Storing matlab array in MySQL. Again - mysql

Question

I have a 3D array in Matlab of uint16(basically it is just an image 1080x1920x3). I want to store it in mysql. Here is what I'm doing:
MySQL:
create table imgtest(img longblob);
Matlab:
% image_data - is my image as described before
raw_im = reshape(image_data,1,[]);
conn = database('test','root','root','Vendor','MySQL','Server','localhost')
x = conn.Handle;
insertcommand = ['INSERT INTO imtest (img) values (?)'];
StatementObject = x.prepareStatement(insertcommand);
StatementObject.setObject(1,raw_im)
StatementObject.execute
The problem is that I'm writing about 600k uint16 values into this blob field. But when I take this field from the DB, I always getting about 1.2 million of uint8 elements(exactly two times more).
So, is there a way to read this byte field as a set of uint16, but not uint8?
Thank you.

Answer 1

I have been doing something similar for one of my projects
basically there was one difference but maybe it would clarify something to you.
I was loading image directly to DB from file with command:
INSERT INTO BaseImage(Image)
SELECT * FROM OPENROWSET(BULK N'C:\co.jpg', SINGLE_BLOB) as image
and getting it back to Matlab required typecasting (just like #sebastian mentioned)
SQL_query = 'select TOP 1 pk_BaseImage,Image from BaseImage order by pk_BaseImage desc';
[data] = SQL_query_exec(SQL_query);
pk_BaseImage = data.Data.pk_BaseImage;
out = typecast(data.Data.Image{1,1},'uint8');
BUT..
it was not enough, I had to do some trick to use 'out' as image
I was forced to write it to temporary file and read it again to Matlab (I know it's strange but it worked very well and I could for example calculate DWT, DFT and so on)
image_matrix = get_image_matrix( out );
get_image_matrix function looks like:
function [ out ] = get_image_matrix( input )
targetfilename = 'temp.jpg';
%wynik
fid = fopen(targetfilename,'w');
if fid
fwrite(fid,input,'uint8');
end
fclose(fid);
out = imread(targetfilename);
delete(targetfilename);
end
I hope it will help you :)
One important notice - I used gray-scale images (uint8 type)

Answer 2

You can most probably typecast the uint8's into uint16's to get back at your original image data:
uint16_result = typecast(uint8_result, 'uint16');
I'm not familiar with the database toolbox - so there might well be a way to tell Matlab to do this on its own.

Answer 3

OK, thank you both. I've summarized your answers and this what I've got:
Since blob field is nothing more than byte array, then we should cast our data in matlab before writing it to the DB. After reading it from DB, we should cast them back.
Minimum working example is:
MySQL
create table imgtest(img longblob);
Matlab
% image_data - is my image as described before
raw_im = typecast(reshape(image_data,1,[]),'uint8'); %! the main string
conn = database('test','root','root','Vendor','MySQL','Server','localhost')
x = conn.Handle;
insertcommand = ['INSERT INTO imtest (img) values (?)'];
StatementObject = x.prepareStatement(insertcommand);
StatementObject.setObject(1,raw_im)
StatementObject.execute
After we can read it back:
res = exec(conn,'Select * from imtest')
array_uint8 = fetch(res);
array_uint8 = array_uint8{1};
array_uint16 = typecast(array_uint8,'uint16').
Hope this will help someone.