Segmenting an image into columns

Question

I want to segment the image below (click for bigger image) into columns based on the natural gaps that exist in the columns. The columns should be perfectly vertical and need not be the same size, but should split each column by itself.

I have tried Hough Line Transform, Scipy Label, convolution filters, specifying manual cuts, etc. all with very limited success and nothing I would consider a "solution".

What approach should I take to segment these types of images into columns? Preferably a solution that I can code myself or exists in OpenCV or Python.

Answer 1

You may not need to delve into scipy or opencv. The following solution uses pil and numpy:

from PIL import Image
import numpy


#define a greyscale threshold which we will use later
threshold = 230 

#open image as greyscale with PIL and convert to numpy array
with Image.open('your_image.png').convert('L') as img:
    arr_gry = numpy.array(img)

#create 1-D array of max column values
colmax = numpy.zeros(arr_gry.shape[0])
colmax = numpy.min(arr, axis=0)

#analyse the bands array and define start and end of each band
band_limits = {}
band_list = []
prev_column = 0
for i,column in enumerate(colmax):
    if column > threshold and ('start' not in band_limits):
        band_limits['start'] = i
    if column <=threshold and prev_column > threshold:
        band_limits['end'] = i
        band_list.append(band_limits)
        band_limits = {}
    prev_column = column

###The following is for illustration purposes only

#convert to RGB array
arr_clr = numpy.stack([arr_gry,arr_gry,arr_gry], axis=2)

#Colour the bands and mid points
for band in band_list:
    arr_clr[:,band['start']:band['end']] = [255,0,0]
    arr_clr[:,(band['start']+band['end'])//2] = [0,0,255]

#Convert array to Image
out = Image.fromarray(arr_clr)
out.show()

This produces the following image

Obviously you can use opencv if desired to open, view and save the images. But in this example all the processing is done in numpy so pil is more than capable.

Answer 2

Just an optimized version of Colin Dickie's solution above.

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

im = plt.imread("samples/20181102_CCPED1_120sec.png")

threshold = 0.9
colmax = np.min(im, axis=0)
col_filt = 1*(colmax > threshold) - 1*(colmax <= threshold)

im_filt = im
im_filt[:, col_filt == 1] = 0.0

plt.imshow(im_filt)
plt.show()