Skeleton, saving to VTK format

This example demonstrates determination of a line skeleton of a binary image. The skeletonization process reduces all foreground structures into their approximate centerlines.

The skeleton can be traced into a graph structure, where skeleton branches are edges and their intersections are vertices. The traced branches contain information about the branch, e.g., its length.

Finally, the traced skeleton is saved into a .vtk file. The generated .vtk file is compatible, e.g., with ParaView:

def skeleton_vtk():
        """
        Creates skeleton, traces it to a graph/network structure, and saves
        the skeleton branches in a .vtk file.
        """

        # Generate a simple image for demonstration
        geometry = pi.newimage(ImageDataType.UINT8, 100, 100)

        p0 = [1, 1, 0]
        p1 = [25, 50, 0]
        p2 = [75, 50, 0]
        p3 = [5, 95, 0]
        p4 = [95, 95, 0]

        pi.line(geometry, p0, p1, 255)
        pi.line(geometry, p1, p2, 255)
        pi.line(geometry, p0, p2, 255)
        pi.line(geometry, p1, p3, 255)
        pi.line(geometry, p2, p4, 255)

        # Save the geometry
        pi.writeraw(geometry, output_file("geometry"))

        # Convert geometry to line skeleton
        pi.lineskeleton(geometry)

        # Write the skeleton so that it can be visualized
        pi.writeraw(geometry, output_file("skeleton"))

        # Create images for tracing the skeleton into a graph
        vertices = pi.newimage(ImageDataType.FLOAT32)
        edges = pi.newimage(ImageDataType.UINT64)
        measurements = pi.newimage(ImageDataType.FLOAT32)
        points = pi.newimage(ImageDataType.INT32)

        # Trace the skeleton
        # The last 1 gives count of threads. For images with small number of branches
        # (like here) single-threaded processing is faster.
        pi.tracelineskeleton(geometry, vertices, edges, measurements, points, True, 1)

        # Convert the traced skeleton into points and lines format, as the .vtk files
        # need that format.
        vtkpoints = pi.newimage()
        vtklines = pi.newimage()
        pi.getpointsandlines(vertices, edges, measurements, points, vtkpoints, vtklines)

        pi.writevtk(vtkpoints, vtklines, output_file("vtk_test_file"))

Input image.

Traced skeleton visualized in ParaView.