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fspecial3

Create predefined 3-D filter

Description

h = fspecial3(type) creates a three-dimensional filter h of the specified type. Some of the filter types have optional additional parameters, shown in the following syntaxes. fspecial3 returns h as a correlation kernel, which is the appropriate form to use with imfilter.

h = fspecial3('average',hsize) returns an averaging filter h of size hsize. Not recommended. Use imboxfilt3 instead.

example

h = fspecial3('ellipsoid',semiaxes) returns an ellipsoidal averaging filter with the length of the principal semiaxes specified by semiaxes. The filter h is returned in an array of size 2*ceil(semiaxes)+1.

h = fspecial3('gaussian',hsize,sigma) returns a Gaussian lowpass filter of size hsize with standard deviation sigma. Not recommended. Use imgaussfilt3 instead.

h = fspecial3('laplacian',gamma1,gamma2) returns a 3-by-3-by-3 filter approximating the shape of the three-dimensional Laplacian operator. gamma1 and gamma2 control the shape of the Laplacian [1][2].

h = fspecial3('log',hsize,sigma) returns a Laplacian of Gaussian filter of size hsize with standard deviation sigma.

h = fspecial3('prewitt',direction) returns a 3-by-3-by-3 filter that emphasizes gradients in the specified direction.

example

h = fspecial3('sobel',direction) returns a 3-by-3-by-3 filter that emphasizes gradients in the specified direction and smooths the other directions [3].

Examples

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Load a 3-D grayscale MRI volume. Display the planes of the volume.

load mristack;
montage(mristack,'BackgroundColor','w')

Create a 3-D ellipsoidal filter. Specify a semiaxis length of 7 pixels in the y (rows) and x (columns) directions, and a semiaxis length of 3 pixels in the z (planes) direction.

H = fspecial3('ellipsoid',[7 7 3]);

Smooth the volume with the filter.

volSmooth = imfilter(mristack,H,'replicate');

Display the planes of the smoothed volume.

montage(volSmooth,'BackgroundColor','w')

Load an MRI volume. This volume is stored as a 4-D array with a singleton dimension. Create a 3-D grayscale volume by using the squeeze function to remove the singleton dimension.

load mri;
V = squeeze(D);

Display the planes of the volume.

montage(D,'BackgroundColor','w')

Create a 3-D Sobel filter that detects horizontal edges in the volume. Horizontal edges appear where there is a large gradient magnitude in the y direction, so specify the direction of the Sobel filter as 'Y'. The Sobel filter smooths the gradient in the x and z directions.

H = fspecial3('sobel','Y');

Filter the volume with the 3-D Sobel filter.

edgesHor = imfilter(V,H,'replicate');

Display the planes of the filtered volume.

montage(edgesHor)

Input Arguments

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Type of filter, specified as one of the following values:

Value

Description

'average'

Averaging filter. Not recommended. Use imboxfilt3 instead.

'ellipsoid'

Ellipsoidal averaging filter

'gaussian'

Gaussian lowpass filter. Not recommended. Use imgaussfilt3 instead.

'laplacian'

Approximates the three-dimensional Laplacian operator

'log'

Laplacian of Gaussian filter

'prewitt'

Prewitt edge-emphasizing filter

'sobel'

Sobel edge-emphasizing filter

Data Types: char | string

Size of the filter, specified as a positive integer or 3-element vector of positive integers. Use a vector to specify the number of rows, columns, and planes in h. Use a scalar to specify the side length of a cube.

For the 'gaussian' and 'log' filter types, if you specify hsize as [], then fspecial3 creates a filter with a default size of 2*ceil(2*sigma)+1.

Data Types: double

Semiaxes length of an ellipsoidal filter, specified as a positive number or 3-element vector of positive numbers. Use a vector to specify the length of the three principal semiaxes in rows, columns, and planes. These values correspond to length in the Cartesian y, x, and z directions, respectively. Use a scalar to specify the radius of a sphere.

Data Types: double

Standard deviation of Gaussian filter, specified as a positive number or 3-element vector of positive numbers. If you specify a scalar, then fspecial3 creates a cubic Gaussian kernel.

Data Types: double

Shape of the Laplacian, specified as a scalar in the range [0 1]. The sum of gamma1 and gamma2 must not exceed 1.

Data Types: double

Direction of gradients for Prewitt and Sobel filtering, specified as 'X', 'Y', or 'Z'.

Data Types: char | string

Output Arguments

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Correlation kernel, returned as a numeric array.

Data Types: double

References

[1] Lindeberg, T., Scale-Space Theory in Computer Vision. Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994.

[2] Geometry-Driven Diffusion in Computer Vision. Edited by B. M. ter Haar Romeny. Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994.

[3] Engel, K., M. Hadwiger, J. M. Kniss, C. Rezk-Salama, and D. Weiskopf. Real-Time Volume Graphics. Wellesley, MA: A K Peters, Ltd., 2006, pp. 112–114.

Extended Capabilities

Version History

Introduced in R2018b