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Images in MATLAB
The basic data structure in MATLAB is the array, an ordered set of real or complex elements. This object is naturally suited to the representation of images, real-valued, ordered sets of color or intensity data. (MATLAB does not support complex-valued images.)
MATLAB stores most images as two-dimensional arrays (i.e., matrices), in which each element of the matrix corresponds to a single pixel in the displayed image. For example, an image composed of 200 rows and 300 columns of different colored dots would be stored in MATLAB as a 200-by-300 matrix. Some images, such as RGB, require a three-dimensional array, where the first plane in the third dimension represents the red pixel intensities, the second plane represents the green pixel intensities, and the third plane represents the blue pixel intensities.
This convention makes working with graphics file format images in MATLAB similar to working with any other type of matrix data. For example, you can select a single pixel from an image matrix using normal matrix subscripting.
This command returns the value of the pixel at row 2, column 15 of the image I.
Bit Depth Support
MATLAB supports reading the most commonly used bit depths (bits per pixel) of any of the supported graphics file formats. When the data is in memory, it can be stored as uint8, uint16, or double. For details on which bit depths are appropriate for each supported format, see imread and imwrite.
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