I have a bit of a problem categorizing points based on relative normals.
What I would like to do is use the information I got below to fit a simplified polygon to the points, with a bias towards 90 degree angles to an extent.
I have the rough (although not very accurate) normal lines for each point, but I'm not sure how to separate the data base on closeness of points and closeness of the normals. I plan to do a linear regression after chunking the points for each face, as the normal lines sometimes does not fit well with the actual faces (although they are close to each other for each face)
Example:
alt text http://a.imageshack.us/img842/8439/ptnormals.png
Ideally, I would like to be able to fit a rectangle around this data. However, the polygon does not need to be convex, nor does it have to be aligned with the axis.
Any hints as to how to achieve something like this would be awesome.
Thanks in advance
I am not sure if this is what you are looking for, but here's my attempt at solving the problem as I understood it:
I am using the angles of the normal vectors to find points belonging to each side of the rectangle (left, right, up, down), then simply fit a line to each.
%# create random data (replace those with your actual data)
num = randi([10 20]);
pT = zeros(num,2);
pT(:,1) = rand(num,1);
pT(:,2) = ones(num,1) + 0.01*randn(num,1);
aT = 90 + 10*randn(num,1);
num = randi([10 20]);
pB = zeros(num,2);
pB(:,1) = rand(num,1);
pB(:,2) = zeros(num,1) + 0.01*randn(num,1);
aB = 270 + 10*randn(num,1);
num = randi([10 20]);
pR = zeros(num,2);
pR(:,1) = ones(num,1) + 0.01*randn(num,1);
pR(:,2) = rand(num,1);
aR = 0 + 10*randn(num,1);
num = randi([10 20]);
pL = zeros(num,2);
pL(:,1) = zeros(num,1) + 0.01*randn(num,1);
pL(:,2) = rand(num,1);
aL = 180 + 10*randn(num,1);
pts = [pT;pR;pB;pL]; %# x/y coords
angle = mod([aT;aR;aB;aL],360); %# angle in degrees [0,360]
%# plot points and normals
plot(pts(:,1), pts(:,2), 'o'), hold on
theta = angle * pi / 180;
quiver(pts(:,1), pts(:,2), cos(theta), sin(theta), 0.4, 'Color','g')
hold off
%# divide points based on angle
[~,bin] = histc(angle,[0 45 135 225 315 360]);
bin(bin==5) = 1; %# combine last and first bin
%# fit line to each segment
hold on
for i=1:4
%# indices of points in this segment
idx = ( bin == i );
%# x/y or y/x
if i==2||i==4, xx=1; yy=2; else xx=2; yy=1; end
%# fit line
coeff = polyfit(pts(idx,xx), pts(idx,yy), 1);
fit(:,1) = 0:0.05:1;
fit(:,2) = polyval(coeff, fit(:,1));
%# plot fitted line
plot(fit(:,xx), fit(:,yy), 'Color','r', 'LineWidth',2)
end
hold off
I'd try the following
Cluster the points based on proximity and similar angle. I'd use single-linkage hierarchical clustering (LINKAGE in Matlab), since you don't know a priori how many edges there will be. Single linkage favors linear structures, which is exactly what you're looking for. As the distance criterion between two points you can use the euclidean distance between point coordinates multiplied by a function of the angle that increases very steeply as soon as the angle differs more than, say, 20 or 30 degrees.
Do (robust) linear regression into the data. Using the normals may or may not help. My guess is that they won't help too much. For simplicity, you may want to disregard the normals initially.
Find the intersections between the lines.
If you have to, you can always try and improve the fit, for example by constraining opposite lines to be parallel.
If that fails, you could try and implement the approach in THIS PAPER, which allows fitting multiple straight lines at once.
You could get the mean value for the X and Y coordinates for each side and then just make lines based on that.
Related
Assume I have a 2x2 matrix filled with values which will represent a plane. Now I want to rotate the plane around itself in a 3-D way, in the "z-Direction". For a better understanding, see the following image:
I wondered if this is possible by a simple affine matrix, thus I created the following simple script:
%Create a random value matrix
A = rand*ones(200,200);
%Make a box in the image
A(50:200-50,50:200-50) = 1;
Now I can apply transformations in the 2-D room simply by a rotation matrix like this:
R = affine2d([1 0 0; .5 1 0; 0 0 1])
tform = affine3d(R);
transformed = imwarp(A,tform);
However, this will not produce the desired output above, and I am not quite sure how to create the 2-D affine matrix to create such behavior.
I guess that a 3-D affine matrix can do the trick. However, if I define a 3-D affine matrix I cannot work with the 2-D representation of the matrix anymore, since MATLAB will throw the error:
The number of dimensions of the input image A must be 3 when the
specified geometric transformation is 3-D.
So how can I code the desired output with an affine matrix?
The answer from m3tho correctly addresses how you would apply the transformation you want: using fitgeotrans with a 'projective' transform, thus requiring that you specify 4 control points (i.e. 4 pairs of corresponding points in the input and output image). You can then apply this transform using imwarp.
The issue, then, is how you select these pairs of points to create your desired transformation, which in this case is to create a perspective projection. As shown below, a perspective projection takes into account that a viewing position (i.e. "camera") will have a given view angle defining a conic field of view. The scene is rendered by taking all 3-D points within this cone and projecting them onto the viewing plane, which is the plane located at the camera target which is perpendicular to the line joining the camera and its target.
Let's first assume that your image is lying in the viewing plane and that the corners are described by a normalized reference frame such that they span [-1 1] in each direction. We need to first select the degree of perspective we want by choosing a view angle and then computing the distance between the camera and the viewing plane. A view angle of around 45 degrees can mimic the sense of perspective of normal human sight, so using the corners of the viewing plane to define the edge of the conic field of view, we can compute the camera distance as follows:
camDist = sqrt(2)./tand(viewAngle./2);
Now we can use this to generate a set of control points for the transformation. We first apply a 3-D rotation to the corner points of the viewing plane, rotating around the y axis by an amount theta. This rotates them out of plane, so we now project the corner points back onto the viewing plane by defining a line from the camera through each rotated corner point and finding the point where it intersects the plane. I'm going to spare you the mathematical derivations (you can implement them yourself from the formulas in the above links), but in this case everything simplifies down to the following set of calculations:
term1 = camDist.*cosd(theta);
term2 = camDist-sind(theta);
term3 = camDist+sind(theta);
outP = [-term1./term2 camDist./term2; ...
term1./term3 camDist./term3; ...
term1./term3 -camDist./term3; ...
-term1./term2 -camDist./term2];
And outP now contains your normalized set of control points in the output image. Given an image of size s, we can create a set of input and output control points as follows:
scaledInP = [1 s(1); s(2) s(1); s(2) 1; 1 1];
scaledOutP = bsxfun(#times, outP+1, s([2 1])-1)./2+1;
And you can apply the transformation like so:
tform = fitgeotrans(scaledInP, scaledOutP, 'projective');
outputView = imref2d(s);
newImage = imwarp(oldImage, tform, 'OutputView', outputView);
The only issue you may come across is that a rotation of 90 degrees (i.e. looking end-on at the image plane) would create a set of collinear points that would cause fitgeotrans to error out. In such a case, you would technically just want a blank image, because you can't see a 2-D object when looking at it edge-on.
Here's some code illustrating the above transformations by animating a spinning image:
img = imread('peppers.png');
s = size(img);
outputView = imref2d(s);
scaledInP = [1 s(1); s(2) s(1); s(2) 1; 1 1];
viewAngle = 45;
camDist = sqrt(2)./tand(viewAngle./2);
for theta = linspace(0, 360, 360)
term1 = camDist.*cosd(theta);
term2 = camDist-sind(theta);
term3 = camDist+sind(theta);
outP = [-term1./term2 camDist./term2; ...
term1./term3 camDist./term3; ...
term1./term3 -camDist./term3; ...
-term1./term2 -camDist./term2];
scaledOutP = bsxfun(#times, outP+1, s([2 1])-1)./2+1;
tform = fitgeotrans(scaledInP, scaledOutP, 'projective');
spinImage = imwarp(img, tform, 'OutputView', outputView);
if (theta == 0)
hImage = image(spinImage);
set(gca, 'Visible', 'off');
else
set(hImage, 'CData', spinImage);
end
drawnow;
end
And here's the animation:
You can perform a projective transformation that can be estimated using the position of the corners in the first and second image.
originalP='peppers.png';
original = imread(originalP);
imshow(original);
s = size(original);
matchedPoints1 = [1 1;1 s(1);s(2) s(1);s(2) 1];
matchedPoints2 = [1 1;1 s(1);s(2) s(1)-100;s(2) 100];
transformType = 'projective';
tform = fitgeotrans(matchedPoints1,matchedPoints2,'projective');
outputView = imref2d(size(original));
Ir = imwarp(original,tform,'OutputView',outputView);
figure; imshow(Ir);
This is the result of the code above:
Original image:
Transformed image:
this is my situation: I have a 30x30 image and I want to calculate the radial and tangent component of the gradient of each point (pixel) along the straight line passing through the centre of the image (15,15) and the same (i,j) point.
[dx, dy] = gradient(img);
for i=1:30
for j=1:30
pt = [dx(i, j), dy(i,j)];
line = [i-15, j-15];
costh = dot(line, pt)/(norm(line)*norm(pt));
par(i,j) = norm(costh*line);
tang(i,j) = norm(sin(acos(costh))*line);
end
end
is this code correct?
I think there is a conceptual error in your code, I tried to get your results with a different approach, see how it compares to yours.
[dy, dx] = gradient(img);
I inverted x and y because the usual convention in matlab is to have the first dimension along the rows of a matrix while gradient does the opposite.
I created an array of the same size as img but with each pixel containing the angle of the vector from the center of the image to this point:
[I,J] = ind2sub(size(img), 1:numel(img));
theta=reshape(atan2d(I-ceil(size(img,1)/2), J-ceil(size(img,2)/2)), size(img))+180;
The function atan2d ensures that the 4 quadrants give distinct angle values.
Now the projection of the x and y components can be obtained with trigonometry:
par=dx.*sind(theta)+dy.*cosd(theta);
tang=dx.*cosd(theta)+dy.*sind(theta);
Note the use of the .* to achieve point-by-point multiplication, this is a big advantage of Matlab's matrix computations which saves you a loop.
Here's an example with a well-defined input image (no gradient along the rows and a constant gradient along the columns):
img=repmat(1:30, [30 1]);
The results:
subplot(1,2,1)
imagesc(par)
subplot(1,2,2)
imagesc(tang)
colorbar
I have a list of points moving in two dimensions (x- and y-axis) represented as rows in an array. I might have N points - i.e., N rows:
1 t1 x1 y1
2 t2 x2 y2
.
.
.
N tN xN yN
where ti, xi, and yi, is the time-index, x-coordinate, and the y-coordinate for point i. The time index-index ti is an integer from 1 to T. The number of points at each such possible time index can vary from 0 to N (still with only N points in total).
My goal is the filter out all the points that do not move in a certain way; or to keep only those that do. A point must move in a parabolic trajectory - with decreasing x- and y-coordinate (i.e., moving to the left and downwards only). Points with other dynamic behaviour must be removed.
Can I use a simple sorting mechanism on this array - and then analyse the order of the time-index? I have also considered the fact each point having the same time-index ti are physically distinct points, and so should be paired up with other points. The complexity of the problem grew - and now I turn to you.
NOTE: You can assume that the points are confined to a sub-region of the (x,y)-plane between two parabolic curves. These curves intersect only at only at one point: A point close to the origin of motion for any point.
More Information:
I have made some datafiles available:
MATLAB datafile (1.17 kB)
same data as CSV with semicolon as column separator (2.77 kB)
Necessary context:
The datafile hold one uint32 array with 176 rows and 5 columns. The columns are:
pixel x-coordinate in 175-by-175 lattice
pixel y-coordinate in 175-by-175 lattice
discrete theta angle-index
time index (from 1 to T = 10)
row index for this original sorting
The points "live" in a 175-by-175 pixel-lattice - and again inside the upper quadrant of a circle with radius 175. The points travel on the circle circumference in a counterclockwise rotation to a certain angle theta with horizontal, where they are thrown off into something close to a parabolic orbit. Column 3 holds a discrete index into a list with indices 1 to 45 from 0 to 90 degress (one index thus spans 2 degrees). The theta-angle was originally deduces solely from the points by setting up the trivial equations of motions and solving for the angle. This gives rise to a quasi-symmetric quartic which can be solved in close-form. The actual metric radius of the circle is 0.2 m and the pixel coordinate were converted from pixel-coordinate to metric using simple linear interpolation (but what we see here are the points in original pixel-space).
My problem is that some points are not behaving properly and since I need to statistics on the theta angle, I need to remove the points that certainly do NOT move in a parabolic trajoctory. These error are expected and fully natural, but still need to be filtered out.
MATLAB plot code:
% load data and setup variables:
load mat_points.mat;
num_r = 175;
num_T = 10;
num_gridN = 20;
% begin plotting:
figure(1000);
clf;
plot( ...
num_r * cos(0:0.1:pi/2), ...
num_r * sin(0:0.1:pi/2), ...
'Color', 'k', ...
'LineWidth', 2 ...
);
axis equal;
xlim([0 num_r]);
ylim([0 num_r]);
hold all;
% setup grid (yea... went crazy with one):
vec_tickValues = linspace(0, num_r, num_gridN);
cell_tickLabels = repmat({''}, size(vec_tickValues));
cell_tickLabels{1} = sprintf('%u', vec_tickValues(1));
cell_tickLabels{end} = sprintf('%u', vec_tickValues(end));
set(gca, 'XTick', vec_tickValues);
set(gca, 'XTickLabel', cell_tickLabels);
set(gca, 'YTick', vec_tickValues);
set(gca, 'YTickLabel', cell_tickLabels);
set(gca, 'GridLineStyle', '-');
grid on;
% plot points per timeindex (with increasing brightness):
vec_grayIndex = linspace(0,0.9,num_T);
for num_kt = 1:num_T
vec_xCoords = mat_points((mat_points(:,4) == num_kt), 1);
vec_yCoords = mat_points((mat_points(:,4) == num_kt), 2);
plot(vec_xCoords, vec_yCoords, 'o', ...
'MarkerEdgeColor', 'k', ...
'MarkerFaceColor', vec_grayIndex(num_kt) * ones(1,3) ...
);
end
Thanks :)
Why, it looks almost as if you're simulating a radar tracking debris from the collision of two missiles...
Anyway, let's coin a new term: object. Objects are moving along parabolae and at certain times they may emit flashes that appear as points. There are also other points which we are trying to filter out.
We will need some more information:
Can we assume that the objects obey the physics of things falling under gravity?
Must every object emit a point at every timestep during its lifetime?
Speaking of lifetime, do all objects begin at the same time? Can some expire before others?
How precise is the data? Is it exact? Is there a measure of error? To put it another way, do we understand how poorly the points from an object might fit a perfect parabola?
Sort the data with (index,time) as keys and for all locations of a point i see if they follow parabolic trajectory?
Which part are you facing problem? Sorting should be very easy. IMHO, it is the second part (testing if a set of points follow parabolic trajectory) that is difficult.
I've been using a function file [ret]=drawellipse(x,y,a,b,angle,steps,color,img). Calling the function through a script file to draw random ellipses in image. But once i set the random center point(x,y), and random a, b, there is high possibility that the ellipses intersection would occur. How can i prevent the intersection? (I'm supposed to draw the ellipses that are all separate from each other)
Well, over here i have a function file which is to check whether the ellipses got overlap or not,overlap = overlap_ellipses(x0,y0,a0,b0,angle0,x1,y1,a1,b1,angle1). If the two ellipses are overlap, then the 'overlap=1', otherwise 'overlap=0'.
Based on all these, i tested in the command window:
x=rand(4,1)*400; % x and y are the random coodinates for the center of ellipses
y=rand(4,1)*400;
a=[50 69 30 60]; % major axis for a and b, i intend to use random also in the future
b=[20 40 10 40]; % minor axis
angle=[30 90 45 0]; % angle of ellipse
steps=10000;
color=[255 0 0]; % inputs for another function file to draw the ellipse
img=zeros(500,500,3);
The following i want to dispaly the ellipses if overlap==0, and 'if overlap==1', decrease the a and b, till there is no intersection. Lastly, to imshow the img.
for i=1:length(x)
img=drawellipse(x(i),y(i),a(i),b(i),angle(i),steps,color,img);
end
For me now, i have difficulty in coding the middle part. How can i use the if statement to get the value of overlap and how to make the index corresponding to the ellipse i need to draw.
i tested a bit like
for k=1:(length(x)-1)
overlap = overlap_ellipses(x(1),y(1),a(1),b(1),angle(1),x(1+k),y(1+k),a(1+k),b(1+k),angle(1+k))
end
it returns
overlap=0
overlap=0
overlap=1
it is not [0 0 1]. I can't figure it out, thus stuck in the process.
The final image shoule look like the picture in this voronoi diagram of ellipses.
(There is no intersection between any two ellipses)
Assuming you are drawing the ellipses into a raster graphics image, you could calculate the pixels you would have to draw for an ellipse, check whether these pixels in the image are still of the background color, and draw the ellipse only if the answer is yes, otherwise reject it (because something else, i.e. another ellipse, is in the way) and try other x,y,a and b.
Alternatively, you could split your image into rectangles (not neccessarily of equal size) and place one ellipse in each of those, picking x,y,a,b such that no ellipse exceeds its rectangle - then the ellipses cannot overlap either, but it depends on how much "randomness" your ellipse placing should have whether this suffices.
The mathematically rigorous way would be to store x,y,a,b of each drawn ellipse and for each new ellipse, do pairwise checks with each of those whether they have common points by solving a system of two quadratic equations. However, this might be a bit complicated, especially once the angle is not 0.
Edit in response to the added code: Instead of fixing all x's and y's before the loop, you can determine them inside the loop. Since you know how many ellipses you want, but not how many you have to sample, you need a while loop. The test loop you give may come in handy, but you need to compare all previous ellipses to the one created in the loop iteration, not the first one.
i=1;
while (i<=4) %# or length(a), or, more elegantly, some pre-defined max
x(i) = rand*400; y(i) = rand*400; %# or take x and y as givren and decrease a and b
%# now, check overlap for given center
overlap = false;
for k=1:(i-1)
overlap = overlap || overlap_ellipses(x(i),y(i),a(i),b(i),angle(i),x(k),y(k),a(k),b(k),angle(k))
end
if (~overlap)
img = drawellipse(x(i),y(i),a(i),b(i),angle(i),steps,color,img);
i = i+1; %# determine next ellipse
end %# else x(i) and y(i) will be overwritten in next while loop iteration
end
Of course, if a and b are fixed, it may happen that no ellipse fits the image dimensions if the already present ones are unfortunately placed, resulting in an infinite loop.
Regarding your plan of leaving the center fixed and decreasing the ellipse's size until it fits: where does your overlap_ellipses method come from? Maybe itcan be adapted to return a factor by which one ellipse needs to be shrinked to fit next to the other (and 1 if it fits already)?
The solution proposed by #arne.b (the first one) is a good way to rasterize non-overlapping ellipses.
Let me illustrate that idea with an example. I will be extending my previous answer:
%# color image
I = imread('pears.png');
sz = size(I);
%# parameters of ellipses
num = 7;
h = zeros(1,num);
clr = lines(num); %# color of each ellipse
x = rand(num,1) .* sz(2); %# center x-coords
y = rand(num,1) .* sz(1); %# center y-coords
a = rand(num,1) .* 200; %# major axis length
b = rand(num,1) .* 200; %# minor axis length
angle = rand(num,1) .* 360; %# angle of rotation
%# label image, used to hold rasterized ellipses
BW = zeros(sz(1),sz(2));
%# randomly place ellipses one-at-a-time, skip if overlaps previous ones
figure, imshow(I)
axis on, hold on
for i=1:num
%# ellipse we would like to draw directly on image matrix
[ex,ey] = calculateEllipse(x(i),y(i), a(i),b(i), angle(i), 100);
%# lets plot the ellipse (overlayed)
h(i) = plot(ex,ey, 'LineWidth',2, 'Color',clr(i,:));
%# create mask for image pixels inside the ellipse polygon
mask = poly2mask(ex,ey,sz(1),sz(2));
%# get the perimter of this mask
mask = bwperim(mask,8);
%# skip if there is an existing overlapping ellipse
if any( BW(mask)~=0 ), continue, end
%# use the mask to place the ellipse in the label image
BW(mask) = i;
end
hold off
legend(h, cellstr(num2str((1:num)','Line%d')), 'Location','BestOutside') %'
%# set pixels corresponding to ellipses using specified colors
clr = im2uint8(clr);
II = I;
for i=1:num
BW_ind = bsxfun(#plus, find(BW==i), prod(sz(1:2)).*(0:2));
II(BW_ind) = repmat(clr(i,:), [size(BW_ind,1) 1]);
end
figure, imshow(II, 'InitialMagnification',100, 'Border','tight')
Note how the overlap test is performed in the order the ellipses are added, thus after Line1 (blue) and Line2 (green) are drawn, Line3 (red) will be skipped because it overlaps one of the previous ones, and so on for the rest...
One option is to keep track of all the ellipses already drawn, and to make sure the next set of [x,y,a,b] does not produce a new ellipse which intersects with the existing ones. You can either invoke random numbers until you come up with a set that fulfills the condition, or once you have a set which violates the condition, decrease the values of a and/or b until no intersection occurs.
I have a .txt file with about 100,000 points in the 2-D plane. When I plot the points, there is a clearly defined 2-D region (think of a 2-D disc that has been morphed a bit).
What is the easiest way to compute the area of this region? Any way of doing easily in Matlab?
I made a polygonal approximation by finding a bunch (like 40) points on the boundary of the region and computing the area of the polygonal region in Matlab, but I was wondering if there is another, less tedious method than finding 40 points on the boundary.
Consider this example:
%# random points
x = randn(300,1);
y = randn(300,1);
%# convex hull
dt = DelaunayTri(x,y);
k = convexHull(dt);
%# area of convex hull
ar = polyarea(dt.X(k,1),dt.X(k,2))
%# plot
plot(dt.X(:,1), dt.X(:,2), '.'), hold on
fill(dt.X(k,1),dt.X(k,2), 'r', 'facealpha', 0.2);
hold off
title( sprintf('area = %g',ar) )
There is a short screencast By Doug Hull which solves this exact problem.
EDIT:
I am posting a second answer inspired by the solution proposed by #Jean-FrançoisCorbett.
First I create random data, and using the interactive brush tool, I remove some points to make it look like the desired "kidney" shape...
To have a baseline to compare against, we can manually trace the enclosing region using the IMFREEHAND function (I'm doing this using my laptop's touchpad, so not the most accurate drawing!). Then we find the area of this polygon using POLYAREA. Just like my previous answer, I compute the convex hull as well:
Now, and based on a previous SO question I had answered (2D histogram), the idea is to lay a grid over the data. The choice of the grid resolution is very important, mine was numBins = [20 30]; for the data used.
Next we count the number of squares containing enough points (I used at least 1 point as threshold, but you could try a higher value). Finally we multiply this count by the area of one grid square to obtain the approximated total area.
%### DATA ###
%# some random data
X = randn(100000,1)*1;
Y = randn(100000,1)*2;
%# HACK: remove some point to make data look like a kidney
idx = (X<-1 & -4<Y & Y<4 ); X(idx) = []; Y(idx) = [];
%# or use the brush tool
%#brush on
%### imfreehand ###
figure
line('XData',X, 'YData',Y, 'LineStyle','none', ...
'Color','b', 'Marker','.', 'MarkerSize',1);
daspect([1 1 1])
hROI = imfreehand('Closed',true);
pos = getPosition(hROI); %# pos = wait(hROI);
delete(hROI)
%# total area
ar1 = polyarea(pos(:,1), pos(:,2));
%# plot
hold on, plot(pos(:,1), pos(:,2), 'Color','m', 'LineWidth',2)
title('Freehand')
%### 2D histogram ###
%# center of bins
numBins = [20 30];
xbins = linspace(min(X), max(X), numBins(1));
ybins = linspace(min(Y), max(Y), numBins(2));
%# map X/Y values to bin-indices
Xi = round( interp1(xbins, 1:numBins(1), X, 'linear', 'extrap') );
Yi = round( interp1(ybins, 1:numBins(2), Y, 'linear', 'extrap') );
%# limit indices to the range [1,numBins]
Xi = max( min(Xi,numBins(1)), 1);
Yi = max( min(Yi,numBins(2)), 1);
%# count number of elements in each bin
H = accumarray([Yi(:), Xi(:)], 1, [numBins(2) numBins(1)]);
%# total area
THRESH = 0;
sqNum = sum(H(:)>THRESH);
sqArea = (xbins(2)-xbins(1)) * (ybins(2)-ybins(1));
ar2 = sqNum*sqArea;
%# plot 2D histogram/thresholded_histogram
figure, imagesc(xbins, ybins, H)
axis on, axis image, colormap hot; colorbar; %#caxis([0 500])
title( sprintf('2D Histogram, bins=[%d %d]',numBins) )
figure, imagesc(xbins, ybins, H>THRESH)
axis on, axis image, colormap gray
title( sprintf('H > %d',THRESH) )
%### convex hull ###
dt = DelaunayTri(X,Y);
k = convexHull(dt);
%# total area
ar3 = polyarea(dt.X(k,1), dt.X(k,2));
%# plot
figure, plot(X, Y, 'b.', 'MarkerSize',1), daspect([1 1 1])
hold on, fill(dt.X(k,1),dt.X(k,2), 'r', 'facealpha',0.2); hold off
title('Convex Hull')
%### plot ###
figure, hold on
%# plot histogram
imagesc(xbins, ybins, H>=1)
axis on, axis image, colormap gray
%# plot grid lines
xoff = diff(xbins(1:2))/2; yoff = diff(ybins(1:2))/2;
xv1 = repmat(xbins+xoff,[2 1]); xv1(end+1,:) = NaN;
yv1 = repmat([ybins(1)-yoff;ybins(end)+yoff;NaN],[1 size(xv1,2)]);
yv2 = repmat(ybins+yoff,[2 1]); yv2(end+1,:) = NaN;
xv2 = repmat([xbins(1)-xoff;xbins(end)+xoff;NaN],[1 size(yv2,2)]);
xgrid = [xv1(:);NaN;xv2(:)]; ygrid = [yv1(:);NaN;yv2(:)];
line(xgrid, ygrid, 'Color',[0.8 0.8 0.8], 'HandleVisibility','off')
%# plot points
h(1) = line('XData',X, 'YData',Y, 'LineStyle','none', ...
'Color','b', 'Marker','.', 'MarkerSize',1);
%# plot convex hull
h(2) = patch('XData',dt.X(k,1), 'YData',dt.X(k,2), ...
'LineWidth',2, 'LineStyle','-', ...
'EdgeColor','r', 'FaceColor','r', 'FaceAlpha',0.5);
%# plot freehand polygon
h(3) = plot(pos(:,1), pos(:,2), 'g-', 'LineWidth',2);
%# compare results
title(sprintf('area_{freehand} = %g, area_{grid} = %g, area_{convex} = %g', ...
ar1,ar2,ar3))
legend(h, {'Points' 'Convex Jull','FreeHand'})
hold off
Here is the final result of all three methods overlayed, with the area approximations displayed:
My answer is the simplest and perhaps the least elegant and precise. But first, a comment on previous answers:
Since your shape is usually kidney-shaped (not convex), calculating the area of its convex hull won't do, and an alternative is to determine its concave hull (see e.g. http://www.concavehull.com/home.php?main_menu=1) and calculate the area of that. But determining a concave hull is far more difficult than a convex hull. Plus, straggler points will cause trouble in both he convex and concave hull.
Delaunay triangulation followed by pruning, as suggested in #Ed Staub's answer, may a bit be more straightforward.
My own suggestion is this: How precise does your surface area calculation have to be? My guess is, not very. With either concave hull or pruned Delaunay triangulation, you'll have to make an arbitrary choice anyway as to where the "boundary" of your shape is (the edge isn't knife-sharp, and I see there are some straggler points sprinkled around it).
Therefore a simpler algorithm may be just as good for your application.
Divide your image in an orthogonal grid. Loop through all grid "pixels" or squares; if a given square contains at least one point (or perhaps two points?), mark the square as full, else empty. Finally, add the area of all full squares. Bingo.
The only parameter is the resolution length (size of the squares). Its value should be set to something similar to the pruning length in the case of Delaunay triangulation, i.e. "points within my shape are closer to each other than this length, and points further apart than this length should be ignored".
Perhaps an additional parameter is the number of points threshold for a square to be considered full. Maybe 2 would be good to ignore straggler points, but that may define the main shape a bit too tightly for your taste... Try both 1 and 2, and perhaps take an average of both. Or, use 1 and prune away the squares that have no neighbours (game-of-life-style). Simlarly, empty squares whose 8 neighbours are full should be considered full, to avoid holes in the middle of the shape.
There is no end to how much this algorithm can be refined, but due to the arbitrariness intrinsic to the problem definition in your particular application, any refinement is probably the algorithm equivalent of "polishing a turd".
I know next to nothing, so don't put much stock in this... consider doing a Delaunay triangulation. Then remove any hull (outer) edges longer than some maximum. Repeat until nothing to remove. Fill the remaining triangles.
This will orphan some outlier points.
I suggest using a space-filling-curve, for example a z-curve or better a moore curve. A sfc fills the full space and is good to index each points. For example for all f(x)=y you can sort the points of the curve in ascendending order and from that result you take as many points until you get a full roundtrip. These points you can then use to compute the area. Because you have many points maybe you want to use less points and use a cluster which make the result less accurate.
I think you can get the border points using convex hull algorithm with restriction to the edge length (you should sort points by vertical axis). Thus it will follow nonconvexity of your region. I propose length round 0.02. In any case you can experiment a bit with different lengths drawing the result and examining it visually.