Main Content

Start the Control Point Selection Tool

To use the Control Point Selection Tool, enter the cpselect command at the MATLAB® prompt. As arguments, specify the image you want to register (the moving image) and the image you want to compare it to (the fixed image).

The cpselect command has other optional arguments. You can import existing control points, so that you can use the Control Point Selection Tool to modify, delete, or add to existing control points. For example, you can restart a control point selection session by including a cpstruct structure as the third argument. For more information about restarting sessions, see Export Control Points to the Workspace.

For simplicity, this example uses the same image as the moving and the fixed image, and no prior control points are imported. To walk through an example of an actual registration, see Register Images with Projection Distortion Using Control Points.

moon_fixed = imread("moon.tif");
moon_moving = moon_fixed; 
cpselect(moon_moving, moon_fixed);

When the Control Point Selection Tool starts, it contains three primary components:

  • Detail windows—The two windows displayed at the top of the tool are called the Detail windows. These windows show a close-up view of a portion of the images you are working with. The moving image is on the left and the fixed image is on the right.

  • Overview windows—The two windows displayed at the bottom of the tool are called the Overview windows. These windows show the images in their entirety, at the largest scale that fits the window. The moving image is on the left and the fixed image is on the right. You can control whether the Overview window appears by using the View menu.

  • Detail rectangles—Superimposed on the images displayed in the two Overview windows is a rectangle, called the Detail rectangle. This rectangle controls the part of the image that is visible in the Detail window. By default, at startup, the detail rectangle covers one quarter of the entire image and is positioned over the center of the image. You can move the Detail rectangle to change the portion of the image displayed in the Detail windows.

The following figure shows these components of the Control Point Selection Tool.

Four panels in the Control Point Selection tool. The top row has scrollable detail windows showing a magnified view of the moving and fixed images. The bottom row has an overview of the entire moving and fixed image, overlaid with a draggable detail rectangle around the region of the image corresponding to the detail window.

The next step is to use navigation aids to explore the image, looking for visual elements shared by both images. For more information, see Find Visual Elements Common to Both Images.

See Also

Related Topics