Main Content

imoverlay

Burn binary mask into 2-D image

collapse all in page

Syntax

B = imoverlay(A,BW)
B = imoverlay(A,BW,color)

Description

B = imoverlay(A,BW) fills the grayscale or RGB image A with a solid color where the input binary mask, BW, is true.

example

B = imoverlay(A,BW,color) specifies the color that imoverlay uses to fill the image.

Examples

collapse all

Open Live Script

Read a grayscale image into the workspace.

A = imread('cameraman.tif');

Read a binary image into the workspace.

BW = imread('text.png');

Burn the binary image into the grayscale image, specifying the color to be used for the binary mask.

B = imoverlay(A,BW,'yellow');

Display the result.

imshow(B)

Figure contains an axes object. The hidden axes object contains an object of type image.

Open Live Script

Read an RGB image into the workspace.

RGB = imread('peppers.png');

Read a binary image into the workspace.

BW = imread('text.png');

Crop the RGB image to make it the same size as the binary mask.

RGB_cropped = imcrop(RGB,[64,128,255,255]);

Burn the binary image into the cropped RGB image, choosing the color to be used.

B = imoverlay(RGB_cropped,BW,'red');

Display the result.

figure
imshow(B)

Figure contains an axes object. The hidden axes object contains an object of type image.

Input Arguments

collapse all

Input image, specified as a 2-D grayscale image or 2-D RGB image.

Data Types: single | double | int16 | uint8 | uint16 | logical

Mask image, specified 2-D binary matrix or 2-D numeric matrix of the same size as the first two dimensions of image A. For numeric input, any nonzero pixels are considered to be 1 (true).

Data Types: single | double | int8 | int16 | int32 | uint8 | uint16 | uint32 | logical

Color used for the overlay, specified as an RGB triplet, a color name, or a short color name.

You can specify any color using an RGB triplet. An RGB triplet is a 3-element row vector whose elements specify the intensities of the red, green, and blue components of the color. The intensities must be in the range [0, 1].

You can specify some common colors by name as a string scalar or character vector. This table lists the named color options and the equivalent RGB triplets.

Color NameShort NameRGB TripletAppearance
"red""r"[1 0 0]

A rectangle colored pure red

"green""g"[0 1 0]

A rectangle colored pure green

"blue""b"[0 0 1]

A rectangle colored pure blue

"cyan" "c"[0 1 1]

A rectangle colored pure cyan

"magenta""m"[1 0 1]

A rectangle colored pure magenta

"yellow""y"[1 1 0]

A rectangle colored pure yellow

"black""k"[0 0 0]

A rectangle colored black

"white""w"[1 1 1]

A rectangle colored white

Here are the RGB triplets for the default colors that MATLAB® uses in many types of plots.

RGB TripletAppearance
[0 0.4470 0.7410]

A rectangle colored medium blue

[0.8500 0.3250 0.0980]

A rectangle colored reddish-orange

[0.9290 0.6940 0.1250]

A rectangle colored dark yellow

[0.4940 0.1840 0.5560]

A rectangle colored dark purple

[0.4660 0.6740 0.1880]

A rectangle colored light green

[0.3010 0.7450 0.9330]

A rectangle colored light blue

[0.6350 0.0780 0.1840]

A rectangle colored dark red

Example: 'r'

Example: 'green'

Example: [0 0.4470 0.7410]

Output Arguments

collapse all

Output image, returned as a 2-D RGB image.

Data Types: uint8

Extended Capabilities

Version History

Introduced in R2016a

See Also

| | |