python - Get Image size WITHOUT loading image into memory

Question

I understand that you can get the image size using PIL in the following fashion

from PIL import Image
im = Image.open(image_filename)
width, height = im.size

However, I would like to get the image width and height without having to load the image in memory. Is that possible? I am only doing statistics on image sizes and dont care for the image contents. I just want to make my processing faster.

Answer 1

If you don't care about the image contents, PIL is probably an overkill.

I suggest parsing the output of the python magic module:

>>> t = magic.from_file('teste.png')
>>> t
'PNG image data, 782 x 602, 8-bit/color RGBA, non-interlaced'
>>> re.search('(d+) x (d+)', t).groups()
('782', '602')

This is a wrapper around libmagic which read as few bytes as possible in order to identify a file type signature.

Relevant version of script:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/scardine/image_size/master/get_image_size.py

[update]

Hmmm, unfortunately, when applied to jpegs, the above gives "'JPEG image data, EXIF standard 2.21'". No image size! – Alex Flint

Seems like jpegs are magic-resistant. :-)

I can see why: in order to get the image dimensions for JPEG files, you may have to read more bytes than libmagic likes to read.

Rolled up my sleeves and came with this very untested snippet (get it from GitHub) that requires no third-party modules.

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Name:        get_image_size
# Purpose:     extract image dimensions given a file path using just
#              core modules
#
# Author:      Paulo Scardine (based on code from Emmanuel VA?SSE)
#
# Created:     26/09/2013
# Copyright:   (c) Paulo Scardine 2013
# Licence:     MIT
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#!/usr/bin/env python
import os
import struct

class UnknownImageFormat(Exception):
    pass

def get_image_size(file_path):
    """
    Return (width, height) for a given img file content - no external
    dependencies except the os and struct modules from core
    """
    size = os.path.getsize(file_path)

    with open(file_path) as input:
        height = -1
        width = -1
        data = input.read(25)

        if (size >= 10) and data[:6] in ('GIF87a', 'GIF89a'):
            # GIFs
            w, h = struct.unpack("<HH", data[6:10])
            width = int(w)
            height = int(h)
        elif ((size >= 24) and data.startswith('211PNG
32
')
              and (data[12:16] == 'IHDR')):
            # PNGs
            w, h = struct.unpack(">LL", data[16:24])
            width = int(w)
            height = int(h)
        elif (size >= 16) and data.startswith('211PNG
32
'):
            # older PNGs?
            w, h = struct.unpack(">LL", data[8:16])
            width = int(w)
            height = int(h)
        elif (size >= 2) and data.startswith('377330'):
            # JPEG
            msg = " raised while trying to decode as JPEG."
            input.seek(0)
            input.read(2)
            b = input.read(1)
            try:
                while (b and ord(b) != 0xDA):
                    while (ord(b) != 0xFF): b = input.read(1)
                    while (ord(b) == 0xFF): b = input.read(1)
                    if (ord(b) >= 0xC0 and ord(b) <= 0xC3):
                        input.read(3)
                        h, w = struct.unpack(">HH", input.read(4))
                        break
                    else:
                        input.read(int(struct.unpack(">H", input.read(2))[0])-2)
                    b = input.read(1)
                width = int(w)
                height = int(h)
            except struct.error:
                raise UnknownImageFormat("StructError" + msg)
            except ValueError:
                raise UnknownImageFormat("ValueError" + msg)
            except Exception as e:
                raise UnknownImageFormat(e.__class__.__name__ + msg)
        else:
            raise UnknownImageFormat(
                "Sorry, don't know how to get information from this file."
            )

    return width, height

[update 2019]

Check out a Rust implementation: https://github.com/scardine/imsz