patchIT: A Multipurpose Patch Creation Tool for Image Processing Applications

Patch-based approaches in image processing are often preferable to working with the entire image. They provide an alternative representation of the image as a set of partial local sub-images (patches) which is a vital preprocessing step in many image processing applications. In this paper, a new software tool called patchIT is presented, providing an integrated framework suitable for the systematic and automatized extraction of patches from images based on user-defined geometrical and spatial criteria. Patches can be extracted in both a sliding and random manner and can be exported either as images, MATLAB .mat files, or raw text files. The proposed tool offers further functionality, including masking operations that act as spatial filters, identifying candidate patch areas, as well as geometric transformations by applying patch value indexing. It also efficiently handles issues that arise in large-scale patch processing scenarios in terms of memory and time requirements. In addition, a use case in cartographic research is presented that utilizes patchIT for map evaluation purposes based on a visual heterogeneity indicator. The tool supports all common image file formats and efficiently processes bitonal, grayscale, color, and multispectral images. PatchIT is freely available to the scientific community under the third version of GNU General Public License (GPL v3) on the GitHub platform.