Python – Pillow ImageShow.show() isn't displaying images (Raspbian)

Question

All I’m trying to do is display an image using Pillow on Raspberry Pi 3

First tried using this code:

from PIL import Image 
from PIL import ImageShow

imageA = Image.open('Moth.png')
ImageShow.show(imageA)
print("Done")

It didn’t work, no error code, no nothing, it just skipped the code entirely

I digged a bit around and found out that maybe there could be an issue with the image displayer, so I tried adding it in like this:

from PIL import Image 
from PIL import ImageShow

imageA = Image.open('Moth.png')
ImageShow.show(imageA,title=None,command='GPicView')
print("Done")

It didn’t work either, I also tried installing fim and using

ImageShow.show(imageA,title=None,command='fim')

like one of the answers on this site suggested, but that didn’t work either

I made sure that fim has been installed correctly, so there must be something wrong with the code, but I can’t understand what, maybe I didn’t import ImageShow the right way?

I also tried using

imageA.show(command='fim')

But it yields the same results

I’m new to coding with Python (and in general), so maybe I’m just doing something stupid without realizing it

Asked By: Dubious Shrub

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Source

Answer 1

Updated Answer

I think newer versions of PIL/Pillow use the xdg-open command to display images. Internally, PIL/Pillow saves your in-memory image as a PNG file on disk and calls the OS’s viewer to view that on-disk PNG. So, I presume there must be a way to set the default viewer for MIME-type "image/png" to be the viewer of your choice, but as a Mac user, I am unsure how you would do that – I guess it is possible with the xdg-mime command.

Original Answer

I think PIL/Pillow works something like this when displaying on Unix/Linux systems:

it expects and hopes to find display which is part of ImageMagick
it will use eog "Eye of Gnome" if it finds it
it will fall back to xv

So, there are a number of possibilities depending on your skill-set, patience, disk-space, desire to use a specific viewer. I don’t know those parameters, so here are some possibilities:

Option: Install ImageMagick with:

sudo apt install imagemagick

Option: Install eog with:

sudo apt install eog

Option: Install xv – I don’t have the exact command to hand

Option: Install feh or some other viewer and symlink it to display so PIL/Pillow thinks it is using ImageMagick display

sudo apt install feh
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/feh /usr/bin/display

Another option might be to create a custom viewer as a derived class from PIL’s UnixViewer that places itself at the top of the list of viewers so it is used first.

So, create a file called "CustomViewer.py" that looks like this – mine uses the feh viewer but you can use any application you like:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import shutil
import sys

from PIL import Image, ImageShow

class CustomViewer(ImageShow.UnixViewer):
   format = "PNG"
   options = {"compress_level": 1}

   def get_command_ex(self, file, **options):
      command = executable = "feh"
      return command, executable

if shutil.which("feh"):
   print(f'Registering custom viewer for PIL')
   ImageShow.register(CustomViewer, order=-1) # Insert as primary viewer

Then, in your regular Python code where you want to use your custom viewer, just add:

import CustomViewer

and it will output a message saying it is loaded and any subsequent calls to show() will use your custom viewer.

Answered By: Mark Setchell

Python – Pillow ImageShow.show() isn't displaying images (Raspbian)

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