I've found myself needing to do a least-squares (or similar matrix-based operation) for every pixel in an image. Every pixel has a set of numbers associated with it, and so it can be arranged as a 3D matrix.
(This next bit can be skipped)
Quick explanation of what I mean by least-squares estimation :
Let's say we have some quadratic system that is modeled by Y = Ax^2 + Bx + C and we're looking for those A,B,C coefficients. With a few samples (at least 3) of X and the corresponding Y, we can estimate them by:
X = [x(:).^2 x(:) ones(10,1)];Y = y(:);coeffs = (X'*X)^(-1)*X'*Y;Try this on your own if you want:
A = 5; B = 2; C = 1;
x = 1:10;
y = A*x(:).^2 + B*x(:) + C + .25*randn(10,1); % added some noise here
X = [x(:).^2 x(:) ones(10,1)];
Y = y(:);
coeffs = (X'*X)^-1*X'*Y
coeffs =
5.0040
1.9818
0.9241
START PAYING ATTENTION AGAIN IF I LOST YOU THERE
*MAJOR REWRITE*I've modified to bring it as close to the real problem that I have and still make it a minimum working example.
Problem Setup
%// Setup
xdim = 500;
ydim = 500;
ncoils = 8;
nshots = 4;
%// matrix size for each pixel is ncoils x nshots (an overdetermined system)
%// each pixel has a matrix stored in the 3rd and 4rth dimensions
regressor = randn(xdim,ydim, ncoils,nshots);
regressand = randn(xdim, ydim,ncoils);
So my problem is that I have to do a (X'*X)^-1*X'*Y (least-squares or similar) operation for every pixel in an image. While that itself is vectorized/matrixized the only way that I have to do it for every pixel is in a for loop, like:
Original code style
%// Actual work
tic
estimate = zeros(xdim,ydim);
for col=1:size(regressor,2)
for row=1:size(regressor,1)
X = squeeze(regressor(row,col,:,:));
Y = squeeze(regressand(row,col,:));
B = X\Y;
% B = (X'*X)^(-1)*X'*Y; %// equivalently
estimate(row,col) = B(1);
end
end
toc
Elapsed time = 27.6 seconds
EDITS in reponse to comments and other ideas
I tried some things:
1. Reshaped into a long vector and removed the double for loop. This saved some time.
2. Removed the squeeze (and in-line transposing) by permute-ing the picture before hand: This save alot more time.
Current example:
%// Actual work
tic
estimate2 = zeros(xdim*ydim,1);
regressor_mod = permute(regressor,[3 4 1 2]);
regressor_mod = reshape(regressor_mod,[ncoils,nshots,xdim*ydim]);
regressand_mod = permute(regressand,[3 1 2]);
regressand_mod = reshape(regressand_mod,[ncoils,xdim*ydim]);
for ind=1:size(regressor_mod,3) % for every pixel
X = regressor_mod(:,:,ind);
Y = regressand_mod(:,ind);
B = X\Y;
estimate2(ind) = B(1);
end
estimate2 = reshape(estimate2,[xdim,ydim]);
toc
Elapsed time = 2.30 seconds (avg of 10)
isequal(estimate2,estimate) == 1;
Rody Oldenhuis's way
N = xdim*ydim*ncoils; %// number of columns
M = xdim*ydim*nshots; %// number of rows
ii = repmat(reshape(1:N,[ncoils,xdim*ydim]),[nshots 1]); %//column indicies
jj = repmat(1:M,[ncoils 1]); %//row indicies
X = sparse(ii(:),jj(:),regressor_mod(:));
Y = regressand_mod(:);
B = X\Y;
B = reshape(B(1:nshots:end),[xdim ydim]);
Elapsed time = 2.26 seconds (avg of 10)
or 2.18 seconds (if you don't include the definition of N,M,ii,jj)
SO THE QUESTION IS:
Is there an (even) faster way?
(I don't think so.)
I sped up your original version, since your edit 3 was actually not working (and also does something different).
So, on my PC:
Your (original) version: 8.428473 seconds.
My obfuscated one-liner given below: 0.964589 seconds.
First, for no other reason than to impress, I'll give it as I wrote it:
%%// Some example data
xdim = 500;
ydim = 500;
n_timepoints = 10; % for example
estimate = zeros(xdim,ydim); %// initialization with explicit size
picture = randn(xdim,ydim,n_timepoints);
%%// Your original solution
%// (slightly altered to make my version's results agree with yours)
tic
Y = randn(n_timepoints,xdim*ydim);
ii = 1;
for x = 1:xdim
for y = 1:ydim
X = squeeze(picture(x,y,:)); %// or similar creation of X matrix
B = (X'*X)^(-1)*X' * Y(:,ii);
ii = ii+1;
%// sometimes you keep everything and do
%// estimate(x,y,:) = B(:);
%// sometimes just the first element is important and you do
estimate(x,y) = B(1);
end
end
toc
%%// My version
tic
%// UNLEASH THE FURY!!
estimate2 = reshape(sparse(1:xdim*ydim*n_timepoints, ...
builtin('_paren', ones(n_timepoints,1)*(1:xdim*ydim),:), ...
builtin('_paren', permute(picture, [3 2 1]),:))\Y(:), ydim,xdim).'; %'
toc
%%// Check for equality
max(abs(estimate(:)-estimate2(:))) % (always less than ~1e-14)
First, here's the version that you should actually use:
%// Construct sparse block-diagonal matrix
%// (Type "help sparse" for more information)
N = xdim*ydim; %// number of columns
M = N*n_timepoints; %// number of rows
ii = 1:N;
jj = ones(n_timepoints,1)*(1:N);
s = permute(picture, [3 2 1]);
X = sparse(ii,jj(:), s(:));
%// Compute ALL the estimates at once
estimates = X\Y(:);
%// You loop through the *second* dimension first, so to make everything
%// agree, we have to extract elements in the "wrong" order, and transpose:
estimate2 = reshape(estimates, ydim,xdim).'; %'
Here's an example of what picture and the corresponding matrix X looks like for xdim = ydim = n_timepoints = 2:
>> clc, picture, full(X)
picture(:,:,1) =
-0.5643 -2.0504
-0.1656 0.4497
picture(:,:,2) =
0.6397 0.7782
0.5830 -0.3138
ans =
-0.5643 0 0 0
0.6397 0 0 0
0 -2.0504 0 0
0 0.7782 0 0
0 0 -0.1656 0
0 0 0.5830 0
0 0 0 0.4497
0 0 0 -0.3138
You can see why sparse is necessary -- it's mostly zeros, but will grow large quickly. The full matrix would quickly consume all your RAM, while the sparse one will not consume much more than the original picture matrix does.
With this matrix X, the new problem
X·b = Y
now contains all the problems
X1 · b1 = Y1
X2 · b2 = Y2
...
where
b = [b1; b2; b3; ...]
Y = [Y1; Y2; Y3; ...]
so, the single command
X\Y
will solve all your systems at once.
This offloads all the hard work to a set of highly specialized, compiled to machine-specific code, optimized-in-every-way algorithms, rather than the interpreted, generic, always-two-steps-away from the hardware loops in MATLAB.
It should be straightforward to convert this to a version where X is a matrix; you'll end up with something like what blkdiag does, which can also be used by mldivide in exactly the same way as above.