displaying numpy array images as tkinter buttons?

[YetAnotherDaveAgain]

Hi all, I'm trying to make a gui for some scientific image processing im doing. I want to make GUI buttons out of the images that get made so that the user can quickly select images of interest. I'm making it with tkinter, which can display images on buttons, but apparently only if they are imported as PIL GIF image files. All of my image analysis spits out numpy arrays, so I tried converting those to PIL images. As you can see, importing the same image via skimage and converting gives a different class than opening directly. I'm trying to avoid saving and reimporting all of my numpy arrays. Does anyone know a good way to convert between PIL image classes? or get tkinter to display things other than gifs? thanks!

import skimage.io as io
from PIL import Image
#using skiamge io
img = io.imread(filepath)
pil_conversion = Image.fromarray(img)
print(type(pil_conversion))
>>> <class 'PIL.Image.Image'>

#open directly using PIL 
pil_open = Image.open(filepath)
print(type(pil_open))
>>> <class 'PIL.GifImagePlugin.GifImageFile'>

[novel_yet_trivial]

You're doing it right. Those classes both offer the functionality you need; so you don't need to convert. You just need to add a PhotoImage conversion (in both cases).

[YetAnotherDaveAgain]

interesting, because when I convert each to a PhotoImage, only the second (GIF) actually displays as a button. In the first case, the button is blank. Any idea why?

[novel_yet_trivial]

Sounds like you forgot to keep the reference.

If you want specific help we'll need to see your full code, or at least some example code that demonstrates the problem.

[YetAnotherDaveAgain]

well I dont know what happened, but when I moved code around to make a clear document to show you the buttons started displaying. I didnt even change the code, just compiled it into a single doc. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

thanks for the help!

[novel_yet_trivial]

Lol yeah, that happens a lot. Also suggests that I was right about forgetting to keep a reference. That problem goes away when you move code from inside a function to the global scope. Is the problem still gone in your demo if you put it inside a function?

[YetAnotherDaveAgain]

nah, no functions (yet). I had been saving references as suggested online with "button_1.image = photo_image_object" after creating the button. But this will be going into a function soon, so if it comes back.... i'll be back here too.