

Data Types: double | logical

Output Arguments

collapse all

Filtered image, returned as a binary image of the same size as BW.

Tips

  • bwpropfilt finds the connected components using the bwconncomp function. bwpropfilt then calculates the properties of those connected components using the regionprops function.

Extended Capabilities

Version History

Introduced in R2014b

expand all