Convert a .avi movie to multiframe images (converting a 10 sec movie to 10 images)

Hello everyone,

I am a very novice user of MATLAB and that's why i really need your help. I have to analyse a movie. Basically I need to do 4 things: 1)I need to convert a 20 second movie to 20 multiframe images. 2)I also need to crop the center 10 by 10 pixel of each image. 3)I also need to measure the intensity of each of the cropped images. 4)I need to create a plot of intensity patterns versus time.

I would really appreciate if anyone could advise me on this.

Regards, Perseus

Answer 1

[Alex Mason]

Well I can help with the first bit

Not sure what build of ML you have but mine still allows me to use the following:

Movie = mmreader('C:\Documents and Settings....blah blah\Movie.avi')

MovieInfo = aviinfo('same as above') - from this you can use things like n = Movie.NumberOfFrames to get you the number of frames in the movie.

you can then use that little bit of info to write a loop like:

For x = 1 to n

Frame = read(Movie,x)

imwrite(Frame, 'C:\\Documents and Settings\\....\\image%04d.jpg',x)

end

things to note. For some reason, you need the double \\ in the path for saving the file. At least mine wont work if its just a single \.

image will be the name of the saved image, but suffixed to that will be the number x as a four digit number (hence the %04d). So if x is one the save file will be image0001.jpg and then next time through the loop x = 2 and so the file name is image0002.jpg

hope that helps.

[Perseus Zeus]

thanks a lot alex!

[Walter Roberson]

I believe Alex meant

imwrite(Frame, sprintf('C:\\Documents and Settings\\....\\image%04d.jpg',x))

Note: you could get around the \\ problem by using

imwrite(Frame, sprintf('C:/Documents and Settings/..../image%04d.jpg',x))

[Perseus Zeus]

thanks walter!

[Perseus Zeus]

alex thanks to your suggestion i have written the code...hence now i have got separate frames from the video file and the intensity value of each of the frame.....so i can easily plot framenumber versus intensity value of each of the frame(say 100 by 100)....but the problem i want to plot time(in sec) versus intensity i.e. 5 vs 100...how can i do that?

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

Here's some old sample code I've posted before in the newsgroup. Note that it uses the old aviread() instead of the more modern VideoReader() object, but that's easy to change if you want. It still works though.

This code reads in the standard demo video that ships with MATLAB, calculates the mean of the whole image, plots the mean as a function of frame number, optionally saves the individual frames to disk, and reads them back in to construct a new movie. Pretty much exactly what you want. You only need to get the subimage and get its mean instead of the mean of the whole image.

subImage = fullImage(line1:line2, column1:column2); meanValue = mean(subImage(:));

So do a change like that to the code below and you're done.

% Demo macro to extract frames and get frame means from an avi movie
% and save individual frames to separate image files.
% Also computes the mean gray value of the color channels.
clc;    % Clear the command window.
close all;  % Close all figures (except those of imtool.)
imtool close all;  % Close all imtool figures.
clear;  % Erase all existing variables.
workspace;  % Make sure the workspace panel is showing.
fontSize = 14;

% Change the current folder to the folder of this m-file.
% (The line of code below is from Brett Shoelson of The Mathworks.)
if(~isdeployed)
  cd(fileparts(which(mfilename)));
end

% Open the rhino.avi demo movie that ships with MATLAB.
folder = fullfile(matlabroot, '\toolbox\images\imdemos');
movieFullFileName = fullfile(folder, 'rhinos.avi');
% Check to see that it exists.
if ~exist(movieFullFileName, 'file')
  strErrorMessage = sprintf('File not found:\n%s\nYou can choose a new one, or cancel', movieFullFileName);
  response = questdlg(strErrorMessage, 'File not found', 'OK - choose a new movie.', 'Cancel', 'OK - choose a new movie.');
  if strcmpi(response, 'OK - choose a new movie.')
    [baseFileName, folderName, FilterIndex] = uigetfile('*.avi');
    if ~isequal(baseFileName, 0)
      movieFullFileName = fullfile(folderName, baseFileName);
    else
      return;
    end
  else
    return;
  end
end

try
  movieInfo = aviinfo(movieFullFileName)
  mov = aviread(movieFullFileName);
  % movie(mov);
  % Determine how many frames there are.
  numberOfFrames = size(mov, 2);
  numberOfFramesWritten = 0;
  % Prepare a figure to show the images in the upper half of the screen.
  figure;
  screenSize = get(0, 'ScreenSize');
  newWindowPosition = [1 screenSize(4)/2 - 70 screenSize(3) screenSize(4)/2];
  set(gcf, 'Position', newWindowPosition); % Maximize figure.
%   set(gcf, 'Position', get(0,'Screensize')); % Maximize figure.
  
    % Ask user if they want to write the individual frames out to disk.
    promptMessage = sprintf('Do you want to save the individual frames out to individual disk files?');
    button = questdlg(promptMessage, 'Save individual frames?', 'Yes', 'No', 'Yes');
    if strcmp(button, 'Yes')
        writeToDisk = true;

          % Extract out the various parts of the filename.
          [folder, baseFileName, extentions] = fileparts(movieFullFileName);
          % Make up a special new output subfolder for all the separate
          % movie frames that we're going to extract and save to disk.
          % (Don't worry - windows can handle forward slashes in the folder name.)
          folder = pwd;   % Make it a subfolder of the folder where this m-file lives.
          outputFolder = sprintf('%s/Movie Frames from %s', folder, baseFileName);
          % Create the folder if it doesn't exist already.
          if ~exist(outputFolder, 'dir')
              mkdir(outputFolder);
          end
      else
          writeToDisk = false;        
      end

      % Loop through the movie, writing all frames out.
    % Each frame will be in a separate file with unique name.
    meanGrayLevels = zeros(numberOfFrames, 1);
    meanRedLevels = zeros(numberOfFrames, 1);
    meanGreenLevels = zeros(numberOfFrames, 1);
    meanBlueLevels = zeros(numberOfFrames, 1);
      for frame = 1 : numberOfFrames
      % Extract the frame from the movie structure.
      thisFrame = mov(frame).cdata;
      
          % Display it
          hImage = subplot(1,2,1);
          image(thisFrame);
          axis square;
          caption = sprintf('Frame %4d of %d.', frame, numberOfFrames);
          title(caption, 'FontSize', fontSize);
          drawnow; % Force it to refresh the window.    

    % Write the image array to the output file, if requested.
        if writeToDisk
             % Construct an output image file name.
            outputBaseFileName = sprintf('Frame %4.4d.png', frame);
            outputFullFileName = fullfile(outputFolder, outputBaseFileName);

              % Stamp the name and frame number onto the image.
              % At this point it's just going into the overlay, 
              % not actually getting written into the pixel values.
              text(5, 15, outputBaseFileName, 'FontSize', 20);

              % Extract the image with the text "burned into" it.
              frameWithText = getframe(gca);
              % frameWithText.cdata is the image with the text
              % actually written into the pixel values.
              % Write it out to disk.
              imwrite(frameWithText.cdata, outputFullFileName, 'png');
          end

    % Calculate the mean gray level.
    grayImage = rgb2gray(thisFrame);
    meanGrayLevels(frame) = mean(grayImage(:));

    % Calculate the mean R, G, and B levels.
    meanRedLevels(frame) = mean(mean(thisFrame(:, :, 1)));
    meanGreenLevels(frame) = mean(mean(thisFrame(:, :, 2)));
    meanBlueLevels(frame) = mean(mean(thisFrame(:, :, 3)));

    % Plot the mean gray levels.
    hPlot = subplot(1,2,2);
        hold off;
    plot(meanGrayLevels, 'k-', 'LineWidth', 2);
        hold on;
        plot(meanRedLevels, 'r-');
        plot(meanGreenLevels, 'g-');
        plot(meanBlueLevels, 'b-');

          % Put title back because plot() erases the existing title.
      title('Mean Gray Levels', 'FontSize', fontSize);
          if frame == 1
        xlabel('Frame Number');
        yLabel('Gray Level');
              % Get size data later for preallocation if we read
              % the movie back in from disk.
              [rows columns numberOfColorChannels] = size(thisFrame);
          end

          % Update user with the progress.  Display in the command window.
          if writeToDisk
          progressIndication = sprintf('Wrote frame %4d of %d.', frame, numberOfFrames);
          else
          progressIndication = sprintf('Processed frame %4d of %d.', frame, numberOfFrames);
          end
      disp(progressIndication);
      % Increment frame count (should eventually = numberOfFrames
      % unless an error happens).
      numberOfFramesWritten = numberOfFramesWritten + 1;
      end

      % Alert user that we're done.
      if writeToDisk
          finishedMessage = sprintf('Done!  It wrote %d frames to folder\n"%s"', numberOfFramesWritten, outputFolder);
      else
          finishedMessage = sprintf('Done!  It processed %d frames of\n"%s"', numberOfFramesWritten, movieFullFileName);
      end
      disp(finishedMessage); % Write to command window.
      uiwait(msgbox(finishedMessage)); % Also pop up a message box.

      % Exit if they didn't write any individual frames out to disk.
      if ~writeToDisk
          return;
      end

      % Ask user if they want to read the individual frames from the disk,
      % that they just wrote out, back into a movie and display it.
      promptMessage = sprintf('Do you want to recall the individual frames\nback from disk into a movie?\n(This will take several seconds.)');
      button = questdlg(promptMessage, 'Recall Movie?', 'Yes', 'No', 'Yes');
      if strcmp(button, 'No')
          return;
      end

      % Read the frames back in, and convert them to a movie.
      % I don't know of any way to preallocate recalledMovie.
      for frame = 1 : numberOfFrames
          % Construct an output image file name.
          outputBaseFileName = sprintf('Frame %4.4d.png', frame);
          outputFullFileName = fullfile(outputFolder, outputBaseFileName);
          % Read the image in from disk.
          thisFrame = imread(outputFullFileName);
          % Convert the image into a "movie frame" structure.
          recalledMovie(frame) = im2frame(thisFrame);
      end
      % Get rid of old image and plot.
      delete(hImage);
      delete(hPlot);
      % Create new axes for our movie.
      subPlot(1, 3, 2);
      axis off;  % Turn off axes numbers.
      title('Movie recalled from disk', 'FontSize', fontSize);
      % Play the movie in the axes.
      movie(recalledMovie);
      % Note: if you want to display graphics or text in the overlay
      % as the movie plays back then you need to do it like I did at first
      % (at the top of this file where you extract and imshow a frame at a time.)
      msgbox('Done with this demo!');

catch ME
  % Some error happened if you get here.
  stError = lasterror;
  strErrorMessage = sprintf('Error extracting movie frames from:\n\n%s\n\nError: %s\n\n)', movieFullFileName, stError.message);
  uiwait(msgbox(strErrorMessage));
end