testbed/astropy__astropy/docs/modeling/bounding-boxes.rst

.. _bounding-boxes:

Efficient Model Rendering with Bounding Boxes
*********************************************

.. versionadded:: 1.1

All `Model <astropy.modeling.Model>` subclasses have a
`bounding_box <astropy.modeling.Model.bounding_box>` attribute that
can be used to set the limits over which the model is significant. This greatly
improves the efficiency of evaluation when the input range is much larger than
the characteristic width of the model itself. For example, to create a sky model
image from a large survey catalog, each source should only be evaluated over the
pixels to which it contributes a significant amount of flux. This task can
otherwise be computationally prohibitive on an average CPU.

The :func:`Model.render <astropy.modeling.Model.render>` method can be used to
evaluate a model on an output array, or input coordinate arrays, limiting the
evaluation to the `bounding_box <astropy.modeling.Model.bounding_box>` region if
it is set. This function will also produce postage stamp images of the model if
no other input array is passed. To instead extract postage stamps from the data
array itself, see :ref:`cutout_images`.

Using the Bounding Box
=======================

For basic usage, see `Model.bounding_box
<astropy.modeling.Model.bounding_box>`.  By default no
`~astropy.modeling.Model.bounding_box` is set, except on model subclasses where
a ``bounding_box`` property or method is explicitly defined. The default is then
the minimum rectangular region symmetric about the position that fully contains
the model. If the model does not have a finite extent, the containment criteria
are noted in the documentation. For example, see ``Gaussian2D.bounding_box``.

`Model.bounding_box <astropy.modeling.Model.bounding_box>` can be set by the
user to any callable. This is particularly useful for fitting models created
with `~astropy.modeling.custom_model` or as a compound model::

    >>> from astropy.modeling import custom_model
    >>> def ellipsoid(x, y, z, x0=0, y0=0, z0=0, a=2, b=3, c=4, amp=1):
    ...     rsq = ((x - x0) / a) ** 2 + ((y - y0) / b) ** 2 + ((z - z0) / c) ** 2
    ...     val = (rsq < 1) * amp
    ...     return val
    ...
    >>> class Ellipsoid3D(custom_model(ellipsoid)):
    ...     # A 3D ellipsoid model
    ...     @property
    ...     def bounding_box(self):
    ...         return ((self.z0 - self.c, self.z0 + self.c),
    ...                 (self.y0 - self.b, self.y0 + self.b),
    ...                 (self.x0 - self.a, self.x0 + self.a))
    ...
    >>> model = Ellipsoid3D()
    >>> model.bounding_box
    ((-4.0, 4.0), (-3.0, 3.0), (-2.0, 2.0))

.. warning::

    Currently when creating a new compound model by combining multiple
    models, the bounding boxes of the components (if any) are not currently
    combined.  So bounding boxes for compound models must be assigned
    explicitly.  A future release will determine the appropriate bounding box
    for a compound model where possible.

Efficient evaluation with `Model.render() <astropy.modeling.Model.render>`
==========================================================================

When a model is evaluated over a range much larger than the model itself, it
may be prudent to use the :func:`Model.render <astropy.modeling.Model.render>`
method if efficiency is a concern. The :func:`render
<astropy.modeling.Model.render>` method can be used to evaluate the model on an
array of the same dimensions.  ``model.render()`` can be called with no
arguments to return a "postage stamp" of the bounding box region.

In this example, we generate a 300x400 pixel image of 100 2D Gaussian sources.
For comparison, the models are evaluated both with and without using bounding
boxes. By using bounding boxes, the evaluation speed increases by approximately
a factor of 10 with negligible loss of information.

.. plot::
    :include-source:

    import numpy as np
    from time import time
    from astropy.modeling import models
    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
    from matplotlib.patches import Rectangle

    imshape = (300, 400)
    y, x = np.indices(imshape)

    # Generate random source model list
    np.random.seed(0)
    nsrc = 100
    model_params = [
        dict(amplitude=np.random.uniform(.5, 1),
             x_mean=np.random.uniform(0, imshape[1] - 1),
             y_mean=np.random.uniform(0, imshape[0] - 1),
             x_stddev=np.random.uniform(2, 6),
             y_stddev=np.random.uniform(2, 6),
             theta=np.random.uniform(0, 2 * np.pi))
        for _ in range(nsrc)]

    model_list = [models.Gaussian2D(**kwargs) for kwargs in model_params]

    # Render models to image using bounding boxes
    bb_image = np.zeros(imshape)
    t_bb = time()
    for model in model_list:
        model.render(bb_image)
    t_bb = time() - t_bb

    # Render models to image using full evaluation
    full_image = np.zeros(imshape)
    t_full = time()
    for model in model_list:
        model.bounding_box = None
        model.render(full_image)
    t_full = time() - t_full

    flux = full_image.sum()
    diff = (full_image - bb_image)
    max_err = diff.max()

    # Plots
    plt.figure(figsize=(16, 7))
    plt.subplots_adjust(left=.05, right=.97, bottom=.03, top=.97, wspace=0.15)

    # Full model image
    plt.subplot(121)
    plt.imshow(full_image, origin='lower')
    plt.title('Full Models\nTiming: {:.2f} seconds'.format(t_full), fontsize=16)
    plt.xlabel('x')
    plt.ylabel('y')

    # Bounded model image with boxes overplotted
    ax = plt.subplot(122)
    plt.imshow(bb_image, origin='lower')
    for model in model_list:
        del model.bounding_box  # Reset bounding_box to its default
        dy, dx = np.diff(model.bounding_box).flatten()
        pos = (model.x_mean.value - dx / 2, model.y_mean.value - dy / 2)
        r = Rectangle(pos, dx, dy, edgecolor='w', facecolor='none', alpha=.25)
        ax.add_patch(r)
    plt.title('Bounded Models\nTiming: {:.2f} seconds'.format(t_bb), fontsize=16)
    plt.xlabel('x')
    plt.ylabel('y')

    # Difference image
    plt.figure(figsize=(16, 8))
    plt.subplot(111)
    plt.imshow(diff, vmin=-max_err, vmax=max_err)
    plt.colorbar(format='%.1e')
    plt.title('Difference Image\nTotal Flux Err = {:.0e}'.format(
        ((flux - np.sum(bb_image)) / flux)))
    plt.xlabel('x')
    plt.ylabel('y')
    plt.show()