semanticseg

Semantic image segmentation using deep learning

Syntax

C = semanticseg(I,network)

[C,score,allScores] = semanticseg(I,network)

[___] = semanticseg(I,network,roi)

pxds = semanticseg(ds,network)

[___] = semanticseg(___,Name=Value)

Description

C = semanticseg(I,network) returns a semantic segmentation of the input image using deep learning.

[C,score,allScores] = semanticseg(I,network) also returns the classification scores for each categorical label in C. The function returns the scores in an array that corresponds to each pixel or voxel in the input image.

[___] = semanticseg(I,network,roi) returns a semantic segmentation for a rectangular subregion of the input image.

pxds = semanticseg(ds,network) returns the semantic segmentation for a collection of images in ds, a datastore object.

The function supports parallel computing using multiple MATLAB^® workers. You can enable parallel computing using the Computer Vision Toolbox Preferences dialog.

[___] = semanticseg(___,Name=Value) specifies options using one or more name-value arguments in addition to any combination of arguments from previous syntaxes. For example, ExecutionEnvironment="gpu" sets the hardware resource for processing images to gpu.

Examples

Semantic Image Segmentation

Perform semantic segmentation of a test image and display the results.

Load a pretrained network.

load("triangleSegmentationNetwork")

List the network layers.

net.Layers

ans = 
  9x1 Layer array with layers:

     1   'imageinput'        Image Input                  32x32x1 images with 'zerocenter' normalization
     2   'conv_1'            2-D Convolution              64 3x3x1 convolutions with stride [1  1] and padding [1  1  1  1]
     3   'relu_1'            ReLU                         ReLU
     4   'maxpool'           2-D Max Pooling              2x2 max pooling with stride [2  2] and padding [0  0  0  0]
     5   'conv_2'            2-D Convolution              64 3x3x64 convolutions with stride [1  1] and padding [1  1  1  1]
     6   'relu_2'            ReLU                         ReLU
     7   'transposed-conv'   2-D Transposed Convolution   64 4x4x64 transposed convolutions with stride [2  2] and cropping [1  1  1  1]
     8   'conv_3'            2-D Convolution              2 1x1x64 convolutions with stride [1  1] and padding [0  0  0  0]
     9   'softmax'           Softmax                      softmax

Read and display the test image.

I = imread("triangleTest.jpg");
imshow(I)

Define the two classes on which the network was trained, then perform semantic image segmentation.

classNames = ["triangle" "background"];
[C,scores] = semanticseg(I,net,Classes=classNames,MiniBatchSize=32);

Overlay segmentation results on the image and display the results.

B = labeloverlay(I,C);
imshow(B)

Display the classification confidence scores.

imagesc(scores)
axis square
colorbar

Create a binary mask with only the triangles.

BW = C=="triangle";
imshow(BW)

Evaluate Semantic Segmentation Test Set

Run semantic segmentation on a test set of images and compare the results against ground truth data.

Load a pretrained network.

data = load("triangleSegmentationNetwork");
net = data.net;

Load test images using imageDatastore.

dataDir = fullfile(toolboxdir("vision"),"visiondata","triangleImages");
testImageDir = fullfile(dataDir,"testImages");
imds = imageDatastore(testImageDir)

imds = 
  ImageDatastore with properties:

                       Files: {
                              ' .../toolbox/vision/visiondata/triangleImages/testImages/image_001.jpg';
                              ' .../toolbox/vision/visiondata/triangleImages/testImages/image_002.jpg';
                              ' .../toolbox/vision/visiondata/triangleImages/testImages/image_003.jpg'
                               ... and 97 more
                              }
                     Folders: {
                              ' .../runnable/matlab/toolbox/vision/visiondata/triangleImages/testImages'
                              }
    AlternateFileSystemRoots: {}
                    ReadSize: 1
                      Labels: {}
      SupportedOutputFormats: ["png"    "jpg"    "jpeg"    "tif"    "tiff"]
         DefaultOutputFormat: "png"
                     ReadFcn: @readDatastoreImage

Load ground truth test labels.

testLabelDir = fullfile(dataDir,"testLabels");
classNames = ["triangle" "background"];
pixelLabelID = [255 0];
pxdsTruth = pixelLabelDatastore(testLabelDir,classNames,pixelLabelID);

Run semantic segmentation on all of the test images with a batch size of 4. You can increase the batch size to increase throughput based on your systems memory resources.

pxdsResults = semanticseg(imds,net,Classes=classNames, ...
    MiniBatchSize=4,WriteLocation=tempdir);

Running semantic segmentation network
-------------------------------------
* Processed 100 images.

Compare the results against the ground truth.

metrics = evaluateSemanticSegmentation(pxdsResults,pxdsTruth)

Evaluating semantic segmentation results
----------------------------------------
* Selected metrics: global accuracy, class accuracy, IoU, weighted IoU, BF score.
* Processed 100 images.
* Finalizing... Done.
* Data set metrics:

    GlobalAccuracy    MeanAccuracy    MeanIoU    WeightedIoU    MeanBFScore
    ______________    ____________    _______    ___________    ___________

       0.99074          0.99183       0.91118      0.98299        0.80563  

metrics = 
  semanticSegmentationMetrics with properties:

              ConfusionMatrix: [2x2 table]
    NormalizedConfusionMatrix: [2x2 table]
               DataSetMetrics: [1x5 table]
                 ClassMetrics: [2x3 table]
                 ImageMetrics: [100x5 table]

Semantic Segmentation Using Dilated Convolutions

This example shows how to train a semantic segmentation network using dilated convolutions.

A semantic segmentation network classifies every pixel in an image, resulting in an image that is segmented by class. Applications for semantic segmentation include road segmentation for autonomous driving and cancer cell segmentation for medical diagnosis. To learn more, see Getting Started with Semantic Segmentation Using Deep Learning.

Semantic segmentation networks like Deeplab v3+ [1] make extensive use of dilated convolutions (also known as atrous convolutions) because they can increase the receptive field of the layer (the area of the input which the layers can see) without increasing the number of parameters or computations.

Load Training Data

The example uses a simple dataset of 32-by-32 triangle images for illustration purposes. The dataset includes accompanying pixel label ground truth data. Load the training data using an imageDatastore and a pixelLabelDatastore.

dataFolder = fullfile(toolboxdir("vision"),"visiondata","triangleImages");
imageFolderTrain = fullfile(dataFolder,"trainingImages");
labelFolderTrain = fullfile(dataFolder,"trainingLabels");

Create an imageDatastore for the images.

imdsTrain = imageDatastore(imageFolderTrain);

Create a pixelLabelDatastore for the ground truth pixel labels.

classNames = ["triangle" "background"];
labels = [255 0];
pxdsTrain = pixelLabelDatastore(labelFolderTrain,classNames,labels)

pxdsTrain = 
  PixelLabelDatastore with properties:

                       Files: {200×1 cell}
                  ClassNames: {2×1 cell}
                    ReadSize: 1
                     ReadFcn: @readDatastoreImage
    AlternateFileSystemRoots: {}

Create Semantic Segmentation Network

This example uses a simple semantic segmentation network based on dilated convolutions.

Create a data source for training data and get the pixel counts for each label.

ds = combine(imdsTrain,pxdsTrain);
tbl = countEachLabel(pxdsTrain)

tbl=2×3 table
         Name         PixelCount    ImagePixelCount
    ______________    __________    _______________

    {'triangle'  }         10326       2.048e+05   
    {'background'}    1.9447e+05       2.048e+05   

The majority of pixel labels are for background. This class imbalance biases the learning process in favor of the dominant class. To fix this, use class weighting to balance the classes. You can use several methods to compute class weights. One common method is inverse frequency weighting where the class weights are the inverse of the class frequencies. This method increases the weight given to under represented classes. Calculate the class weights using inverse frequency weighting.

numberPixels = sum(tbl.PixelCount);
frequency = tbl.PixelCount / numberPixels;
classWeights = dlarray(1 ./ frequency,"C");

Create a network for pixel classification by using an image input layer with an input size corresponding to the size of the input images. Next, specify three blocks of convolution, batch normalization, and ReLU layers. For each convolutional layer, specify 32 3-by-3 filters with increasing dilation factors and pad the inputs so they are the same size as the outputs by setting the Padding name-value argument as "same". To classify the pixels, include a convolutional layer with K 1-by-1 convolutions, where K is the number of classes, followed by a softmax layer. The classification of pixels is done with a custom model loss within the built-in trainer, trainnet.

inputSize = [32 32 1];
filterSize = 3;
numFilters = 32;
numClasses = numel(classNames);

layers = [
    imageInputLayer(inputSize)
    
    convolution2dLayer(filterSize,numFilters,DilationFactor=1,Padding="same")
    batchNormalizationLayer
    reluLayer
    
    convolution2dLayer(filterSize,numFilters,DilationFactor=2,Padding="same")
    batchNormalizationLayer
    reluLayer
    
    convolution2dLayer(filterSize,numFilters,DilationFactor=4,Padding="same")
    batchNormalizationLayer
    reluLayer
    
    convolution2dLayer(1,numClasses)
    softmaxLayer];

Model Loss Function

The semantic segmentation network can be trained using different loss functions. The built-in trainer trainnet (Deep Learning Toolbox) supports custom loss functions as well as some standard loss functions such as "crossentropy" and "mse". A custom loss function manually computes the loss for each batch of training data by comparing the network's predictions to the actual ground truth or target values. Custom loss functions use a function handle with the function syntax loss = f(Y1,...,Yn,T1,...,Tm), where Y1,...,Yn are dlarray objects that correspond to the n network predictions and T1,...,Tm are dlarray objects that correspond to the m targets.

This example enables you to select from two different loss functions that account for the class imbalance seen in the data. These loss functions are:

1. Weighted cross-entropy loss, which uses the crossentropy (Deep Learning Toolbox) function. Weighted cross-entropy loss gives stronger favor to the underrepresented class by scaling the error of that class during training.

2. A custom loss function called tverskyLoss that calculates the Tversky loss [2]. Tversky loss is more specialized loss for class imbalance.

The Tversky loss is based on the Tversky index for measuring overlap between two segmented images. The Tversky index ${\mathrm{TI}}_{\mathit{c}}$ between one image $\mathit{Y}$ and the corresponding ground truth $\mathit{T}$ is given by

${\mathrm{TI}}_{\mathit{c}}=\frac{{\sum }_{\mathit{m}=1}^{\mathit{M}}{\mathit{Y}}_{\mathrm{cm}}{\mathit{T}}_{\mathrm{cm}}}{{\sum }_{\mathit{m}=1}^{\mathit{M}}{\mathit{Y}}_{\mathrm{cm}}{\mathit{T}}_{\mathrm{cm}}+\alpha {\sum }_{\mathit{m}=1}^{\mathit{M}}{\mathit{Y}}_{\mathrm{cm}}{\mathit{T}}_{\bar{\mathrm{c}}\mathit{m}}+\beta {\sum }_{\mathit{m}=1}^{\mathit{M}}{\mathit{Y}}_{\bar{\mathrm{c}}\mathit{m}}{\mathit{T}}_{\mathrm{cm}}}$

• $\mathit{c}$ corresponds to the class and $\bar{\mathit{c}}$corresponds to not being in class $\mathit{c}$.

• $\mathit{M}$ is the number of elements along the first two dimensions of $\mathit{Y}$.

• $\alpha$ and $\beta$ are weighting factors that control the contribution that false positives and false negatives for each class make to the loss.

The loss $\mathit{L}$over the number of classes $\mathit{C}$ is given by

$$\mathit{L}=\sum _{\mathit{c}=1}^{\mathit{C}}1-{\mathrm{TI}}_{\mathit{c}}$$

Select the loss function to use during training.

lossFunction = "tverskyLoss"

lossFunction = 
"tverskyLoss"

if strcmp(lossFunction,"tverskyLoss")
    % Declare Tversky loss weighting coefficients for false positives and
    % false negatives. These coefficients are set and passed to the
    % training loss function using trainnet.
    alpha = 0.7;
    beta = 0.3;
    lossFcn = @(Y,T) tverskyLoss(Y,T,alpha,beta);
else
    % Use weighted cross-entropy loss during training.
    lossFcn = @(Y,T) crossentropy(Y,T,classWeights,NormalizationFactor="all-elements");
end

Train Network

Specify the training options.

options = trainingOptions("sgdm",...
    MaxEpochs=100,...
    MiniBatchSize= 64,... 
    InitialLearnRate=1e-2,...
    Verbose=false);

Train the network using trainnet (Deep Learning Toolbox). Specify the loss as the loss function lossFcn.

net = trainnet(ds,layers,lossFcn,options);

Test Network

Load the test data. Create an imageDatastore for the images. Create a pixelLabelDatastore for the ground truth pixel labels.

imageFolderTest = fullfile(dataFolder,"testImages");
imdsTest = imageDatastore(imageFolderTest);
labelFolderTest = fullfile(dataFolder,"testLabels");
pxdsTest = pixelLabelDatastore(labelFolderTest,classNames,labels);

Make predictions using the test data and trained network.

pxdsPred = semanticseg(imdsTest,net,...
    Classes=classNames,...
    MiniBatchSize=32,...
    WriteLocation=tempdir);

Running semantic segmentation network
-------------------------------------
* Processed 100 images.

Evaluate the prediction accuracy using evaluateSemanticSegmentation.

metrics = evaluateSemanticSegmentation(pxdsPred,pxdsTest);

Evaluating semantic segmentation results
----------------------------------------
* Selected metrics: global accuracy, class accuracy, IoU, weighted IoU, BF score.
* Processed 100 images.
* Finalizing... Done.
* Data set metrics:

    GlobalAccuracy    MeanAccuracy    MeanIoU    WeightedIoU    MeanBFScore
    ______________    ____________    _______    ___________    ___________

       0.99674          0.98562       0.96447      0.99362        0.92831  

Segment New Image

Read the test image triangleTest.jpg and segment the test image using semanticseg. Display the results using labeloverlay.

imgTest = imread("triangleTest.jpg");
[C,scores] = semanticseg(imgTest,net,classes=classNames);

B = labeloverlay(imgTest,C);
montage({imgTest,B})

Supporting Functions

function loss = tverskyLoss(Y,T,alpha,beta)
    % loss = tverskyLoss(Y,T,alpha,beta) returns the Tversky loss
    % between the predictions Y and the training targets T.   
    
    Pcnot = 1-Y;
    Gcnot = 1-T;
    TP = sum(sum(Y.*T,1),2);
    FP = sum(sum(Y.*Gcnot,1),2);
    FN = sum(sum(Pcnot.*T,1),2); 
    
    epsilon = 1e-8;
    numer = TP + epsilon;
    denom = TP + alpha*FP + beta*FN + epsilon;
    
    % Compute tversky index.
    lossTIc = 1 - numer./denom;
    lossTI = sum(lossTIc,3);
    
    % Return average Tversky index loss.
    N = size(Y,4);
    loss = sum(lossTI)/N;
end

References

[1] Chen, Liang-Chieh et al. “Encoder-Decoder with Atrous Separable Convolution for Semantic Image Segmentation.” ECCV (2018).

[2] Salehi, Seyed Sadegh Mohseni, Deniz Erdogmus, and Ali Gholipour. "Tversky loss function for image segmentation using 3D fully convolutional deep networks." International Workshop on Machine Learning in Medical Imaging. Springer, Cham, 2017.

Input Arguments

I — Input image

numeric array

Input image, specified as one of the following.

Image Type	Data Format
Single 2-D grayscale image	2-D matrix of size H-by-W
Single 2-D color image or 2-D multispectral image	3-D array of size H-by-W-by-C. The number of color channels C is 3 for color images.
Series of P 2-D images	4-D array of size H-by-W-by-C-by-P. The number of color channels C is 1 for grayscale images and 3 for color images.
Single 3-D grayscale image with depth D	3-D array of size H-by-W-by-D
Single 3-D color image or 3-D multispectral image	4-D array of size H-by-W-by-D-by-C. The number of color channels C is 3 for color images.
Series of P 3-D images	5-D array of size H-by-W-by-D-by-C-by-P

The input image can also be a gpuArray (Parallel Computing Toolbox) containing one of the preceding image types (requires Parallel Computing Toolbox™).

Data Types: uint8 | uint16 | int16 | double | single | logical

network — Network

dlnetwork object | taylorPrunableNetwork object

Network, specified as a dlnetwork (Deep Learning Toolbox) or taylorPrunableNetwork (Deep Learning Toolbox) object.

roi — Region of interest

4-element numeric vector | 6-element vector

Region of interest, specified as one of the following.

Image Type	ROI Format
2-D image	4-element vector of the form [x,y,width,height]
3-D image	6-element vector of the form [x,y,z,width,height,depth]

The vector defines a rectangular or cuboidal region of interest fully contained in the input image. Image pixels outside the region of interest are assigned the <undefined> categorical label. If the input image consists of a series of images, then semanticseg applies the same roi to all images in the series.

ds — Collection of images

datastore object

Collection of images, specified as a datastore. The read function of the datastore must return a numeric array, cell array, or table. For cell arrays or tables with multiple columns, the function processes only the first column.

For more information, see Datastores for Deep Learning (Deep Learning Toolbox).

Name-Value Arguments

Specify optional pairs of arguments as Name1=Value1,...,NameN=ValueN, where Name is the argument name and Value is the corresponding value. Name-value arguments must appear after other arguments, but the order of the pairs does not matter.

Example: ExecutionEnvironment="gpu" sets the hardware resource for processing images to "gpu".

Before R2021a, use commas to separate each name and value, and enclose Name in quotes.

OutputType — Returned segmentation type

"categorical" (default) | "double" | "uint8"

Returned segmentation type, specified as "categorical", "double", or "uint8". When you specify "double" or "uint8", the function returns the segmentation results as a label array containing label IDs. The IDs are integer values that correspond to the class names defined in the classification layer used in the input network.

You cannot use the OutputType property with an ImageDatastore object input.

MiniBatchSize — Group of images

128 (default) | integer

Group of images, specified as an integer. Images are grouped and processed together as a batch. Batches are used for processing a large collection of images and they improve computational efficiency. Increasing the 'MiniBatchSize' value increases the efficiency, but it also takes up more memory.

ExecutionEnvironment — Hardware resource

"auto" (default) | "gpu" | "cpu"

Hardware resource for processing images with a network, specified as "auto", "gpu", or "cpu".

ExecutionEnvironment	Description
"auto"	Use a GPU if available. Otherwise, use the CPU. The use of GPU requires Parallel Computing Toolbox and a CUDA® enabled NVIDIA® GPU. For information about the supported compute capabilities, see GPU Computing Requirements (Parallel Computing Toolbox).
"gpu"	Use the GPU. If a suitable GPU is not available, the function returns an error message.
"cpu"	Use the CPU.

Acceleration — Performance optimization

"auto" (default) | "mex" | "none"

Performance optimization, specified as "auto", "mex", or "none".

Acceleration	Description
"auto"	Automatically apply a number of optimizations suitable for the input network and hardware resource.
"mex"	Compile and execute a MEX function. This option is available when using a GPU only. You must also have a C/C++ compiler installed. For setup instructions, see MEX Setup (GPU Coder).
"none"	Disable all acceleration.

The default option is "auto". If you use the "auto" option, then MATLAB does not ever generate a MEX function.

Using the Acceleration name-value argument options "auto" and "mex" can offer performance benefits, but at the expense of an increased initial run time. Subsequent calls with compatible parameters are faster. Use performance optimization when you plan to call the function multiple times using new input data.

The "mex" option generates and executes a MEX function based on the network and parameters used in the function call. You can have several MEX functions associated with a single network at one time. Clearing the network variable also clears any MEX functions associated with that network.

The "mex" option is only available when you are using a GPU. Using a GPU requires Parallel Computing Toolbox and a CUDA enabled NVIDIA GPU. For information about the supported compute capabilities, see GPU Computing Requirements (Parallel Computing Toolbox). If Parallel Computing Toolbox or a suitable GPU is not available, then the function returns an error.

"mex" acceleration does not support all layers. For a list of supported layers, see Supported Layers (GPU Coder).

Classes — Classes into which pixels or voxels are classified

"auto" (default) | cell array of character vectors | string vector | categorical vector

Classes into which pixels or voxels are classified, specified as "auto", a cell array of character vectors, a string vector, or a categorical vector. If the value is a categorical vector Y, then the elements of the vector are sorted and ordered according to categories(Y).

If the network is a dlnetwork (Deep Learning Toolbox) object, then the number of classes specified by 'Classes' must match the number of channels in the output of the network predictions. By default, when 'Classes' has the value "auto", the classes are numbered from 1 through C, where C is the number of channels in the output layer of the network.

If the network is a SeriesNetwork (Deep Learning Toolbox) or DAGNetwork (Deep Learning Toolbox) object, then the number of classes specified by the Classes name-value argument must match the number of classes in the classification output layer. By default, when Classes has the value "auto", the classes are automatically set using the classification output layer.

WriteLocation — Folder location

pwd (current working folder) (default) | string scalar | character vector

Folder location, specified as pwd (your current working folder), a string scalar, or a character vector. The specified folder must exist and have write permissions.

This property applies only when using a datastore that can process images.

NamePrefix — Prefix applied to output filenames

"pixelLabel" (default) | string scalar | character vector

Prefix applied to output filenames, specified as a string scalar or character vector. The image files are named as follows:

• <prefix>_<N>.png, where N corresponds to the index of the input image file, imds.Files(N).

This property applies only when using a datastore that can process images.

OutputFolderName — Output folder name

"semanticsegOutput" (default) | string scalar | character vector

Output folder name for segmentation results, specified as a string scalar or a character vector. This folder is in the location specified by the value of the WriteLocation name-value argument.

If the output folder already exists, the function creates a new folder with the string "_1" appended to the end of the name. Set OutputFoldername to "" to write all the results to the folder specified by WriteLocation.

NameSuffix — Suffix to add to the output image filename

string scalar | character vector

Suffix to add to the output image filename, specified as a string scalar or a character vector. The function appends the specified suffix to the output filename as:

• <prefix>_<N><suffix>.png, where N corresponds to the index of the input image file, imds.Files(N).

If you do not specify the suffix, the function uses the input filenames as the output file suffixes. The function extracts the input filenames from the info output of the read object function of the datastore. When the datastore does not provide the filename, the function does not add a suffix.

Verbose — Display progress information

false or 0 (default) | true or 1

Display progress information, specified as a logical 0 (false) or 1 (true). Specify Verbose as true to display progress information. This property applies only when using a datastore that can process images.

UseParallel — Run parallel computations

"false" (default) | true

Run parallel computations , specified as "true" or "false".

To run in parallel, set 'UseParallel' to true or enable this by default using the Computer Vision Toolbox™ preferences.

For more information, see Parallel Computing Toolbox Support.

Output Arguments

C — Categorical labels

categorical array

Categorical labels, returned as a categorical array. The categorical array relates a label to each pixel or voxel in the input image. The images returned by readall(datastore) have a one-to-one correspondence with the categorical matrices returned by readall(pixelLabelDatastore). The elements of the label array correspond to the pixel or voxel elements of the input image. If you select an ROI, then the labels are limited to the area within the ROI. Image pixels and voxels outside the region of interest are assigned the <undefined> categorical label.

Image Type	Categorical Label Format
Single 2-D image	2-D matrix of size H-by-W. Element C(i,j) is the categorical label assigned to the pixel I(i,j).
Series of P 2-D images	3-D array of size H-by-W-by-P. Element C(i,j,p) is the categorical label assigned to the pixel I(i,j,p).
Single 3-D image	3-D array of size H-by-W-by-D. Element C(i,j,k) is the categorical label assigned to the voxel I(i,j,k).
Series of P 3-D images	4-D array of size H-by-W-by-D-by-P. Element C(i,j,k,p) is the categorical label assigned to the voxel I(i,j,k,p).

score — Confidence scores

numeric array

Confidence scores for each categorical label in C, returned as an array of values between 0 and 1. The scores represents the confidence in the predicted labels C. Higher score values indicate a higher confidence in the predicted label.

Image Type	Score Format
Single 2-D image	2-D matrix of size H-by-W. Element score(i,j) is the classification score of the pixel I(i,j).
Series of P 2-D images	3-D array of size H-by-W-by-P. Element score(i,j,p) is the classification score of the pixel I(i,j,p).
Single 3-D image	3-D array of size H-by-W-by-D. Element score(i,j,k) is the classification score of the voxel I(i,j,k).
Series of P 3-D images	4-D array of size H-by-W-by-D-by-P. Element score(i,j,k,p) is the classification score of the voxel I(i,j,k,p).

allScores — Scores for all label categories

numeric array

Scores for all label categories that the input network can classify, returned as a numeric array. The format of the array is described in the following table. L represents the total number of label categories.

Image Type	All Scores Format
Single 2-D image	3-D array of size H-by-W-by-L. Element allScores(i,j,q) is the score of the qth label at the pixel I(i,j).
Series of P 2-D images	4-D array of size H-by-W-by-L-by-P. Element allScores(i,j,q,p) is the score of the qth label at the pixel I(i,j,p).
Single 3-D image	4-D array of size H-by-W-by-D-by-L. Element allScores(i,j,k,q) is the score of the qth label at the voxel I(i,j,k).
Series of P 3-D images	5-D array of size H-by-W-by-D-by-L-by-P. Element allScores(i,j,k,q,p) is the score of the qth label at the voxel I(i,j,k,p).

pxds — Semantic segmentation results

PixelLabelDatastore object

Semantic segmentation results, returned as a pixelLabelDatastore object. The object contains the semantic segmentation results for all the images contained in the ds input object. The result for each image is saved as separate uint8 label matrices of PNG images. You can use read(pxds) to return the categorical labels assigned to the images in ds.

The images in the output of readall(ds) have a one-to-one correspondence with the categorical matrices in the output of readall(pxds).

Extended Capabilities

C/C++ Code Generation

Generate C and C++ code using MATLAB® Coder™.

Usage notes and limitations:

• To prepare a semanticSeg object for code generation, use coder.loadDeepLearningNetwork.

• For code generation, the semanticSeg object does not support imageDatastore and 3-D images as input.

• For code generation, ExcecutionEnvironment and Acceleration name value pairs are ignored with compile time warnings.

• For code generation, only OutputType, MiniBatchSize, and Classes name value arguments are supported. These name value arguments must be compile time constants.

• For code generation, Classes name value argument does not support string array as input.

• For code generation, pxds output argument is not supported.

GPU Code Generation

Generate CUDA® code for NVIDIA® GPUs using GPU Coder™.

Usage notes and limitations:

• To prepare a semanticSeg object for code generation, use coder.loadDeepLearningNetwork.

• For code generation, the semanticSeg object does not support imageDatastore and 3-D images as input.

• For code generation, ExcecutionEnvironment and Acceleration name value pairs are ignored with compile time warnings.

• For code generation, only OutputType, MiniBatchSize, and Classes name value arguments are supported. These name value arguments must be compile time constants.

• For code generation, Classes name value argument does not support string array as input.

• For code generation, pxds output argument is not supported.

Automatic Parallel Support

Accelerate code by automatically running computation in parallel using Parallel Computing Toolbox™.

To run in parallel, set 'UseParallel' to true or enable this by default using the Computer Vision Toolbox preferences.

For more information, see Parallel Computing Toolbox Support.

Version History

Introduced in R2017b

R2024a: DAGNetwork and SeriesNetwork objects are not recommended

Starting in R2024a, DAGNetwork (Deep Learning Toolbox) and SeriesNetwork (Deep Learning Toolbox) objects are not recommended. Instead, specify the semantic segmentation network as a dlnetwork (Deep Learning Toolbox) object.

There are no plans to remove support for DAGNetwork and SeriesNetwork objects. However, dlnetwork objects have these advantages:

• dlnetwork objects support a wider range of network architectures which you can then easily train using the trainnet (Deep Learning Toolbox) function or import from external platforms.

• dlnetwork objects provide more flexibility. They have wider support with current and upcoming Deep Learning Toolbox™ functionality.

• dlnetwork objects provide a unified data type that supports network building, prediction, built-in training, compression, and custom training loops.

• dlnetwork training and prediction is typically faster than DAGNetwork and SeriesNetwork training and prediction.

R2023a: Output file location

The semanticseg function now writes output files to the folder specified by the WriteLocation and OutputFolderName name-value arguments as <WriteLocation>/<OutputFolderName>. Prior to R2023a, the function wrote output files directly into the location specified by WriteLocation. To get the same results as in previous releases, set the OutputFolderName name-value argument to "".