Question

I used nlfilter for a test function of mine as follows:

function funct
clear all;
clc;
I = rand(11,11);
ld = input('Enter the lag = ') % prompt for lag distance
A = nlfilter(I, [7 7], @dirvar);

% Subfunction
    function [h] = dirvar(I)
        c = (size(I)+1)/2
        EW = I(c(1),c(2):end)
        h = length(EW) - ld
    end
end

The function works fine but it is expected that nlfilter progresses element by element, but in first two iterations the values of EW will be same 0.2089 0.4162 0.9398 0.1058. But then onwards for all iterations the next element is selected, for 3rd it is 0.4162 0.9398 0.1058 0.1920, for 4th it is 0.9398 0.1058 0.1920 0.5201 and so on. Why is it so?

Answer 1

This is nothing to worry about. It happens because nlfilter needs to evaluate your function to know what kind of output to create. So it uses feval once before starting to move across the image. The output from this feval call is what you see the first time.

From the nlfilter code:

% Find out what output type to make.
rows = 0:(nhood(1)-1);
cols = 0:(nhood(2)-1);
b = mkconstarray(class(feval(fun,aa(1+rows,1+cols),params{:})), 0, size(a));

% Apply fun to each neighborhood of a
f = waitbar(0,'Applying neighborhood operation...');
for i=1:ma,
    for j=1:na,
        x = aa(i+rows,j+cols);
        b(i,j) = feval(fun,x,params{:});
    end
    waitbar(i/ma)
end

The 4th line call to eval is what you observe as the first output from EW, but it is not used to anything other than making the b matrix the right class. All the proper iterations happen in the for loop below. This means that the “duplicate” values you observe does not affect your final output matrix, and you need not worry.