scipy.misc module has no attribute imread?

Question

I am trying to read an image with scipy. However it does not accept the scipy.misc.imread part. What could be the cause of this?

>>> import scipy
>>> scipy.misc
<module 'scipy.misc' from 'C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\scipy\misc\__init__.pyc'>
>>> scipy.misc.imread('test.tif')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#11>", line 1, in <module>
    scipy.misc.imread('test.tif')
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'imread'

which version of scipy are you using? `scipy.__version__` gives `0.9.0` for me and i cannot reproduce your problem — hannes, Mar 11 '13 at 18:27
do you get the same error if you do `from scipy.misc import imread`, and then `imread('test.tif')` ? — karthikr, Mar 11 '13 at 18:27
I think this function depends on PIL (http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/) being installed. Do you have PIL? — Wilduck, Mar 11 '13 at 18:32
`imread` was deprecated in SciPy 1.0.0, and is removed in 1.2.0. Use ``imageio.imread`` instead. — Manas, Oct 03 '19 at 14:30
@Manas Bhardwaj, Is `imageio` a replacement for scipy's `misc`? Because, in `scipy.misc` there was `imresize` functionality, which is not there in `imageio`. Can someone help me with this? Thank you. — saichand, Apr 23 '20 at 03:42
Apparently, I found that imageio is not a replacement for the scipy.misc. Alternative for imresize of scipy.misc can be found in PIL library. [refer this link](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57414277/alternative-to-scipy-misc-imresize) for imresize alternative — saichand, Apr 23 '20 at 04:14

score 169 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 23 '18 at 18:29

169

imread is deprecated in SciPy 1.0.0, and will be removed in 1.2.0. Use imageio.imread instead.

import imageio
im = imageio.imread('astronaut.png')
im.shape  # im is a numpy array
(512, 512, 3)
imageio.imwrite('imageio:astronaut-gray.jpg', im[:, :, 0])

edited Jan 23 '18 at 18:29

Keith Prussing

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answered Dec 18 '17 at 09:43

Shadab

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SciPy's imread used to return a numpy.ndarray. imageio.imread returns imageio.core.util.Array. If you want/need a numpy.ndarray and don't want to convert it, use matplotlib.pyplot.imread, as it also returns a numpy.ndarray. – Stefan Jan 20 '19 at 14:55
3

I have a similar problem here, but with respect to `imresize`. Previously, `scipy.misc.imresize` works. Now it is deprecated and where will I get an alternative for this? – saichand Apr 23 '20 at 03:46
It's a joke @saichand – filip May 07 '20 at 13:49
1

@filip, I tried using the scipy.misc.imresize. It doesn't work now, but I had used it sometime back. I wish You could correct me if what I said had any mistakes in that comment rather than saying it as a joke. I am open to learning from my mistakes. What is wrong in my comment? Thank you. – saichand May 08 '20 at 09:04
Well I have to admit it I was a little bit frustrated with my comment at that time I wrote it :P. I meant that it's a joke they didn't provide wheels or installations below 1.0 for scipy on windows. If you're still looking to use it just use scipy==1.2.0 since it's still available there (just marked as deprecated, still works!) @saichand – filip May 11 '20 at 13:42
Does the `imageio.core.util.Array` have the correct dtype? Does a 8 bit image get returned at `uint8`? – Lucas Sep 04 '20 at 23:09
2

When writing your own code, use the newer alternatives. But when trying to run some code you know little about, it's easier to install an old scipy version, e.g. in conda `conda install scipy==1.2.1`. There seems to be no drop-in replacement for both imread and imresize. – Caranown Apr 01 '21 at 11:15
@Stefan There is virtually no difference between a `imageio.core.util.Array` (it is - in fact - a ndarray subclass) and `np.ndarray` except for the additional `_meta` field. If you don't need metadata, you can simply call `np.asarray(iio.imread(...))` to discard it; the "conversion" will be very efficient since there is nothing to convert. Also note that mpl forwards everything to pillow internally, whereas imageio may use additional backends if pillow support for a format isn't great (TIFF) or absent (raw formats, video, ...). – FirefoxMetzger Feb 03 '22 at 08:46

Wilduck · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-11T14:43:53.337

146

You need to install Pillow (formerly PIL). From the docs on scipy.misc:

Note that Pillow is not a dependency of SciPy but the image manipulation functions indicated in the list below are not available without it:

...

imread

...

After installing Pillow, I was able to access imread as follows:

In [1]: import scipy.misc

In [2]: scipy.misc.imread
Out[2]: <function scipy.misc.pilutil.imread>

edited Oct 11 '17 at 14:43

answered Mar 11 '13 at 18:34

Wilduck

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Orz, but if I install PIL, then it will give me ` – Allan Ruin Nov 10 '14 at 09:24
21

It should be Pillow instead of PIL now. Reference: https://pillow.readthedocs.org/ – Yuchen Nov 23 '14 at 23:45
You saved my day-but why scipy documentation is so poor! My steps are install numpy+MKL>Pillow>Scipy all are downloaded from university of California at Irvine compiled python modules for windows. – Learner Nov 18 '16 at 10:17
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**READ THE NEXT ANSWER** (@Shadab's answer) as well, and note that it's just `imageio`, not `scipy.imageio`. – Terry Brown Aug 26 '19 at 17:11
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Note that this does not work with the latest version of SciPy (1.3.0). The solution from Shadab works. – Nikhil Gupta Sep 24 '19 at 09:44
using the imageio module worked for me. Python 3.9.2 SciPy 1.6.1 – cod3-jr Mar 20 '21 at 18:39
4

Outdated answer for any recent SciPy version (>= 1.2). – Pieter Meiresone Apr 13 '21 at 15:28
i cant seem to get Pillow to work atm anyhow, no matter how i install it it says there is no module Pillow, and which pillow: `pillow not found` despite it also saying when i try to reinstall: `Requirement already satisfied: Pillow in /usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages (8.3.1)`. so maybe thats a non standard path problem or a brew problem, but im not sure how to fix it. and the `imageio` solution just works. ive had Pillow installed and functional before in the past, so not sure whatsup. – jsky Aug 02 '21 at 14:37

score 62 · Answer 3 · answered May 24 '19 at 09:05

62

imread is depreciated after version 1.2.0! So to solve this issue I had to install version 1.1.0.

pip install scipy==1.1.0

answered May 24 '19 at 09:05

mahbubcseju

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See @Shadab's answer, it's in `imageio` now. – Terry Brown Aug 26 '19 at 17:12
It is removed starting 1.3.0, so the latest to install is at least 1.2.1 – Caranown Apr 01 '21 at 11:17
2

Removing and installing an older version is not a solution. – Pieter Meiresone Apr 13 '21 at 15:16

score 43 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 31 '18 at 10:47

43

For Python 3, it is best to use imread in matplotlib.pyplot:

from matplotlib.pyplot import imread

answered Mar 31 '18 at 10:47

MasterJedi

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No, its not. MatPlotlib converts to `float`. `cv2.imread()` correctly preserves the dtype of the image. – Lucas Sep 04 '20 at 23:06

score 19 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 26 '19 at 05:08

19

In case anyone encountering the same issue, please uninstall scipy and install scipy==1.1.0

$ pip uninstall scipy

$ pip install scipy==1.1.0

answered Jun 26 '19 at 05:08

SuperNova

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as @Pieter Meiresone removing and installing an older version is not a solution.It is may be conflict with other package that have dependency on scipy. – r.a.shehni May 16 '22 at 08:14

score 11 · Answer 6 · answered May 20 '18 at 12:36

11

As answered misc.imread is deprecated in SciPy 1.0.0, and will be removed in 1.2.0. imageio is one option,it will return object of type :

<class 'imageio.core.util.Image'>

but instead of imageio, use cv2

import cv2
im = cv2.imread('astronaut.png')

im will be of type : <class 'numpy.ndarray'>

As numpy arrays are faster to compute.

answered May 20 '18 at 12:36

kshitij_p

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imageio works, but cv2 cause error : libpng warning: Invalid image height in IHDR – sailfish009 Feb 18 '20 at 08:15

score 9 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 11 '17 at 00:53

You need the Python Imaging Library (PIL) but alas! the PIL project seems to have been abandoned. In particular, it hasn't been ported to Python 3. So if you want PIL functionality in Python 3, you'll do well do use Pillow, which is the semi-official fork of PIL and appears to be actively developed. Actually, if you need a modern PIL implementation at all I'd recommend Pillow. It's as simple as pip install pillow. As it uses the same namespace as PIL it's essentially a drop-in replacement.

How "semi-official" is this fork? you may ask. The About page of the Pillow docs say this:

As more time passes since the last PIL release, the likelihood of a new PIL release decreases. However, we’ve yet to hear an official “PIL is dead” announcement. So if you still want to support PIL, please report issues here first, then open corresponding Pillow tickets here.

Please provide a link to the first ticket so we can track the issue(s) upstream.

However, the most recent PIL release on the official PIL site is dated November 15, 2009. I think we can safely proclaim Pillow as the successor of PIL after (as of this writing) nearly eight years of no new releases. So even if you don't need Python 3 support, I suggest you eschew the ancient PIL 1.1.6 distribution available in PyPI and just install fresh, up-to-date, compatible Pillow.

score 9 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 24 '17 at 14:29

Install the Pillow library by following commands:

pip install pillow

Note, the selected answer has been outdated. See the docs of SciPy

Note that Pillow (https://python-pillow.org/) is not a dependency of SciPy, but the image manipulation functions indicated in the list below are not available without it.

score 4 · Answer 9 · edited Mar 25 '22 at 20:16

4

Imread uses PIL library, if the library is installed use :

from scipy.ndimage import imread

Source: http://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy-0.17.0/reference/generated/scipy.ndimage.imread.html

edited Mar 25 '22 at 20:16

desertnaut

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answered Mar 24 '16 at 04:05

Dhananjay Mehta

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this works for me ! though I don't understand why my professor use "from scipy.misc import imread" and it doesn't work on my laptop – ElleryL Jan 06 '17 at 22:14

score 3 · Answer 10 · edited Sep 18 '17 at 00:58

3

python -m pip install pillow

This worked for me.

edited Sep 18 '17 at 00:58

Pang

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answered Sep 17 '17 at 23:00

José Carlos Aquino

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score 1 · Answer 11 · edited Jun 11 '17 at 14:26

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You need a python image library (PIL), but now PIL only is not enough, you'd better install Pillow. This works well.

edited Jun 11 '17 at 14:26

Mottie

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answered Aug 06 '16 at 11:35

K.A.Pendragon

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There's a comment on the accepted answer already stating that `pillow` should be used instead of `PIL`. I don't think it's a bad idea to add it as an answer, but it would be by far more useful if you explained why. Thanks. – lrnzcig Aug 20 '16 at 14:36

Mike · Answer 12 · 2018-09-01T09:53:20.123

Running the following in a Jupyter Notebook, I had a similar error message:

from skimage import data
photo_data = misc.imread('C:/Users/ers.jpg')
type(photo_data)

'error' msg:

D:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Shared\Anaconda3_64\lib\site-packages\ipykernel_launcher.py:3: DeprecationWarning: imread is deprecated! imread is deprecated in SciPy 1.0.0, and will be removed in 1.2.0. Use imageio.imread instead. This is separate from the ipykernel package so we can avoid doing imports until

And using the following I got it solved:

import matplotlib.pyplot
photo_data = matplotlib.pyplot.imread('C:/Users/ers.jpg')
type(photo_data)

It doesn't related to the question. It is a different problem and answer. — Halis Yılboğa, Dec 20 '19 at 13:06

score 1 · Answer 13 · edited Mar 25 '19 at 13:46

1

I have all the packages required for the image extraction on jupyter notebook, but even then it shows me the same error.

Error on Jupyter Notebook

Reading the above comments, I have installed the required packages. Please do tell if I have missed some packages.

pip3 freeze | grep -i -E "pillow|scipy|scikit-image"
Pillow==5.4.1
scikit-image==0.14.2

scipy==1.2.1

edited Mar 25 '19 at 13:46

roschach

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answered Mar 25 '19 at 13:23

Raj

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score 1 · Answer 14 · answered May 17 '19 at 05:09

1

The solution that work for me in python 3.6 is the following

py -m pip install Pillow

answered May 17 '19 at 05:09

Jorge Santos Neill

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score 1 · Answer 15 · answered Sep 04 '20 at 23:11

1

The only way I could get the .png file I'm working with in as uint8 was with OpenCv.

cv2.imread(file) actually returned numpy.ndarray with dtype=uint8

answered Sep 04 '20 at 23:11

Lucas

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score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Aug 07 '21 at 20:24

You must first install the Python version compatible with scipy (<3.7). I could not use pip to install scipy version 1.0 [ I think this version is no longer supported on pip] and used conda instead:

conda install -c anaconda scipy==1.0

Then to use "imread" you need to install Pillow.

pip install pillow

score 0 · Answer 17 · answered Oct 04 '21 at 18:49

imread is deprecated in scipy.misc; use imageio.imread instead.

imageio provides the same functionality as Scipy. But keep in mind that some arguments need to be changed (for detailed information please check here):

Instead of mode, use the pilmode keyword argument.
Instead of flatten, use the as_gray keyword argument.

score 0 · Answer 18 · answered Jan 12 '22 at 21:18

0

One way is to use PIL like this:

    from PIL import Image
    input_image = Image.open(filename)

answered Jan 12 '22 at 21:18

Arash

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scipy.misc module has no attribute imread?

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