MATLAB use custom function with pdist - matlab

Question

I have a custom function to calculate the weight between two pixels (that represent nodes on a graph) of an image
function [weight] = getWeight(a,b,img, r, L)
ac = num2cell(a);
bc = num2cell(b);
imgint1 = img(sub2ind(size(img),ac{:}));
imgint2 = img(sub2ind(size(img),bc{:}));
weight = (sum((a - b) .^ 2) + (r^2/L) * abs(imgint2 - imgint1)) / (2*r^2);
where a = [x1 y1] and b = [x2 y2] are coordinates that represents pixels of the image, img is a gray-scale image and r and L are constants. Within the function imgint1 and imgint2 are gray intensities of the pixels on a and b.
I need to calculate the weight among set of points of the image.
Instead of two nested loops, I want to use the pdist function because it is WAY FASTER!
For instance, let nodes a set of pixel coordinates
nodes =
1 1
1 2
2 1
2 2
And img = [ 128 254; 0 255], r = 3, L = 255
In order to get these weights, I am using an intermediate function.
function [weight] = fxIntermediate(a,b, img, r, L)
weight = bsxfun(#(a,b) getWeight(a,b,img,r,L), a, b);
In order to finally get the whole set of weights
distNodes = pdist(nodes,#(XI,XJ) fxIntermediate(XI,XJ,img,r,L));
But it always get me an error
Error using pdist (line 373)
Error evaluating distance function '#(XI,XJ)fxIntermediate(XI,XJ,img,r,L)'.
Error in obtenerMatriz (line 27)
distNodes = pdist(nodes,#(XI,XJ) fxIntermediate(XI,XJ,img,r,L));
Caused by:
Error using bsxfun
Invalid output dimensions.
EDIT 1
This is a short example of my code that it should work, but I got the error mentioned above. If you copy/paste the code on MATLAB and run the code you will see the error
function [adjacencyMatrix] = problem
img = [123, 229; 0, 45]; % 2x2 Image as example
nodes = [1 1; 1 2; 2 2]; % I want to calculate distance function getWeight()
% between pixels img(1,1), img(1,2), img(2,2)
r = 3; % r is a constant, doesn't matter its meaning
L = 255; % L is a constant, doesn't matter its meaning
distNodes = pdist(nodes,#(XI,XJ) fxIntermediate(XI,XJ,img,r,L));
adjacencyMatrix = squareform(distNodes );
end
function [weight] = fxIntermediate(a,b, img, r, L)
weight = bsxfun(#(a,b) getWeight(a,b,img,r,L), a, b);
end
function [weight] = getWeight(a,b,img, r, L)
ac = num2cell(a);
bc = num2cell(b);
imgint1 = img(sub2ind(size(img),ac{:}));
imgint2 = img(sub2ind(size(img),bc{:}));
weight = (sum((a - b) .^ 2) + (r^2/L) * abs(imgint2 - imgint1)) / (2*r^2);
end
My goal is to obtain an adjacency matrix that represents the distance between pixels. For the above example, the desired adjacency matrix is:
adjacencyMatrix =
0 0.2634 0.2641
0.2634 0 0.4163
0.2641 0.4163 0

Answer 1

The problem is that you are neither fulfilling the expectations for a function to be used with pdist, nor those for a function to be used with bsxfun.
– From the documentation of pdist:
A distance function must be of form
d2 = distfun(XI,XJ)
taking as arguments a 1-by-n vector XI, corresponding to a single row
of X, and an m2-by-n matrix XJ, corresponding to multiple rows of X.
distfun must accept a matrix XJ with an arbitrary number of rows.
distfun must return an m2-by-1 vector of distances d2, whose kth
element is the distance between XI and XJ(k,:).
However, by using bsxfun in fxIntermediate, this function always returns a matrix of values whose size is the larger of the sizes of the two inputs.
– From the documentation of bsxfun:
A binary element-wise function of the form C
= fun(A,B) accepts arrays A and B of arbitrary but equal size and returns output of the same size. Each element in the output array C is
the result of an operation on the corresponding elements of A and B
only. fun must also support scalar expansion, such that if A or B is a
scalar, C is the result of applying the scalar to every element in the
other input array.
However, your getWeight appears to always return a scalar.
I do not understand your problem well enough in order to repair this. Moreover, I think if speed is what you are after, feeding pdist with a function handle is not the way to go. pdist does not perform magic; it is only fast because its built-in distance functions are implemented efficiently. Also, you are using anonymous function handles and conversions to and from cell arrays, all of which slow the process down. I think you should post a new question where you start with a description of what you are trying to compute, include some code that does the job even if inefficiently, and ask how to improve that.