Template Matching: efficient way to create mask for minMaxLoc? - python-3.x

Question

Template matching in OpenCV is great. And you can pass a mask to cv2.minMaxLoc so that you only search (sort of) in part of the image for the template you want. You can also use a mask at the matchTemplate operation, but this only masks the template.
I want to find a template and I want to be assured that this template is within some other region of my image.
Calculating the mask for minMaxLoc seems kind of heavy. That is, calculating an accurate mask feels heavy. If you calculate a mask the easy way, it ignores the size of the template.
Examples are in order. My input images are show below. They're a bit contrived. I want to find the candy bar, but only if it's completely inside the white circle of the clock face.
clock1
clock2
template
In clock1, the candy bar is inside the circular clock face and it's a "PASS". But in clock2, the candy bar is only partially inside the face and I want it to be a "FAIL". Here's a code sample for doing it the easy way. I use cv.HoughCircles to find the clock face.
import numpy as np
import cv2
img = cv2.imread('clock1.jpg')
gray = cv2.cvtColor(img, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
template = cv2.imread('template.png')
t_h, t_w = template.shape[0:2] # template height and width
# find circle in gray image using Hough transform
circles = cv2.HoughCircles(gray, method = cv2.HOUGH_GRADIENT, dp = 1,
minDist = 150, param1 = 50, param2 = 70,
minRadius = 131, maxRadius = 200)
i = circles[0,0]
x0 = i[0]
y0 = i[1]
r = i[2]
# display circle on color image
cv2.circle(img,(x0, y0), r,(0,255,0),2)
# do the template match
result = cv2.matchTemplate(img, template, cv2.TM_CCOEFF_NORMED)
# finally, here is the part that gets tricky. we want to find highest
# rated match inside circle and we'd like to use minMaxLoc
# make mask by drawing circle on zero array
mask = np.zeros(result.shape, dtype = np.uint8) # minMaxLoc will throw
# error w/o np.uint8
cv2.circle(mask, (x0, y0), r, color = 1, thickness = -1)
# call minMaxLoc
min_val, max_val, min_loc, max_loc = cv2.minMaxLoc(result, mask = mask)
# draw found rectangle on img
if max_val > 0.4: # use 0.4 as threshold for finding candy bar
cv2.rectangle(img, max_loc, (max_loc[0]+t_w, max_loc[1]+t_h), (0,255,0), 4)
cv2.imwrite('output.jpg', img)
output using clock1
output using clock2
finds candy bar even
though part of it is outside circle
So to properly make a mask, I use a bunch of NumPy operations. I make four separate masks (one for each corner of the template bounding box) and then AND them together. I'm not aware of any convenience functions in OpenCV that would do the mask for me. I'm a little nervous that all of the array operations will be expensive. Is there a better way to do this?
h, w = result.shape[0:2]
# make arrays that hold x,y coords
grid = np.indices((h, w))
x = grid[1]
y = grid[0]
top_left_mask = np.hypot(x - x0, y - y0) - r < 0
top_right_mask = np.hypot(x + t_w - x0, y - y0) - r < 0
bot_left_mask = np.hypot(x - x0, y + t_h - y0) - r < 0
bot_right_mask = np.hypot(x + t_w - x0, y + t_h - y0) - r < 0
mask = np.logical_and.reduce((top_left_mask, top_right_mask,
bot_left_mask, bot_right_mask))
mask = mask.astype(np.uint8)
cv2.imwrite('mask.png', mask*255)
Here's what the "fancy" mask looks like:
Seems about right. It cannot be circular because of the template shape. If I run clock2.jpg with this mask I get:
It works. No candy bars are identified. But I wish I could do it in fewer lines of code...
EDIT:
I've done some profiling. I ran 100 cycles of the "easy" way and the "accurate" way and calculated frames per second (fps):
easy way: 12.7 fps
accurate way: 7.8 fps
so there is some price to pay for making the mask with NumPy. These tests were done on a relatively powerful workstation. It could get uglier on more modest hardware...

Answer 1

Method 1: 'mask' image before cv2.matchTemplate
Just for kicks, I tried to make my own mask of the image that I pass to cv2.matchTemplate to see what kind of performance I can achieve. To be clear, this isn't a proper mask -- I set all of the pixels to ignore to one color (black or white). This is to get around the fact only TM_SQDIFF and TM_CORR_NORMED support a proper mask.
#Alexander Reynolds makes a very good point in the comments that some care must be taken if the template image (the thing we're trying to find) has lots of black or lots of white. For many problems, we will know a priori what the template looks like and we can specify a white background or black background.
I use cv2.multiply, which seems to be faster than numpy.multiply. cv2.multiply has the added advantage that it automatically clips the results to the range 0 to 255.
import numpy as np
import cv2
import time
img = cv2.imread('clock1.jpg')
gray = cv2.cvtColor(img, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
template = cv2.imread('target.jpg')
t_h, t_w = template.shape[0:2] # template height and width
mask_background = 'WHITE'
start_time = time.time()
for i in range(100): # do 100 cycles for timing
# find circle in gray image using Hough transform
circles = cv2.HoughCircles(gray, method = cv2.HOUGH_GRADIENT, dp = 1,
minDist = 150, param1 = 50, param2 = 70,
minRadius = 131, maxRadius = 200)
i = circles[0,0]
x0 = i[0]
y0 = i[1]
r = i[2]
# display circle on color image
cv2.circle(img,(x0, y0), r,(0,255,0),2)
if mask_background == 'BLACK': # black = 0, white = 255 on grayscale
mask = np.zeros(img.shape, dtype = np.uint8)
elif mask_background == 'WHITE':
mask = 255*np.ones(img.shape, dtype = np.uint8)
cv2.circle(mask, (x0, y0), r, color = (1,1,1), thickness = -1)
img2 = cv2.multiply(img, mask) # element wise multiplication
# values > 255 are truncated at 255
# do the template match
result = cv2.matchTemplate(img2, template, cv2.TM_CCOEFF_NORMED)
# call minMaxLoc
min_val, max_val, min_loc, max_loc = cv2.minMaxLoc(result)
# draw found rectangle on img
if max_val > 0.4:
cv2.rectangle(img, max_loc, (max_loc[0]+t_w, max_loc[1]+t_h), (0,255,0), 4)
fps = 100/(time.time()-start_time)
print('fps ', fps)
cv2.imwrite('output.jpg', img)
Profiling results:
BLACK background 12.3 fps
WHITE background 12.1 fps
Using this method has very little performance hit relative to 12.7 fps in original question. However, it has the drawback that it will still find templates that still stick over the edge a little bit. Depending on the exact nature of the problem, this may be acceptable in many applications.
Method 2: use cv2.boxFilter to create mask for minMaxLoc
In this technique, we start with a circular mask (as in OP), but then modify it with cv2.boxFilter. We change the anchor from default center of kernel to the top left corner (0, 0)
import numpy as np
import cv2
import time
img = cv2.imread('clock1.jpg')
gray = cv2.cvtColor(img, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
template = cv2.imread('target.jpg')
t_h, t_w = template.shape[0:2] # template height and width
print('t_h, t_w ', t_h, ' ', t_w)
start_time = time.time()
for i in range(100):
# find circle in gray image using Hough transform
circles = cv2.HoughCircles(gray, method = cv2.HOUGH_GRADIENT, dp = 1,
minDist = 150, param1 = 50, param2 = 70,
minRadius = 131, maxRadius = 200)
i = circles[0,0]
x0 = i[0]
y0 = i[1]
r = i[2]
# display circle on color image
cv2.circle(img,(x0, y0), r,(0,255,0),2)
# do the template match
result = cv2.matchTemplate(img, template, cv2.TM_CCOEFF_NORMED)
# finally, here is the part that gets tricky. we want to find highest
# rated match inside circle and we'd like to use minMaxLoc
# start to make mask by drawing circle on zero array
mask = np.zeros(result.shape, dtype = np.float)
cv2.circle(mask, (x0, y0), r, color = 1, thickness = -1)
mask = cv2.boxFilter(mask,
ddepth = -1,
ksize = (t_w, t_h),
anchor = (0,0),
normalize = True,
borderType = cv2.BORDER_ISOLATED)
# mask now contains values from zero to 1. we want to make anything
# less than 1 equal to zero
_, mask = cv2.threshold(mask, thresh = 0.9999,
maxval = 1.0, type = cv2.THRESH_BINARY)
mask = mask.astype(np.uint8)
# call minMaxLoc
min_val, max_val, min_loc, max_loc = cv2.minMaxLoc(result, mask = mask)
# draw found rectangle on img
if max_val > 0.4:
cv2.rectangle(img, max_loc, (max_loc[0]+t_w, max_loc[1]+t_h), (0,255,0), 4)
fps = 100/(time.time()-start_time)
print('fps ', fps)
cv2.imwrite('output.jpg', img)
This code gives a mask identical to OP, but at 11.89 fps. This technique gives us more accuracy with slightly more performance hit than Method 1.