> I am a biologist working in Costa Rica studying lizards. I would like to
> know if image j could help me analyze pictures of a certain species of
> lizards. We want to know if certain males have more of the color black on
> there body than other males. So could image j tell me what percentage of a
> photo is a certain color, particularly black, if so how to I get it to do
> this for me.
>
> Thanks
> -Drew
Drew,
You can probably do this, but you will have to optimize your images for CAIA
(computer automated image analysis). For example, if you can find a way to
take images on a uniform background, and also have a uniform angle, say,
from the top, then you will be making the image analysis easier and more
reliable than trying to do this with variable backgrounds and different
angles, etc. It is theoretically possible, I suppose, to write elaborate
code to eliminate background and reorient lizards taken at various angles,
but that is probably not practical.
Without seeing your images, my guess is that the simplest approach would be
to find an experimental setup where there is good contrast between the
lizards and the background so that it is easy to isolate the lizards using a
threshold, and then threshold the black area and compare it to the total
area. So if you can establish an experimental design where you get good
contrast images of your lizards from the same angle, then yes, getting the
percentage of black should be straightforward.
Chris Coulon
The GAIA Group
Global Automated Image Analysis
We help Researchers help themselves!
Find out about Online Tutoring for ImageJ
Christopher Coulon, Ph.D., Founder
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