Functions by Category

The tables below list all functions in the Image Processing Toolbox by category. The
tables include a few functions in MATLAB that are especially useful for image
processing, such as imread, imfinfo, and imwrite.
Image Display
colorbar

Display colorbar. (This is a MATLAB function. See the online MATLAB

Function Reference for its reference page.)

getimage

Get image data from axes

image

Create and display image object. (This is a MATLAB function. See the
online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

imagesc

Scale data and display as image. (This is a MATLAB function. See the
online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

immovie

Make movie from multiframe indexed image

imshow

Display image

montage

Display multiple image frames as rectangular montage

subimage

Display multiple images in single figure

truesize

Adjust display size of image

warp

Display image as texture-mapped surface

zoom

Zoom in and out of image or 2-D plot. (This is a MATLAB function. See
the online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

Image File I/O

dicominfo

Read metadata from a DICOM message

dicomread

Read a DICOM image

imfinfo

Return information about image file. (This is a MATLAB function. See

the online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

imread

Read image file. (This is a MATLAB function. See the online MATLAB
Function Reference for its reference page.)

imwrite

Write image file. (This is a MATLAB function. See the online MATLAB
Function Reference for its reference page.)

Spatial Transformations
checkerboard

Create checkerboard image

findbounds

Find output bounds for spatial transformation

fliptform

Flip the input and output roles of a TFORM structure

imcrop

Crop image

imresize

Resize image

imrotate

Rotate image

interp2

2-D data interpolation. (This is a MATLAB function. See the online

MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

imtransform

Apply 2-D spatial transformation to image

makeresampler

Create resampling structure

maketform

Create geometric transformation structure

tformarray

Geometric transformation of a multi-dimensional array

tformfwd

Apply forward geometric transformation

tforminv

Apply inverse geometric transformation

Pixel Values and Statistics

corr2

Compute 2-D correlation coefficient

imcontour

Create contour plot of image data

imfeature

Compute feature measurements for image regions

imhist

Display histogram of image data

impixel

Determine pixel color values

improfile

Compute pixel-value cross-sections along line segments

mean2

Compute mean of matrix elements

pixval

Display information about image pixels

regionprops

Measure properties of image regions

std2

Compute standard deviation of matrix elements

Image Analysis
edge

Find edges in intensity image

qtdecomp

Perform quadtree decomposition

qtgetblk

Get block values in quadtree decomposition

qtsetblk

Set block values in quadtree decomposition

Image Arithmetic
imabsdiff

Compute absolute difference of two images

imadd

Add two images, or add constant to image

imcomplement

Complement image

imdivide

Divide two images, or divide image by constant.

imlincomb

Compute linear combination of images

immultiply

Multiply two images, or multiply image by constant

imsubtract

Subtract two images, or subtract constant from image

Image Enhancement
histeq

Enhance contrast using histogram equalization

imadjust

Adjust image intensity values or colormap

imnoise

Add noise to an image

medfilt2

Perform 2-D median filtering

ordfilt2

Perform 2-D order-statistic filtering

stretchlim

Find limits to contrast stretch an image

wiener2

Perform 2-D adaptive noise-removal filtering

Image Registration
cpcorr

Tune control point locations using cross-correlation

cp2tform

Infer geometric transformation from control point pairs

cpselect

Control point selection tool

cpstruct2pairs

Convert CPSTRUCT to valid pairs of control points

normxcorr2

Normalized two-dimensional cross-correlation

Linear Filtering
conv2

Perform 2-D convolution. (This is a MATLAB function. See the online

MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

convmtx2

Compute 2-D convolution matrix

convn

Perform N-D convolution. (This is a MATLAB function. See the online

MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

filter2

Perform 2-D filtering. (This is a MATLAB function. See the online

MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

fspecial

Create predefined filters

imfilter

Multidimensional image filtering

Linear 2-D Filter Design

freqspace

Determine 2-D frequency response spacing. (This is a MATLAB function.

See the online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

freqz2

Compute 2-D frequency response

fsamp2

Design 2-D FIR filter using frequency sampling

ftrans2

Design 2-D FIR filter using frequency transformation

fwind1

Design 2-D FIR filter using 1-D window method

fwind2

Design 2-D FIR filter using 2-D window method

Image Transforms
dct2

Compute 2-D discrete cosine transform

dctmtx

Compute discrete cosine transform matrix

fft2

Compute 2-D fast Fourier transform. (This is a MATLAB function. See the
online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

fftn

Compute N-D fast Fourier transform. (This is a MATLAB function. See

the online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

fftshift

Reverse quadrants of output of FFT. (This is a MATLAB function. See the

online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

idct2

Compute 2-D inverse discrete cosine transform

ifft2

Compute 2-D inverse fast Fourier transform. (This is a MATLAB function.

See the online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

ifftn

Compute N-D inverse fast Fourier transform. (This is a MATLAB

function. See the online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference
page.)

iradon

Compute inverse Radon transform

phantom

Generate a head phantom image

radon

Compute Radon transform

Neighborhood and Block Processing

bestblk

Choose block size for block processing

blkproc

Implement distinct block processing for image

col2im

Rearrange matrix columns into blocks

colfilt

Perform neighborhood operations using columnwise functions

im2col

Rearrange image blocks into columns

nlfilter

Perform general sliding-neighborhood operations

Morphological Operations (Intensity and Binary Images)

conndef

Default connectivity array

imbothat

Perform bottom-hat filtering

imclearborder

Suppress light structures connected to image border

imclose

Close image

imdilate

Dilate image

imerode

Erode image

imextendedmax

Extended-maxima transform

imextendedmin

Extended-minima transform

imfill

Fill image regions

imhmax

H-maxima transform

imhmin

H-minima transform

imimposemin

Impose minima

imopen

Open image

imreconstruct

Perform morphological reconstruction

imregionalmax

Regional maxima of image

imregionalmin

Regional minima of image

imtophat

Perform tophat filtering

watershed

Find image watershed regions

Morphological Operations (Binary Images)

applylut

Perform neighborhood operations using lookup tables

bwarea

Area of objects in binary image

bwareaopen

Binary area open; remove small objects

bwdist

Distance transform

bweuler

Euler number of binary image

bwfill

Fill background regions in binary image

bwhitmiss

Binary hit-miss operation

bwlabel

Label connected components in 2-D binary image

bwlabeln

Label connected components in N-D binary image.

bwmorph

Perform morphological operations on binary image

bwpack

Pack binary image

bwperim

Find perimeter of objects in binary image

bwselect

Select objects in binary image

bwulterode

Ultimate erosion

bwunpack

Unpack a packed binary image

imregionalmin

Regional minima of image

imtophat

Perform tophat filtering

makelut

Construct lookup table for use with applylut

Structuring Element (STREL) Creation and Manipulation

getheight

Get the height of a structuring element

getneighbors

Get structuring element neighbor locations and heights

getnhood

Get structuring element neighborhood

getsequence

Extract sequence of decomposed structuring elements

isflat

Return true for flat structuring element

reflect

Reflect structuring element

strel

Create morphological structuring element

translate

Translate structuring element

Deblurring
deconvblind

Restore image using blind deconvolution

deconvlucy

Restore image using accelerated Richardson-Lucy algorithm

deconvreg

Restore image using Regularized filter

deconvwnr

Restore image using Wiener filter

edgetaper

Taper the discontinuities along the image edges

otf2psf

Convert optical transfer function to point-spread function

psf2otf

Convert point-spread function to optical transfer function

Array Operations

circshift

Shift array circularly

padarray

Pad an array

Region-Based Processing
roicolor

Select region of interest, based on color

roifill

Smoothly interpolate within arbitrary region

roifilt2

Filter a region of interest

roipoly

Select polygonal region of interest

Colormap Manipulation
brighten

Brighten or darken colormap. (This is a MATLAB function. See the

online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

cmpermute

Rearrange colors in colormap

cmunique

Find unique colormap colors and corresponding image

colormap

Set or get color lookup table. (This is a MATLAB function. See the online
MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

imapprox

Approximate indexed image by one with fewer colors

rgbplot

Plot RGB colormap components. (This is a MATLAB function. See the

online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

Color Space Conversions

hsv2rgb

Convert HSV values to RGB color space. (This is a MATLAB function.

See the online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

ntsc2rgb

Convert NTSC values to RGB color space

rgb2hsv

Convert RGB values to HSV color space. (This is a MATLAB function.

See the online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

rgb2ntsc

Convert RGB values to NTSC color space

rgb2ycbcr

Convert RGB values to YCbCr color space

ycbcr2rgb

Convert YCbCr values to RGB color space

Image Types and Type Conversions

dither

Convert image using dithering

double

Convert data to double precision. (This is a MATLAB function. See the

online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

gray2ind

Convert intensity image to indexed image

grayslice

Create indexed image from intensity image by thresholding

graythresh

Compute global image threshold using Otsu's method

im2bw

Convert image to binary image by thresholding

im2double

Convert image array to double precision

im2mis

Convert image to Java MemoryImageSource

im2uint16

Convert image array to 16-bit unsigned integers

im2uint8

Convert image array to 8-bit unsigned integers

ind2gray

Convert indexed image to intensity image

ind2rgb

Convert indexed image to RGB image

isbw

Return true for binary image

isgray

Return true for intensity image

isind

Return true for indexed image

isrgb

Return true for RGB image

label2rgb

Convert a label matrix to an RGB image

mat2gray

Convert matrix to intensity image

rgb2gray

Convert RGB image or colormap to grayscale

rgb2ind

Convert RGB image to indexed image

uint16

Convert data to unsigned 16-bit integers. (This is a MATLAB function.

See the online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

uint8

Convert data to unsigned 8-bit integers. (This is a MATLAB function.

See the online MATLAB Function Reference for its reference page.)

Toolbox Preferences
iptgetpref

Get value of Image Processing Toolbox preference

iptsetpref

Set value of Image Processing Toolbox preference