AttributeError, ImportError on scipy.misc image functions (e.x imread, imresize, imsave, imshow etc.) - image

Question

I have came across two kinds of errors when trying to import or directly use any of the image functions included in the scipy.misc module. Here are two error examples with the imread() function:
>>> from scipy.misc import imread
ImportError: cannot import name 'imread' from 'scipy.misc'
and
>>> import scipy.misc
>>> scipy.misc.imread
AttributeError: module 'scipy.misc' has no attribute 'imread'
What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

You are not doing anything wrong. This is due to the removal of the image functions from the scipy.misc module since SciPy Version 1.2.0. I don't know why did they deem those functions deprecated and removed them, but if you want to use them, you can rollback to a previous SciPy version by uninstalling the current one and installing a previous one:
pip uninstall scipy
pip install scipy==1.1.0
Make sure you have Pillow installed too:
pip install Pillow
If you don't want to use an old version of SciPy, then you will need to change your code. According to the official docs of each deprecated function, here is what SciPy suggests:
fromimage(im) -> np.asarray(im)
imfilter() -> Use Pillow filtering functionality directly.
imread() -> imageio.imread()
imsave() -> imageio.imwrite()
imresize() -> numpy.array(Image.fromarray(arr).resize())
imrotate -> skimage.transform.rotate()
imshow() -> matplotlib.pyplot.imshow()
toimage() -> Image.fromarray()
It assumes to install the below libraries:
pip install numpy Pillow scikit-image imageio matplotlib
and import them:
import numpy as np, Pillow, skimage, imageio, matplotlib
In addition, I quote two sources I found, mentioning the deprecation of the scipy.misc image I/O functionality:
From scipy.github.io:
The following functions in scipy.misc are deprecated: bytescale, fromimage, imfilter, imread, imresize, imrotate, imsave, imshow and toimage. Most of those functions have unexpected behavior (like rescaling and type casting image data without the user asking for that). Other functions simply have better alternatives.
From imageio.readthedocs.io (especially for imread):
Transitioning from Scipy’s imread
Scipy is deprecating their image I/O functionality.
This document is intended to help people coming from Scipy to adapt to
Imageio’s imread function. We recommend reading the user api and
checkout some examples to get a feel of imageio.
Imageio makes use of variety of plugins to support reading images (and
volumes/movies) from many different formats. Fortunately, Pillow is
the main plugin for common images, which is the same library as used
by Scipy’s imread. Note that Imageio automatically selects a plugin
based on the image to read (unless a format is explicitly specified),
but uses Pillow where possible.
In short terms: For images previously read by Scipy’s imread, imageio
should generally use Pillow as well, and imageio provides the same
functionality as Scipy in these cases. But keep in mind:
Instead of mode, use the pilmode keyword argument.
Instead of flatten, use the as_gray keyword argument.
The documentation for the above arguments is not on imread, but on the docs of the individual formats, e.g. PNG.
Imageio’s functions all return numpy arrays, albeit as a subclass (so that meta data can be attached).