I have a gray scale image that I want to display in color by mapping the gray scale values with a color palette (like colormap in Matlab).
I managed to do it by usin
I have done something similar for coloring depth maps from Microsoft Kinect Sensor. The code I used for converting a grayscale depth map into color image will work for what you are trying to do. You may require slight modifications as in my case the depth values were in the range 500 to 2000, and I had to rescale them.
The function for colouring a grayscale image into colour image is:
void colorizeDepth( const Mat& gray, Mat& rgb)
{
double maxDisp= 255;
float S=1.f;
float V=1.f ;
rgb.create( gray.size(), CV_8UC3 );
rgb = Scalar::all(0);
if( maxDisp < 1 )
return;
for( int y = 0; y < gray.rows; y++ )
{
for( int x = 0; x < gray.cols; x++ )
{
uchar d = gray.at(y,x);
unsigned int H = 255 - ((uchar)maxDisp - d) * 280/ (uchar)maxDisp;
unsigned int hi = (H/60) % 6;
float f = H/60.f - H/60;
float p = V * (1 - S);
float q = V * (1 - f * S);
float t = V * (1 - (1 - f) * S);
Point3f res;
if( hi == 0 ) //R = V, G = t, B = p
res = Point3f( p, t, V );
if( hi == 1 ) // R = q, G = V, B = p
res = Point3f( p, V, q );
if( hi == 2 ) // R = p, G = V, B = t
res = Point3f( t, V, p );
if( hi == 3 ) // R = p, G = q, B = V
res = Point3f( V, q, p );
if( hi == 4 ) // R = t, G = p, B = V
res = Point3f( V, p, t );
if( hi == 5 ) // R = V, G = p, B = q
res = Point3f( q, p, V );
uchar b = (uchar)(std::max(0.f, std::min (res.x, 1.f)) * 255.f);
uchar g = (uchar)(std::max(0.f, std::min (res.y, 1.f)) * 255.f);
uchar r = (uchar)(std::max(0.f, std::min (res.z, 1.f)) * 255.f);
rgb.at >(y,x) = Point3_(b, g, r);
}
}
}
For an input image which looks like this:

Output of this code is:
