Find local maxima in grayscale image using OpenCV

Question

Does anybody know how to find the local maxima in a grayscale IPL_DEPTH_8U image using OpenCV? HarrisCorner mentions something like that but I\'m actually not i

Answer 1

You can go over each pixel and test if it is a local maxima. Here is how I would do it. The input is assumed to be type CV_32FC1

#include //std::vector
#include //std::sort
#include "opencv2/imgproc/imgproc.hpp"
#include "opencv2/core/core.hpp"

//structure for maximal values including position
struct SRegionalMaxPoint
{
    SRegionalMaxPoint():
        values(-FLT_MAX),
        row(-1),
        col(-1)
    {}
    float values;
    int row;
    int col;
    //ascending order
    bool operator()(const SRegionalMaxPoint& a, const SRegionalMaxPoint& b)
    {   
        return a.values < b.values;
    }   
};

//checks if pixel is local max
bool isRegionalMax(const float* im_ptr, const int& cols )
{
    float center = *im_ptr;
    bool is_regional_max = true;
    im_ptr -= (cols + 1);
    for (int ii = 0; ii < 3; ++ii, im_ptr+= (cols-3))
    {
        for (int jj = 0; jj < 3; ++jj, im_ptr++)
        {
            if (ii != 1 || jj != 1)
            {
                is_regional_max &= (center > *im_ptr);
            }
        }
    }
    return is_regional_max;
}

void imregionalmax(
    const cv::Mat& input, 
    std::vector& buffer)
{
    //find local max - top maxima
    static const int margin = 1;
    const int rows = input.rows;
    const int cols = input.cols;
    for (int i = margin; i < rows - margin; ++i)
    {
        const float* im_ptr = input.ptr(i, margin);
        for (int j = margin; j < cols - margin; ++j, im_ptr++)
        {
            //Check if pixel is local maximum
            if ( isRegionalMax(im_ptr, cols ) )
            {
                cv::Rect roi = cv::Rect(j - margin, i - margin, 3, 3);
                cv::Mat subMat = input(roi);

                float val = *im_ptr;
                //replace smallest value in buffer
                if ( val > buffer[0].values )
                {
                    buffer[0].values = val;
                    buffer[0].row    = i;
                    buffer[0].col    = j;
                    std::sort(buffer.begin(), buffer.end(), SRegionalMaxPoint());
                }

            }
        }
    }

}

For testing the code you can try this:

cv::Mat temp = cv::Mat::zeros(15, 15, CV_32FC1);
temp.at(7, 7) = 1;
temp.at(3, 5) = 6;
temp.at(8, 10) = 4;
temp.at(11, 13) = 7;
temp.at(10, 3) = 8;
temp.at(7, 13) = 3;

vector buffer_(5);
imregionalmax(temp, buffer_);

cv::Mat debug;
cv::cvtColor(temp, debug, cv::COLOR_GRAY2BGR);
for (auto it = buffer_.begin(); it != buffer_.end(); ++it)
{
    circle(debug, cv::Point(it->col, it->row), 1, cv::Scalar(0, 255, 0));
}

This solution does not take plateaus into account so it is not exactly the same as matlab's imregionalmax()