polars-cv 0.4.0

A Polars plugin for vision/array operations

polars-cv

ℹ️ Note: This is a largely AI developed project and still in its early stages. Use at your own discretion.

A Polars plugin for vision/array operations, powered by view-buffer.

Features

• Lazy Pipeline Definition: Define image processing pipelines outside DataFrame context
• Expression Arguments: Use Polars expressions for dynamic, per-row parameters
• Zero-Copy Where Possible: Leverages view-buffer's stride-aware operations
• Multiple Source/Sink Formats: PNG, JPEG, NumPy, PyTorch, and more

Installation

# From source (requires Rust toolchain)
cd polars-cv
maturin develop --release

# Or with pip (once published)
pip install polars-cv

ℹ️ Note:
Polars typically operates on relatively small row sizes, which may require changing the POLARS_IDEAL_MORSEL_SIZE environment variable to a smaller value, to avoid memory allocation issues.
You can set it like this before importing polars:

import os
os.environ["POLARS_IDEAL_MORSEL_SIZE"] = "10"

Quick Start

import polars as pl
from polars_cv import Pipeline

# Define a static pipeline
pipe = (
    Pipeline()
    .source("image_bytes")
    .resize(height=224, width=224)
    .grayscale()
    .normalize(method="minmax")
    .sink("numpy")
)

# Apply to DataFrame
df = pl.DataFrame({"images": [img1_bytes, img2_bytes]})
result = df.with_columns(processed=pl.col("images").cv.pipeline(pipe))

Dynamic Pipelines

Use Polars expressions for per-row parameter values:

# Dynamic pipeline with expression arguments
pipe = (
    Pipeline()
    .source("image_bytes")
    .resize(height=pl.col("target_h"), width=pl.col("target_w"))
    .crop(top=pl.col("crop_y"), left=pl.col("crop_x"), height=100, width=100)
    .sink("numpy")
)

df = pl.DataFrame({
    "images": [img1_bytes, img2_bytes],
    "target_h": [224, 256],
    "target_w": [224, 256],
    "crop_x": [10, 20],
    "crop_y": [5, 15],
})

result = df.with_columns(processed=pl.col("images").cv.pipeline(pipe))

Pipeline Operations

Source Formats

Format	Description
image_bytes	Decode PNG/JPEG/WebP (auto-detect)
blob	VIEW protocol binary
raw	Raw bytes (requires dtype)
file_path	Read from file path

Operations

View Operations (Zero-Copy)

• transpose(axes) - Permute dimensions
• reshape(shape) - Reshape array
• flip(axes) / flip_h() / flip_v() - Flip along axes
• crop(top, left, height, width) - Crop region

Compute Operations

• cast(dtype) - Change data type
• scale(factor) - Multiply by factor
• normalize(method) - MinMax or ZScore normalization
• clamp(min, max) - Clamp to range

Image Operations

• resize(height, width, filter) - Resize image
• grayscale() - Convert to grayscale
• threshold(value) - Binary threshold
• blur(sigma) - Gaussian blur

Sink Formats

Format	Description
numpy	NumPy-compatible bytes
torch	PyTorch-compatible bytes
png	Re-encode as PNG
jpeg	Re-encode as JPEG (with quality)
blob	VIEW protocol (for chaining)
array	Polars Array type (fixed shape)
list	Polars nested List (variable shape)

Shape Hints

Provide shape information to help pipeline planning:

pipe = (
    Pipeline()
    .source("image_bytes")
    .assert_shape(height=256, width=256, channels=3)
    .resize(height=224, width=224)
    .sink("numpy")
)

Working with List Columns

For batch processing (list of images per row):

batch_df = pl.DataFrame({
    "image_batches": [[img1, img2], [img3, img4, img5]],
})

result = batch_df.with_columns(
    pl.col("image_batches").list.eval(
        pl.element().cv.pipeline(pipe)
    )
)