Lecture 8 — Tuples, Modules, Images

Overview

  • Material for this lecture is drawn from Chapter 4 of Practical Programming.
  • We will concentrate on a few topics:
    • tuple data type
    • image data type
    • functions that modify containers
    • making use of existing modules
  • We will NOT use the media module discussed in the text, opting instead for the more widely-used PILLOW (Python Imaging Library), comprised of multiple modules.
  • We will also talk about writing our own modules, and the difference between running and exporting modules.

Tuple Data Type

  • A tuple is simply a container like a list. The main distinctions are:

    • It uses parantheses instead of square brackets
    • More importantly, its entries can not be changed
    >>> x = (4, 5, 10)   # note the parentheses rather than [ ]
    >>> print x[0]
    4
    >>> print x[2]
    10
    >>> print x[-1]
    10
    >>> len(x)
    3
    >>> x[1] = 2
    Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
    TypeError: 'tuple' object does not support item assignment
  • A list can be converted to a tuple, and vice versa.

    >>> L = [ 'a', 6 ]
    >>> T = tuple(L)   # T is a copy of L that can not be changed.
    >>> print T[0]
    a
    >>> L[0] = 'b'
    >>> print L     # The original list is changed.
    ['b', 6]
    >>> print T     # The tuple created from the list has not.
    ('a', 6)
    >>> L2 = list(T)  # L2 is copy of T as a list object
    >>> L2
    ['a', 6]
    

What are tuples good for?

  • Tuples are Python’s way of making multiple assignments.

    >>> 2,3
    (2, 3)
    >>> x = 2,3
    >>> x
    (2, 3)
    >>> a,b=x
    >>> a
    2
    >>> b
    3
    >>> c,d=3,4
    
  • You can write functions that return multiple values.

    def next_population(bpop, fpop):
        bpop_next = (10*bpop)/(1+0.1*bpop) - 0.05*bpop*fpop
        bpop_next = int( max(0,bpop_next) )
        fpop_next = 0.4 * fpop + 0.02 * fpop * bpop
        fpop_next = int( max(0,fpop_next) )
        return bpop_next, fpop_next
    
    b = 100
    f = 5
    
    bnext, fnext = next_population(b,f)
    print bnext, fnext
    

Example 1: Finding distance between two points

  • Write a function that takes as input two tuples representing points: (x,y) and returns the distance between them.

Basics of modules

  • A collection of Python variables, functions and objects, all stored in a file

  • Modules allow code to be shared across many different programs.

  • Before we can use a module, we need to import it:

    >>> import module_name
    >>> module_name.function()
    
  • This means, the functions in the module in the program are known by its name. We can change the name:

    >>> import module_name as new_name
    >>> new_name.function()
    
  • Finally, we can also import functions in a module like they were defined in our program.

    >>> from module_name import function
    >>> function()
    
  • Let’s try this with the log() function from math.

PIL/PILLOW — Python Image Library

  • PILLOW is a series of modules built around the Image type, our first object type that is not part of the main Python language

    • We have to tell Python about this type through import
  • We will use images as a continuing example of what can be done in programming beyond numbers and beyond text.

  • See

    http://pillow.readthedocs.org/en/latest/handbook/tutorial.html

    for more details.

Images

  • An image is a two-dimensional matrix of pixel values

  • The origin is in the upper left corner, see below:

    ../_images/image_premier.png
  • Pixel values stored in an image can be:

    • RGB — a “three-tuple” consisting of the red, green and blue values, all non-negative integers
    • L — a single “gray-scale” integer value representing the brightness of each pixel
  • Some basic colors:

    Color (red,green,blue) value
    Black (0,0,0)
    Red (255,0,0)
    Green (0,255,0)
    Blue (0,0,255)
    White (255,255,255)
    Light Gray (122,122,122)

Some important image modules

  • Image module contains main functions to manipulate images: open, save, resize, crop, paste, create new images, change pixels, etc.
  • ImageDraw module contains functions to touch up images by adding text to it, draw ellipses, rectangles, etc.
  • ImageFont contains functions to create images of text for a specific font.

Image Type and Methods

  • Let us now see some very useful image methods
  • im = Image.open(filename) reads an image with the given filename and returns an image object. It assumes the file is stored in the same directory as your script.
  • im.show() displays the image
  • im.save(filename) saves the image to the given file
  • Images have the following constants: im.format, im.size, im.mode
  • im.resize((width,height)) resizes an image to a given size.
  • im.convert(mode) changes the mode of an image.
  • im.crop((w1,h1,w2,h2)) creates a new image by cropping the given box from the current image
  • im.transpose(flip_position) creates the mirror reflection of the image in the given direction
  • Image.new("RGB",(width,height)) create a new image of given dimensions.

Our First Image Program

from PIL import Image

filename = "chipmunk.jpg"
im = Image.open(filename)
print '\n' '********************'
print "Here's the information about", filename
print im.format, im.size, im.mode

gray_im = im.convert('L')
scaled = gray_im.resize( (128,128) )
print "After converting to gray scale and resizing,"
print "the image information has changed to"
print scaled.format, scaled.size, scaled.mode

scaled.show()
scaled.save(filename + "_scaled.jpg")
  • The Image.open function:
    • Opens the file and creates an image (new type, remember), and associates it with the variable name im
  • format, size, mode are all variables associated with the image, describing
    • the image file format — JPG in this case
    • the width and height of an image, as a “tuple” (a new Python type we have not yet used)
    • the mode of the pixel data in the image — RGB values or gray scale values (indicated by 'L')
      • Note that 'RGB' and 'L' are both strings.
  • image methods used in this example
    • convert to change the mode of the image from RGB to gray
    • resize to create a new image of a different size
      • The new size is given by the tuple (200,200)
    • show to display the image
    • save to output it.

Example 2: Cut and pasting parts of an image

  • This example crops three boxes from an image, creates a new image and pastes the boxes at different locations of this new image.

    import Image
    
    im = Image.open("lego_movie.jpg")
    w,h = im.size
    
    # Crop out three columns from the image
    ## Note: the crop function returns a new image
    part1 = im.crop((0,0,w/3,h))
    part2 = im.crop((w/3,0,2*w/3,h))
    part3 = im.crop((2*w/3,0,w,h))
    
    ## Create a new image
    newim = Image.new("RGB",(w,h))
    ## Paste the image in different order
    ## Note: the paste function changes the image it is applied to
    newim.paste(part3, (0,0))
    newim.paste(part1, (w/3,0))
    newim.paste(part2, (2*w/3,0))
    newim.show()
    
  • Important image methods used (note the distinction of how they work):

    • crop — extracts a region of the image given by the upper left and lower right corners represented as a four-tuple, and returns a new image
    • paste — overwrites one image with another, starting at the upper left corner. It modifies the image it operates on, but does not return a new image.
  • Note that many of the PILLOW functions actually change the image object we are working with

    • This is an implementation decision made by the designers of PIL, mostly because images are so large and copying is therefore time consuming.

Summary

  • Tuples are similar to strings and numbers in many ways. You cannot change a part of a tuple. However, unlike other simple data types, tuples allow access to the individual components using the list notation.

  • Modules contain a combination of functions, variables, object definitions, and other code, all designed for use in other Python programs and modules

  • After they are imported, the functions in a module can be executed by a call of the form:

    module_name.function_name(arguments)
    
  • PILLOW provides a set of modules that define the Image object type and associated methods.