tf_census_transform — 2D texture op

Data kinds: imageimage

Call: fullseye.apply(img, "tf_census_transform", a=0.5, b=0.5) (the 2-D model is one image plus two scalar knobs a,b∈[0,1])

tf_census_transform: input → output

*The figure is the actual output on a synthetic 128×128 input. Left: input, right: output. Point clouds are drawn as a top-down scatter (brightness = z), 1-D series as a line plot, volumes as the maximum-intensity projection along z, videos as the middle frame, complex images as magnitude; return values that are not pictures are shown as the values themselves.*

Sweeping knob a (0.1 / 0.5 / 0.9, the other knob at its default):

tf_census_transform: knob a sweep (docs site)

*Knob b does not change the output (measured: identical at 0.1 / 0.5 / 0.9).*

On other images (synthetic scene / photo / coins. Top row: inputs, bottom row: their outputs. Knobs at default):

tf_census_transform: other inputs (docs site)

*The 4th column is a colour (H,W,3) input. This op handles colour without crossing channels (it does not convolve the colour channel as a third spatial axis).*

Usage

census_transform: the 3x3 non-parametric census bit-signature image.

For every pixel each of its 8 neighbours contributes one bit, set when the

centre exceeds the neighbour by more than a *relative* tolerance

`a * |centre| (a defaults the tolerance; b` unused). The 8 bits form

a value 0..255 rendered as [0,1]. Because the tolerance is relative and the

comparison is on ordering only, the signature is invariant to a global gain

(multiplying the image by any positive constant leaves every bit unchanged) --

the robustness-to-gain property that makes census matching useful for stereo.

Uses the raw (non-luma-collapsed) reflected border.

Border handling: mirror without repeating the edge pixel (d c b | a b c d — OpenCV's `BORDER_REFLECT_101) (measured; tools/impl2/border_probe.py`).

Blank frame (measured): feeding an image of uniform brightness gives an empty result — every pixel is background (0) — regardless of the brightness. Pure white and pure black behave alike; brightness by itself detects nothing.

Detailed usage guide

gallery2d_texture_freq family guide

References (sample data, literature)

• Sample-data catalog (download URLs / licences) — 2-D uses skimage.data (BSD/public domain) plus synthetic images; 3-D lists download URLs for real data sources (Stanford, PDS, …).

• Operator provenance and references — the sources of the research/methods this op family came from.

• The canonical algorithm (author, year) and its uses are named in the family usage guide above.

Try it in Studio

The program below has been verified to run (same input as the figure). In Studio's help this block becomes buttons that load and run it on the spot.

tf_census_transform 0.50 0.50

▸ Load this pipeline  ·  Load & run

Runnable examples (verified samples that actually call this op)

gallery2d_texture_freqpy -3.11 examples/gallery2d_texture_freq.py

Ops the type connects to (they accept image as input)

identity · gaussian · mean_box · bilateral · unsharp · median · min_filter · max_filter

Same category (texture)

std_filter · local_bimodality · local_std · scale_select_std · bootstrap_std_error · structure_tensor_orientation · structure_tensor_coherence · gabor


*Provenance: ops.py — 2D operator registry. This per-op note is generated by tools/opdocs.py md (do not hand-edit).*

© 2026 Kazufumi Furuse — Fullseye operator documentation. Licensed under Apache-2.0.