Graphics |
Reading, Writing, and Querying Graphics Image Files
In its native form, a graphics file format image is not stored as a MATLAB matrix, or even necessarily as a matrix. Most graphics files begin with a header containing format-specific information tags, and continue with bitmap data that can be read as a continuous stream. For this reason, you cannot use the standard MATLAB I/O commands load
and save
to read and write a graphics file format image.
MATLAB provides special functions for reading and writing image data from graphics file formats. To read a graphics file format image use imread
; to write a graphics file format image, use imwrite
; to obtain information about the nature of a graphics file format image, use imfinfo
.
This table gives a clearer picture of which MATLAB commands should be used with which image types.
Procedure
Functions to Use
Load or Save a Matrix as a MAT-file
load
save
Load or Save Graphics File Format Image, e.g. BMP, TIFF
imread
imwrite
Display Any Image Loaded Into MATLAB
image
imagesc
Utilities
imfinfo
ind2rgb
Summary of Image Types and Numeric Classes | Reading a Graphics Image |
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