ashape: a pedestrian alpha shape extractor

extracts 2d alpha shapes from a set of x/y data points

Description

ASHAPE is a simple wrapper for ASLIB, which implements several (optimized) subroutines to extract and display 2d alpha shapes and alpha patches from a set of x/y data points

ASLIB returns a structure, which contains all relevant parameters, data and results including graphics handles to plotted elements

furthermore, ASLIB returns function handles to all of its computational and graphics subroutines, which can be used by a programmer to create more elaborate wrappers or guis

the latest version of ASLIB can always be attached to an existing set of parameters p by
> p.f = aslib;
or by simply re-running the data
> p = ashape(p);

for general instructions see:
> help ashape
> help aslib
for explanations of subroutines and a small glossary of terms see:
> aslib -s
for explanations of fields see:
> aslib -f
for explanations of options see:
> aslib -o

look at the accompanying published m-file for a few examples

• MATLAB release: MATLAB 7.4 (R2007a)
• Other requirements: tested for earlier releases of R14

[Jan Morovic]

Very nice and user-friendly package for exploring alpha shapes.

[Matthew Eyster]

Great package, gives Matlab some much needed programs for computational geometry.

However, the asdemo.m doesn't work with Matlab 2007a. Here's the fix (for ashape.m in general):

Line 906 of aslib.m:
old: b=find(s(a,:)==1);
fixed: [garbage, b]=find(s(a,:)==1);

[Urs (us) Schwarz]

dear matthew, and others using ASHAPE
for absolutely no intelligible reason your nice and concerned email ended up in my SPAM folder (!?!?) - and, i see it only now after a casual check...
anyhow, thank you very much for alerting me to the fact that ASHAPE has NOT been updated as it was supposed to some time ago!:
going back to the FEX entry, i just realize, that the FEX update-engine missed a recent update, which was posted a few month ago and dealt just with the problem you are pointing out...
the problem is this:
- in its recent version, the output of QHULL (most unfortunately!) has changed considerably(!), which also affects the output of DELAUNAYN, the core of DELAUNAY, and other ML stock functions...
- hence, ASDELAUNAY had to be fixed...
- your preliminary fix is NOT correct (sorry for this)
- please, download the latest version as soon as it shows up on the FEX
us

[Urs (us) Schwarz]

i just updated the latest release for the 3rd time in several month... it just doesn't show up! sorry for this
us

[Ruben S]

It would be nice to have a matlab package of 3D version.

Thanks.

[S. Tiuí]

Always the same story. Whenever comes close to get down one position ... thousands of auto-downloads.
Shame shame shame

[w s]

@ S. Tiuí,

shame shame shame for premature accusations.

[Seth Lutske]

Hi Matlab People!

Please forgive me if my question is pedestrian, but im new to this community. I would love to try out this ashape and aslib code, but i can't quite figure out where to put the files in my MATLAB directory so as to get the code working and recognized in MATLAB. I have a feeling this is a FAQ, but i can't seem to find the answer to it on the site (though i am new.) Could someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks

[Jveer]

Any chance of a 3D version anytime soon?

[us]

...Any chance of a 3D version anytime soon?...
yes, work in progress...
us

[Daphne]

The code works really well!
I would appreciate a cheat, I am trying to get the indices of the ashape edge points and no plot. How should I call the function and what part of the structure will have the data?... Thanks!

[Michael]

Hello. When I try to run this I get the following error:

??? Error using ==> qhullmx

qhull precision error: 101 attempts to construct a convex hull
        with joggled input. Increase joggle above 'QJ3.5'
or modify qh_JOGGLE... parameters in user.h

While executing: | qhull d QJ Pp

Options selected for Qhull 2003.1 2003/12/30:
  delaunay Pprecision-ignore Qbbound-last-qj Pgood
  _run 101 QJoggle 3.5 _joggle-seed 1537501472 _max-width 3.5e+002
  Error-roundoff 7e-010 Width-outside 1.4e-009 _wide-facet 4.2e-009
  _narrow-hull 1.1e-010

Last point added to hull was p8420.

At error exit:

Error in ==> delaunayn at 117
t = qhullmx(x', 'd ', opt);

Error in ==> delaunay at 48
    tri = delaunayn([x(:) y(:)],options);

Error in ==> aslib>ASLIB_asdelaunay at 1199
p.dt=int32(delaunay(p.x,p.y,p.flg.qopt));

Error in ==> aslib>ASLIB_aini at 562
p=ASLIB_asdelaunay(p);

Error in ==> ashape at 72
p=p.f.aini(x,y,r,o{:});

I'm running R2008B. On another system with R2010a it works with the same data. Any thoughts?

[Ajay]

For a set of points, I would like to retrieve the index order for the alpha shape. How do I access this? Thanks!

[Daphne]

The code is really great!
In Matlab 2010b I get this comment, which you may want to address:

Warning: DELAUNAY will not support Qhull-specific options in a future release.
 Please remove these options when calling DELAUNAY.

[HARI KRISHNAN]

 

[HARI KRISHNAN]

 

[HARI KRISHNAN]

 

[HARI KRISHNAN]

thanks a lot....