Edit me

Inputs

inputs in windows explorer

Consider an example album with three images. Running the command from e.g. D:\Users\owen\Pictures\SomeAlbum:

$ anchor
Searching recursively for image files. CTRL+C cancels.
Learn how to select inputs, outputs and tasks with 'anchor -h'.

Found 3 inputs.
-> with uniform extension = jpg
-> file-sizes range across [1 MB to 7 MB] with an average of 4 MB.
-> D:\Users\owen\Pictures\SomeAlbum\alps-${0}.jpg
${0} = 3 unique integers between 13 and 91 inclusive

Anchor has found 3 images in this directory (searching recursively for known image types).

It also found a pattern among the paths, from which each input infers a name (78, 91 and 13), as seen with -t list:

$ anchor -t list
78       -> D:\Users\owen\Pictures\SomeAlbum\alps-78.jpg
91       -> D:\Users\owen\Pictures\SomeAlbum\alps-91.jpg
13       -> D:\Users\owen\Pictures\SomeAlbum\alps-13.jpg

Now let’s generate some more detailed summarization of the images (width, height, channels, bit depth etc.):

$ anchor -t summarize
Found 3 inputs.
-> with uniform extension = jpg
-> with diverse sizes: 5148x2992(1) 4846x3888(1) 5184x3888(1)
-> with uniform channel = 3
-> with uniform bit depth = 8
-> file-sizes range across [1 MB to 7 MB] with an average of 4 MB.
-> D:\Users\owen\Pictures\SomeAlbum\alps-${0}.jpg
${0} = 3 unique integers between 13 and 91 inclusive

Task

Then let’s generate histograms:

$ anchor -t histogram -o ..
Experiment histogram_14.09.48 started writing to D:\Users\owen\Pictures\histogram_14.09.48
Using 7 processors from: 8
Job    2:       start   [  0 compl,   3 exec,   0 rem of   3]           78
Job    1:       start   [  0 compl,   3 exec,   0 rem of   3]           13
Job    3:       start   [  0 compl,   3 exec,   0 rem of   3]           91
Job    2:       end     [  1 compl,   2 exec,   0 rem of   3]   (1s)    78
Job    3:       end     [  2 compl,   1 exec,   0 rem of   3]   (1s)    91
Job    1:       end     [  3 compl,   0 exec,   0 rem of   3]   (1s)    13
Writing 3 grouped histograms into D:\Users\owen\Pictures\histogram_14.09.48\grouped
All 3 jobs completed successfully. The average execution time was 1.689 ms.
Experiment histogram_01.05.25 completed (1s) writing to D:\Users\owen\Pictures\histogram_14.09.48

Note:

  • the start / end events for each input.
  • the name of the input is indicated on the right-hand side - and a job’s total execution time.
  • the output directory D:\Users\owen\Pictures\histogram_14.09.48 is printed twice.

The output directory was calculated relative to the current working directory with -o .. and from the task and time.

Outputs

outputs in windows explorer

Many files have been created in the output directory:

  • A histogram CSV for each channel of each image (13_red.csv, 13_green.csv, 13_blue.csv etc.).
  • A subdirectory grouped/ with aggregated histograms across all images.
  • experiment_log.txt recording the execution details (identical to the console output).
  • Only if an error occurs (which it didn’t!) then a job-specific log for 13_job_log.txt etc.

Next steps

Possibilities:

  • The CSV files can be opened and visualized in Excel, Python (pandas), R, Spotfire, Ron’s Editor, and similar.
  • The histograms can be attached to images (as multi-inputs) for subsequent tasks in Anchor.
  • Thresholds or color models can be calculated from the CSVs (e.g. using the grouped/ aggregates for robustness).