[Insight-developers] Reading vector images

Miller, James V (Research) millerjv at crd.ge.com
Thu, 13 May 2004 13:02:18 -0400


A bug was reported in the beginning of February and another bug was
reported in Oct 2003. And I just verified it again yesterday :)

The meta library was pretty much okay.  The MetaIO object was pretty much
okay. The ImageIOBase and ImageFileReader were not. 

My interpretation of ImageIO object is that PixelType could be any of 
CHAR, UCHAR, SHORT, USHORT, ...., RGB, RGBA, VECTOR, COVARIANTVECTOR, ...

ComponentType could be any native type (but not VECTOR, COVARIANTVECTOR,
RGB...)

So a vector image would have a PixelType of VECTOR and ComponentType of 
(for instance) float.

Currently, if you asked an ImageFileReader for an Image<Vector<float, 2>,
2>,
you get a block of raw memory.  The ImageIO object says the PixelType
is float while the reader is told to output Vector<float, 2>.  These types
are not the same, so a call to DoConvertBuffer is made.  But there is no
case in DoConvertBuffer for an output pixel type with two components.

DoConvertBuffer does make a number of assumptions that a multiple component
pixel is RGB.  A potentially dangerous decision.

In terms of the Meta format.  I thought an image of MET_FLOAT_ARRAY would 
be equivalent to a Vector<float, NumComponents> whereas an image of
MET_FLOAT
would be an image of scalar floats.  Is this not the case? If not, how does
Meta
treat pixels with multiple components? And what is a MET_FLOAT_ARRAY?

Jim




-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen R. Aylward [mailto:aylward at unc.edu]
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 10:51 AM
To: Miller, James V (Research)
Cc: 'Luis Ibanez'; Insight-developers (E-mail); Julien Jomier
Subject: Re: [Insight-developers] Reading vector images


Hi,

I think we need to think about this more for consistency.

I've traditionally distinguished multi-component images from images of 
vectors.   MetaImage supports multi-component images - that is, an image 
of float with multiple channels per pixel.  Versus an image of float_arrays.

MetaImage has been working for multi-channel images perhaps it has been 
broken recently, but I know it has worked in the past ai-is.

If you make changes, please ensure backward compatibility with what has 
been working in the past.   We and others have been using it by 
by-passing itk's IO classes and using MetaIO direct.

Thanks,
Stephen

Miller, James V (Research) wrote:

>Okay.
>
>I have part of this working now. There was a minor error in the MetaIO
>object wrt to setting ComponentType verses setting PixelType for arrays.
>
>I need to go back and check whether MetaIO writes pixel type in its header
>as META_FLOAT_ARRAY when writing vector images.  I may have editted a  
>meta header by hand to change a META_FLOAT to a META_FLOAT_ARRAY.
>
>However, most of bug is in the ImageFileReader and ImageIOBase. My current
>solution relies on the memory layout for a Vector<T, N> being equivalent to
>the
>memory layout of an array T[N].  If we can assume this, then I have most
>of the trivial case working (I was able to read a meta image with 2D
>vectors).
>
>One hurdle is going to be if a file has vectors of floats and the reader is
>asked to produce a vector of ints.  I'll need to modify
DoConvertPixelBuffer
>to handle this.
>
>Interesting that we have a number of examples that read vector images.
What
>file formats were these tested on?
>
>Jim
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Luis Ibanez [mailto:luis.ibanez at kitware.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 7:10 PM
>To: Miller, James V (Research)
>Cc: Insight-developers (E-mail); Julien Jomier
>Subject: Re: [Insight-developers] Reading vector images
>
>
>
>Hi Jim,
>
>Yes, this is a known bug in the MetaImage reader.
>
>  http://www.itk.org/Bug/bug.php?op=show&bugid=580&pos=12
>
>Although, as you pointed out, the error may actually
>be in the ImageFileReader<> class.
>
>
>If you have any hints of how to solve it,
>please go ahead   :-)
>
>
>Your suggestion seem to be in the right direction.
>We certainly have a lot more types defined in
>
>
>          ImageIOBase::SetPixelType()
>
>that in
>
>          ImageIOBase::GetPixelType()
>
>
>They should probably be made symmetrical...
>
>
>
>   Luis
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------------
>Miller, James V (Research) wrote:
>
>  
>
>>I just tried to read an image of two component vectors into ITK using 
>>the Meta format.
>> 
>>I get all zeros.
>> 
>>It looks to me that in ImageFileReader::GenerateData() there is a test for
>> 
>>      m_ImageIO->GetPixelType() == typeid(TOutputImage::PixelType)
>> 
>>TOutputImage::PixelType should be Vector<float, 2>
>> 
>>m_ImageIO->GetPixelType() returns float
>> 
>>The above check for equality fails and a data conversion occurs.  The 
>>result is all zeros.
>> 
>>It looks as though people have asked this on the list before but I did 
>>not find a response.
>>I seem to recall people reading vectors as RGB pixels.
>> 
>>Perhaps if I add a GetPixelType() method to MetaImageIO that checks the 
>>m_PixelType to be VECTOR?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>
>>*Jim Miller*
>>*/_____________________________________/*
>>/Visualization & Computer Vision//
>>/GE Research/
>>/Bldg. KW, Room C218B/
>>/P.O. Box 8, Schenectady NY 12301/
>>
>>//_millerjv at research.ge.com <mailto:millerjv at research.ge.com>_/
>>
>>/_james.miller at research.ge.com_/
>>/(518) 387-4005, Dial Comm: 8*833-4005, /
>>/Cell: (518) 505-7065, Fax: (518) 387-6981/
>>
>> 
>>    
>>
>
>
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>  
>


-- 
===========================================================
Dr. Stephen R. Aylward
Associate Professor of Radiology
Adjunct Associate Professor of Computer Science and Surgery
http://caddlab.rad.unc.edu
aylward at unc.edu
(919) 966-9695