Thursday, September 29, 2011

Crop picture using gnuplot

We talked about converting a rgb image to a gray one using gnuplot last time. Except this, Gnuplot also can do some other manipulations such as cropping, rotating and so on. In this article and next few ones I will talk about them respectively. This time we deal with cropping.

Cropping is selecting specific area from the picture, then drawing it to an output file. In gnuplot this can be done by setting the xrange and yrnage to a proper value and then plot. The script is shown below.
#Utility: crop png pictures using gnuplot.
#Author:数声风笛离亭晚,我想潇湘君想秦!
#Email:qinjieli@gmail.com
#Usage:
##call "crop.gnuplot" x1 y1 x2 y2 inputfile outputfile
#parameters:
##x1: x-value of left-bottom point
##y1: y-value of left-bottom point
##x2: x-value of right-top point
##y2: y-value of right-top point
##inputfile: input filename (without ".png")
##outputfile: output filename (without ".png")
reset
x1="$0"   #The left bottom point
y1="$1"
x2="$2"   #The right top point
y2="$3"
inputfile="$4.png"    #inputfile name
outputfile="$5.png"   #outputfile name
set xrange [x1:x2]
set yrange [y1:y2]
set size ratio -1
# Set the scales so that the unit has the same length
#on both the x and y axes
#There shold be no margin
set lmargin 0
set rmargin 0
set tmargin 0
set bmargin 0
#There shold be no key tics and border
unset key
unset tics
unset border
set term png truecolor size (x2-x1),(y2-y1)
set output outputfile
plot inputfile binary filetype=png w rgbimage
Save this script as "crop.gnuplot". Then it can be called from gnuplot like this:
gnuplot> call "crop.gnuplot" x1 y1 x2 y2 inputfile outputfile
In the end as usual let me show a finished work.

Input picture file (initial file download from here)

Picture cropped using command "call "plot.gplt" 250 150 500 400 input output"

5 comments:

  1. Nice blog. Thanx for the example scripts.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm on the fence about this, while more customization is good, I have a feeling this is a "in-progress" update, it just feels incomplete and half-way there.
    We use badge layout for apps on design approvals (visual projects), so the image being displayed is important. Old layout "feels like" it had larger images,
    maybe because the images were cropped more loosely so it's easier to tell which project it was at quick glance. Now the image is cropped closer, making it
    harder to scan thru at quick glance. I find myself needing to click into the project more often than usual. Which makes the whole user experience less
    efficient.
    I have a couple suggestions that might make it work better:
    1. Increase the height of the window the cover image is being displayed.
    2. Let us to choose which image to be displayed as "cover" (like how Pinterest handles cover images of each board, was hoping for this for a long time)
    3. Let us adjust which part of the image to show and how tight or loose the crop is (with a fixed window, let us move the image around and maybe enlarge or
    shrink it to control what shows thru the window. Pinterest does a limited form of this, which is very useful in making the cover image relevant)
    4. Allow Cover Image to be ordered in different hierarchy (currently every element can be ordered differently except the Cover Image, it seems to be stuck
    in the 2nd spot, would like the option to set it on another spot in the layout. This one seems like an easy fix, since you guys allow that for every other
    element already)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm on the fence about this, while more customization is good, I have a feeling this is a "in-progress" update, it just feels incomplete and half-way there.
    We use badge layout for apps on design approvals (visual projects), so the image being displayed is important. Old layout "feels like" it had larger images,
    maybe because the images were cropped more loosely so it's easier to tell which project it was at quick glance. Now the image is cropped closer, making it
    harder to scan thru at quick glance. I find myself needing to click into the project more often than usual. Which makes the whole user experience less
    efficient.
    I have a couple suggestions that might make it work better:
    1. Increase the height of the window the cover image is being displayed.
    2. Let us to choose which image to be displayed as "cover" (like how Pinterest handles cover images of each board, was hoping for this for a long time)
    3. Let us adjust which part of the image to show and how tight or loose the crop is (with a fixed window, let us move the image around and maybe enlarge or
    shrink it to control what shows thru the window. Pinterest does a limited form of this, which is very useful in making the cover image relevant)
    4. Allow Cover Image to be ordered in different hierarchy (currently every element can be ordered differently except the Cover Image, it seems to be stuck
    in the 2nd spot, would like the option to set it on another spot in the layout. This one seems like an easy fix, since you guys allow that for every other
    element already)

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete
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