Example: Building a Pixel Information GUI :: Building GUIs with Modular Tools (Image Processing Toolbox User's Guide)

Image Processing Toolbox User's Guide

Example: Building a Pixel Information GUI

This example shows how to use the tools to create a simple GUI. If your work typically requires information about the pixels in an image, you might want to create a custom image display function that provides this information. You can do this by using the three modular tools that provide pixel information:

Pixel Information tool
Display Range tool
Pixel Region tool

This example creates a simple image display function that includes these tools. In this GUI, the Pixel Region tool is embedded in the same figure window as the target image. The example suppresses the figure window toolbar and menu bar, because the standard figure zoom tools are not compatible with the toolbox modular navigation tools -- see Adding Navigation Aids to a GUI.

function my_pixinfotool(im)
% Create figure, setting up properties
hfig = figure('Toolbar','none',...
              'Menubar', 'none',...
              'Name','My Pixel Info Tool',...
              'NumberTitle','off',...
              'IntegerHandle','off');

% Create axes
% Reposition the image to accommodate the Pixel Region tool
hax = axes('Units','normalized',...
           'Position',[0 .5 1 .5]);

% Display image, getting handle to image
himage = imshow(im);

% Add Pixel Information tool to image figure window
hpixinfo = impixelinfo(himage);

% Add Display Range tool to image figure window
hdrange = imdisplayrange(himage);

% Add Pixel Region tool as panel in same figure
hpixreg = impixelregionpanel(hfig,himage);

% Reposition the Pixel Region tool to fit in the figure
% window, leaving room for the Pixel Information and
% Display Range tools.
set(hpixreg, 'units','normalized','position',[0 .08 1 .4])

To use the tool, pass it an image that is already in the MATLAB workspace.

pout = imread('pout.tif');
my_pixinfotool(pout)

The tool opens a figure window, displaying the image in the upper half and the three pixel information modular tools, the Pixel Information tool, Display Range tool, and the Pixel Region tool, in the lower half.

Custom Image Display Tool with Pixel Information

Positioning the Modular Tools in a GUI Adding Navigation Aids to a GUI