Here’s a breakdown of how images are used in Databricks, along with explanations of key concepts:

Representing Images in Databricks

• Raw Bytes: Databricks typically work with images as raw bytes loaded into a Spark DataFrame. This provides flexibility for different image processing tasks.
  • Image Data Source: The image data source offers a convenient way to load image data, handling various formats. It creates a DataFrame with a struct-type column containing the origin: The path to the image file.
  • Height: Image height in pixels.
  • Width: Image width in pixels.
  • nChannels: Number of color channels (e.g., 3 for RGB).
  • Mode: Encoding the image data (e.g., OpenCV’s BGR).
  • Data: The image data itself is binary.

Example with Code (Python):

Python

df = spark. Read.format(“image”).load(“path/to/images”)

df.show()

Displaying Images

The display function in Databricks notebooks can directly render images:

Python

# Assuming you have a DataFrame ‘df’ containing image data as described above

display(df) 

Typical Image Use Cases on Databricks

• • Computer Vision: Object detection
  • Image classification
  • Facial recognition
  • Medical Imaging: Analysis of X-ray, MRI, or CT scans
  • Satellite Image Analysis: Land use classification
  • Change detection
  • Image ETL: Transforming and preparing images for modeling (using Auto Loader for efficiency)

Libraries and Tools

• OpenCV: Popular image processing library, often used alongside Databricks.
• Pillow (PIL): Another familiar image-processing library in Python.
• Deep Learning Frameworks: TensorFlow, PyTorch, etc., for image-based deep learning tasks.

Databricks Container Services

If you need to customize the libraries and packages used with images and Databricks, consider Container Services:

1. Base Images:  Choose a base image from Databricks (e.g., databricksruntime/standard, databricksruntime/minimal) or build your own.
2. Customization:  Include any necessary image processing libraries or deep learning frameworks in your custom container image.