How can I count patterns in matrices

I would like to kow whether there is a way of counting the number of continous patterns in a binary matrix.

0 1 0 0 1 0 0

0 1 0 0 1 0 1

1 1 0 1 1 0 1

0 1 0 1 0 0 1

0 1 0 1 1 0 0

0 0 0 0 1 1 1

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

From the above matrix there are three sets of 1's that join up. How can I caount these rather than just the total number of 1's?

[Thomas]

Could you please define "sets of 1's". If you mean more than 1, then there are 4 sets

    1 1 0 1 1 0 1    - 2 sets
    0 1 0 1 1 0 0    - 1 set
    0 0 0 0 1 1 1    - 1 set

Answer 1

[José-Luis]

There is a built in function for that, that allows you to specify a connectivity pattern:

doc bwconncomp