Is there a "bounding box" function (slice with non-zero values) for a ndarray in NumPy?

heltonbiker picture heltonbiker · Jan 26, 2011 · Viewed 7.5k times · Source

I am dealing with arrays created via numpy.array(), and I need to draw points on a canvas simulating an image. Since there is a lot of zero values around the central part of the array which contains the meaningful data, I would like to "trim" the array, erasing columns that only contain zeros and rows that only contain zeros.

So, I would like to know of some native numpy function or even a code snippet to "trim" or find a "bounding box" to slice only the data-containing part of the array.

(since it is a conceptual question, I did not put any code, sorry if I should, I'm very fresh to posting at SO.)

Thanks for reading

Answer

Paul picture Paul · Jan 26, 2011

This should do it:

from numpy import array, argwhere

A = array([[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],
           [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],
           [0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0],
           [0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],
           [0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0],
           [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],
           [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]])

B = argwhere(A)
(ystart, xstart), (ystop, xstop) = B.min(0), B.max(0) + 1 
Atrim = A[ystart:ystop, xstart:xstop]