"imshow" distorts jpeg

I am using the following code to display an image on an axis in a Matlab GUI.

axes(handles.axis1);
imshow('my_image.jpg');

This is distorting my image. (There is text on the image which becomes difficult to read). However it seems that Matlab is trying to keep the dimension ratio, because stretching the axis in one direction does not change the output of imshow at all.

I have tried using XData and YData to manually resize the jpeg, with limited success. If I open the jpeg directly, it looks perfect, so it must be something Matlab is doing.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I don't really have a firm grasp on what Matlab is doing when I call the imshow function, so please point out of I'm completely off-base. Thanks.

-Matt

[Walter Roberson]

Are you being given a warning about the image being too large to view?

[Matt]

Thanks for the reply. There is no warning.

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

It "shrinks to fit" the image into your axes. This means that it might subsample your image and lose some pixels, causing it to look bad. Try using a bigger axes, or maybe you can play around with the 'InitialMagnification' option for imshow(), or try using zoom().

Answer 2

[Jurgen]

Are you displaying at the proper size? fine detail can be lost (aliasing) if your display size is too small, try maximizing it with e.g.:

figure;imshow('my_image.jpg')

[Matt]

I tried this but it created a new figure. I want the image to appear in an axis that is on my GUI. Although, the image displayed in the new figure window did NOT seem to be distorted, so perhaps you're on to something.

[Jurgen]

Yes obviously the new figure was because I thought your axis was too small. Just a test, guess it was right.

Answer 3

[vcmorini]

This link might be usefull: Resolving Low-Level Graphics Issues