SciPy Create 2D Polygon Mask

Question

I need to create a numpy 2D array which represents a binary mask of a polygon, using standard Python packages.

• input: polygon vertices, image dimensions
• output: binary mask of polygon (numpy 2D array)

(Larger context: I want to get the distance transform of this polygon using scipy.ndimage.morphology.distance_transform_edt.)

Can anyone show me how to do this?

Answer 1

You could try to use python's Image Library, PIL. First you initialize the canvas. Then you create a drawing object, and you start making lines. This is assuming that the polygon resides in R^2 and that the vertex list for the input are in the correct order.

Input = [(x1, y1), (x2, y2), ..., (xn, yn)] , (width, height)

from PIL import Image, ImageDraw

img = Image.new('L', (width, height), 0)   # The Zero is to Specify Background Color
draw = ImageDraw.Draw(img)

for vertex in range(len(vertexlist)):
    startpoint = vertexlist[vertex]
    try: endpoint = vertexlist[vertex+1]
    except IndexError: endpoint = vertexlist[0] 
    # The exception means We have reached the end and need to complete the polygon
    draw.line((startpoint[0], startpoint[1], endpoint[0], endpoint[1]), fill=1)

# If you want the result as a single list
# You can make a two dimensional list or dictionary by iterating over the height and width variable
list(img.getdata())

# If you want the result as an actual Image
img.save('polgon.jpg', 'JPEG')

Is this what you were looking for, or were you asking something different?

Answer 2

As a slightly more direct alternative to @Anil's answer, matplotlib has matplotlib.nxutils.points_inside_poly that can be used to quickly rasterize an arbitrary polygon. E.g.

import numpy as np
from matplotlib.nxutils import points_inside_poly

nx, ny = 10, 10
poly_verts = [(1,1), (5,1), (5,9),(3,2),(1,1)]

# Create vertex coordinates for each grid cell...
# (<0,0> is at the top left of the grid in this system)
x, y = np.meshgrid(np.arange(nx), np.arange(ny))
x, y = x.flatten(), y.flatten()

points = np.vstack((x,y)).T

grid = points_inside_poly(points, poly_verts)
grid = grid.reshape((ny,nx))

print grid

Which yields (a boolean numpy array):

[[False False False False False False False False False False]
 [False  True  True  True  True False False False False False]
 [False False False  True  True False False False False False]
 [False False False False  True False False False False False]
 [False False False False  True False False False False False]
 [False False False False  True False False False False False]
 [False False False False False False False False False False]
 [False False False False False False False False False False]
 [False False False False False False False False False False]
 [False False False False False False False False False False]]

You should be able to pass grid to any of the scipy.ndimage.morphology functions quite nicely.

Answer 3

The answer turns out to be quite simple:

import numpy
from PIL import Image, ImageDraw

# polygon = [(x1,y1),(x2,y2),...] or [x1,y1,x2,y2,...]
# width = ?
# height = ?

img = Image.new('L', (width, height), 0)
ImageDraw.Draw(img).polygon(polygon, outline=1, fill=1)
mask = numpy.array(img)